With a reduced warranty and only a tiny speed boost, the 860 Pro is massively overpriced

Improved power consumption; Huge endurance improvements; Very slightly faster than the 860 Evo

Warranty has been halved to five years; Seriously expensive

I mainly purchased the Samsung 860 PRO as I understand it is more resilient to heavy use - as far as extra speed goes I cannot see any difference between my old SSD, that is until I activate the Rapid mode in the software (Samsung Magician) when a slight increase in performance is noticeable - at...

A tiny bit slower than the smaller 256GB Samsung Pro drive I replaced, however, not so slow it will be noticed other than in a benchmark. It is also a little slower than my Samsung 1TB EVO, however, with large files the EVO slows down a great deal after the buffer is full; the Pro does not suffer...

But the SSD 860 Pro is expensive, and its excellent performance isn't meaningfully better than other flagship-grade SATA drives that cost less. These include the Crucial MX500 (currently $200 for 1TB) or the WD Blue ($249 for 1TB).

Five-year warranty; Excellent reliability; Available in five capacities, up to 4TB

High cost per gigabyte

For several years Samsung has priced the Pro series out of reach for mainstream users and enthusiasts alike. The NAND shortage prevented MLC SSDs from receiving the same price cuts as the TLC models, so the pricing gap only grew as the shortage progressed.

Highest SATA performance for sustained workloads; Highest endurance; Consistent performance; Excellent software package

Extremely high cost

Samsung's Pro range of SSDs have always had a hard time in the face of their cheaper Evo counterparts. On the face of it, they're meant to be faster and longer-lasting – the very best gaming SSD , so to speak – but when the Samsung 850 Evo and 960 Evo proved to be pretty much just as quick as their...

* 860 EVO is also available in M.2 SATA 250GB-2TB and mSATA 250GB-1TB for the same prices stated above. Endurance ratings are significantly higher than all current competing SATA products, coming in ~3x the MX500 rating (MX500 being an SSD that already showed excellent endurance).

Samsung's 860 Pro didn't turn in a groundbreaking performance, but we're long past the time that any SATA drive can do so. With one or two minor exceptions, the 860 Pro lived up to the legacy of its predecessors.

The Samsung 860 PRO sets a new bar in end-user performance for SATA SSDs by providing prosumers and professionals with the power they need to handle resource-intensive use cases with an industry-leading capacity.

Between the small speed increases and big internal upgrades, the Samsung 860 Pro is a worthy successor to the world's best SATA SSD. But it's ultimately an iteration most users can skip.

Slightly faster speeds; New 4TB capacity model; Improved security and reliability

SATA III limits maximum write and read speeds