WD Black SN850 1 TB SSD

[Caring1]

3 times the Price of tlc

And Tender Loving Care is priceless.

 

[b1k3rdude]

How exactly is the SN850 the fastest drive like?

Where are the Crystaldiskmark results? Where are the 4kQD1 read/write results that show MB/s not IOPS, where are the full/max sequential read/write results?

All this review does for me is confirm the 970 EVO is still faster than most drives, including the PCIe 4.0 980 pro in most scenarios.

 

[W1zzard]

Where are the 4kQD1 read/write results that show MB/s not IOPS, where are the full/max sequential read/write results?

You can convert straight from MB/s to IOPS and vice versa, it's just one multiplication.

Full max results are listed in the chart on the synthetic testing page, look at whatever QD you fancy. They are completely useless numbers that are used for marketing only, real-life never runs at those QDs

I'm going far beyond what any reviewer does to give you real-life numbers and you ask for CDM that every noob can run, gz

 

[monkeyboy46800]

You can convert straight from MB/s to IOPS and vice versa, it's just one multiplication.

Full max results are listed in the chart on the synthetic testing page, look at whatever QD you fancy. They are completely useless numbers that are used for marketing only, real-life never runs at those QDs

W1zzard , which firmware did you use on the drive when testing ?​

EDIT - you used the latest as mentioned on first page.

 

[W1zzard]

W1zzard , which firmware did you use on the drive when testing ?​

Listed in the table 1 on page 1, 611110WD, the latest as of last week

 

[monkeyboy46800]

Listed in the table 1 on page 1, 611110WD, the latest as of last week

One thing you didn't mention in the review is dual firmware slots, good in case of bad firmware upgrade I presume ? But how can we flip from firmware slot 1 to 2 ? Maybe something to ask WD?

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0
Serial Number:                 
Firmware Version:                   611110WD
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x15b7
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x001b44
Total NVM Capacity:                 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity:           0
Controller ID:                      8224
Number of Namespaces:               1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity:          1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size:     4096
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64:            001b44 8b49d849b0
Local Time is:                      Sun Feb 14 00:17:50 2021 CST
Firmware Updates (0x14):            2 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0017):   Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test
Optional NVM Commands (0x005f):     Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat Timestmp
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         128 Pages
Warning  Comp. Temp. Threshold:     84 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold:     88 Celsius
Namespace 1 Features (0x02):        NA_Fields

 

[W1zzard]

One thing you didn't mention in the review is dual firmware slots, good in case of bad flash I presume ? But how can we flip from firmware slot 1 to 2 ?

Great question, no idea.

Since the only way to update firmware is through WD's own tools, which come with warranty, I'm not sure if there's any use for such a feature

 

[omerfak]

I'm considering buying a new 1 TB NVMe SSD and the SN850 looks impressive.

But looking at these prices, it just doesn't make sense to me to buy one.

 

[W1zzard]

But looking at these prices, it just doesn't make sense to me to buy one.

Agreed, especially if price/performance is important to you

 

[Anymal]

As always, 100% the price, 5% real life application boost.

 

[voltage]

impressive.

 

[Nater]

Still feeling good about my SX8200 Pro 2 TB purchase. Until I start moving 100GB's a day around, I have no use for that price premium.

 

[ThrashZone]

You can convert straight from MB/s to IOPS and vice versa, it's just one multiplication.

Full max results are listed in the chart on the synthetic testing page, look at whatever QD you fancy. They are completely useless numbers that are used for marketing only, real-life never runs at those QDs

I'm going far beyond what any reviewer does to give you real-life numbers and you ask for CDM that every noob can run, gz

Hi,
Yeah thanks for not using as ssd either lol

 

[DAWMan]

So glad I don’t need the fastest or PCI 4.0.
PCI 3.0 works great for my real time needs and are much cheaper now.
Thanks PCI 4.0.
Thanks AMD.

 

[havox]

Isn't Intel 905p Optane the fastest SSD in just about any real-life home scenario? Too bad Intel killed off those series.

