Western Digital has quickly risen to being a top-tier participant available in the market, and that is no extra evident than with their latest high-end SSD, the WD Black SN850.
Less than a yr after buying SanDisk, Western Digital started making use of its performance-oriented WD Black branding to SSDs, beginning with its first shopper NVMe drive. WD/SanDisk was late getting into the buyer NVMe SSD market and its first product was not high-end by the requirements of the time. With the second try, they acquired critical and designed their very own NVMe SSD controllers, following the identical technique of vertical integration that has labored so properly for market chief Samsung. The in-house controller had not one of the bugs or efficiency issues which have plagued the first-generation controllers from most corporations. That second-generation WD Black (internally designated SN700) instantly made Western Digital a serious participant on this market phase, however did not fairly put them on the prime: it competed in opposition to the Samsung 960 EVO fairly than the 960 PRO.
Now after studying some very priceless classes from the SN700 and its minor refresh SN750, WD is again with the WD Black SN850, the primary actual {hardware} improve to the Black product line in over two years. Introduced final fall as a part of the casual second wave of shopper PCIe 4.zero SSDs, the WD Black SN850 is aimed on the true prime of the market, and is designed to compete in opposition to the Samsung 980 PRO and a large number of newer arrivals principally based mostly across the Phison E18 SSD controller.
| WD Black SN850 Specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 500 GB | 1 TB (Reviewed) |
2 TB | ||
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 Single-sided (Optional heatsink) |
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| Interface | NVMe PCIe 4.zero x4 | ||||
| Controller | WD/SanDisk NVMe G2 | ||||
| NAND Flash | Western Digital/SanDisk 96L 3D TLC | ||||
| Sequential Read | 7000 MB/s | ||||
| Sequential Write | 4100 MB/s | 5300 MB/s | 5100 MB/s | ||
| Random Read | 800ok IOPS | 1M IOPS | 1M IOPS | ||
| Random Write | 570ok IOPS | 720ok IOPS | 710ok IOPS | ||
| Warranty | 5 years | ||||
| Write Endurance | 300 TB | 600 TB | 1200 TB | ||
| MSRP | $119.99 | $199.99 | $379.99 | ||
| (with heatsink+RGB) | $169.99 | $249.99 | $469.99 | ||
Western Digital does not give us detailed efficiency specs the best way Samsung does, however the primary specs make it clear that this drive is aimed on the very prime: sequential reads as much as 7GB/s are pushing the boundaries of the PCIe 4.zero x4 interface that’s nonetheless catching on within the shopper market, and random reads at 1M IOPS from a single M.2 drive have been only a dream a yr in the past. Overall, these peak efficiency specs line up fairly properly with the Samsung 980 PRO: Samsung quotes greater random write efficiency, and WD quotes barely sooner sequential writes.
To attain this stage of efficiency, Western Digital has launched the second era of their in-house NVMe SSD controller design. We haven’t got particulars of how this controller differs from their first-generation design, nevertheless it’s a secure wager that just about each a part of the chip was considerably upgraded. Compared to the previous WD Black SN750, the SN850 additionally advantages from an improve to the NAND flash reminiscence, from 64-layer to 96-layer TLC. Western Digital’s consumer OEM SSD product line had already adopted the 96L TLC with the PC SN730, however their retail shopper Gen three drives did not get an identical refresh.
Our evaluation pattern is the 1TB WD Black SN850, the capability with the very best efficiency specs. Western Digital sells the SN850 as both a typical M.2 SSD, or as an M.2 SSD with a heatsink and RGB lighting; we’re testing the cheaper plain model. The stylized heatsink and RGB lighting provides quite a bit to the worth tag, and we discovered that each the sooner WD Black SN750 and the competing Samsung 980 PRO carry out fantastic with out further cooling, so we anticipate the…