 

[Shatun_Bear]

I'm considering buying a new 1 TB NVMe SSD and the SN850 looks impressive.
View attachment 188232
But looking at these prices, it just doesn't make sense to me to buy one.

Yep, the difference nearly everyone will notice in real world will be zero.

I went with an £86 1TB WD Blue from Amazon instead of paying almost 3X for something like this.

 

[DAWMan]

Isn't Intel 905p Optane the fastest SSD in just about any real-life home scenario? Too bad Intel killed off those series.

These are especially good for audio/sample streaming, where the random reads and low latency are key.

I’m waiting for a price drop since the discontinuation, but in all honesty I’m more into live performance rather than recording massive streaming instruments, so Samsung Pro/EVOs are plenty of bandwidth. But sure would like to get the 22210 M.2 because it’s such a great device, just can’t see 4 figures for a 980GB.

 

[Chrispy_]

There's nothing that supports it yet, right, but the ideal companion to these blistering sustained read/write rates is surely DirectStorage?

Do we know any more about developers using it, or is it still being worked on by Microsoft/Nvidia?

 

[Fluffmeister]

I'm considering buying a new 1 TB NVMe SSD and the SN850 looks impressive.
View attachment 188232
But looking at these prices, it just doesn't make sense to me to buy one.

Very happy with my A2000, for the price it punches well above it's weight.

 

[efikkan]

I was planning to throw an Optane into my next workstation build, but with that option gone I'm torn between the four top contenders; Samsung 970 Pro, 980 Pro, Corsair MP600 and WD SN850.
I guess it's fairly hard to know the long-term reliability these except for the 970 Pro, but I'm leaning towards it due to MLC and a proven track record, or perhaps 970 Pro for my workspace and one of the others for the OS?
Are there other good MLC or SLC options left?

 

[tomfuegue]

Excellent review, I have the same but in 2TB version and it's performance is fantastic. 399€ on Amazon Spain.

399€

 

[evolucion8]

Not bad, I recently purchased the WD Black SN750 1TB for around $130, one for my laptop and one for my desktop. Can't complain with its performance, also made sure that I used the boards heatsink to keep it cool and the laptop optional heatsink for it. I don't see with good eyes the usage of these SSDs without any sort of heatsink for long term.

 

[Space Lynx]

@W1zzard

I just read this article, and how gen5 is already on target for 2.5 million read IOPS... 1.5 million faster than this sn850!!! Crazy! If we employ quantum mechanics, there is a chance when W1zz tests this gen5 unit he may accidentally be transported to the moon!!!!

Kioxia is close to releasing a PCIe 5.0 SSD that can hit 14,000 MB/s

Only a few months ago, Seagate joined the PCIe 4.0 elite SSD club of Samsung and Sabrent with speeds of over 7,000 megabytes per second. Corsair was...

www.techspot.com

 

[mtrantalainen]

"The Fastest SSD" without including Intel 905P SSD at all? Really?

The Intel 905 SSD is about 5x faster than any of the SSD storage devices in this test (random read 4K QD 1 with 1 thread a.k.a. the only really important test for any storage device).

 

[Chrispy_]

"The Fastest SSD" without including Intel 905P SSD at all? Really?

The Intel 905 SSD is about 5x faster than any of the SSD storage devices in this test (random read 4K QD 1 with 1 thread a.k.a. the only really important test for any storage device).

SSD in the PC industry refers to NAND flash, which Optane isn't.
If you want to be pedantic and say that Optane is a "solid state drive" then so are lots of other things like RAM, DVD discs, and BIOS chips.

Realistically, Optane isn't considered for consumer PCs because it's 8x the cost and only 5x faster in synthetic tests. In real-world consumer tasks, an Optane SSD and decent NVMe drive would provide experiences so similar that people would struggle to identify which was which in blind A/B testing.

Take game level loading for example; A good drive loads a level in 20 seconds and a bad drive loads a level in 22 seconds. That's because the CPU takes 19.8 seconds to decompress the data. Whether it takes the SSD 0.2 seconds or 2.0 seconds to read the data off the drive is kind of irrelevant really.