Western Digital Launches the WD Black SN770 DRAM-less NVMe SSD

[TheLostSwede]

Western Digital has expanded its WD Black series of SSDs with yet another model today and the SN770 seems like yet another dilution of the Black brand, as it's WD's second PCIe 4.0 DRAM-less Black series drive. On the upside, capacities range from 256 GB to 2 TB, unlike the SN750 SE which tops out at 1 TB and sequential speeds are also up, with read speeds rated at up to 5150 MB/s and write speeds of up to 4900 MB/s. This is still a far cry from the SN850, which should be considered the only high-end consumer SSD from WD at the moment.

WD did also provide some random performance numbers in the shape of up to 740K IOPS read and 800K IOPS write, which should make this one of the fastest DRAM-less SSDs currently on the market. WD claims the SN770 is 20 percent more power efficient than the SN750 SE, without providing any further details. WD provides a five year warranty for all SKUs and have rated the drives at a 1.75 million hour MTTF time, with the 1 TB SKU having a 600 TBW or 0.33 DWPD write endurance rating. Pricing starts at US$59.99 for the 250 GB SKU, with the 500 GB SKU coming in at US$79.99, the 1 TB at US$129.99 and the 2 TB at US$269.99. This places the 1 TB SKU at US$30 less than the SN850 and the same amount more than the SN750 SE. The SN770 is available as of today.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[bonehead123]

hahahaha.......

amazon has the real black 2TB SN850 for $275, so yea, I'll do a super HARDDDDD pass on this one

 

[trsttte]

On one hand, why????

On the other hand, **slow clap** well done Western Digital! Instead of just silently switching components on the SN750 SE, you launched a new product with a different name and everything like it should be done. It's a low bar to clear, but congrats on clearing it nevertheless, here's your star

hahahaha.......

amazon has the real black 2TB SN850 for $275, so yea, I'll do a super HARDDDDD pass on this one

Contrary to what happens with GPUs, SSDs often sell bellow their initial msrp as time goes by

 

[tabascosauz]

So instead of updating the SN750 with newer TLC and reducing the price to slot in below the SN850, WD came up with *2* SN550 clones?

I have both SN550s and SN750s so nothing against the two of them. I guess on the bright side, WD will teach some impulsive buyers a hard lesson that "bigger number + PCIe 4.0 != faster"......?

 

[Ferrum Master]

Reading here, some Reddit etc complaints...

WD drives have some weird issues time to time with some HW combos... much more than average... I am kinda offed from them only because of that.

 

[zlobby]

hahahaha.......

amazon has the real black 2TB SN850 for $275, so yea, I'll do a super HARDDDDD pass on this one

Harddisk go brrrrrrrrt. Haha.

 

[john_]

I just ignore anything with a cost of over 10c/GB. PCIe 4.0 and for the next couple of years PCIe 5.0 are giving all the excuses to manufacturers to keep prices/GB up. I am happy with any TLC NVMe that offers at least 1.5-2GB/sec for a reasonable price.

 

[bonehead123]

Reading here, some Reddit etc complaints...

WD drives have some weird issues time to time with some HW combos... much more than average... I am kinda offed from them only because of that.

Well, I've been using 1TB SN750's since they came out, on 5 different rigs with various HW combos....neveranottaproblemo, so maybe I've just been lucky

 

[tabascosauz]

Well, I've been using 1TB SN750's since they came out, on 5 different rigs with various HW combos....neveranottaproblemo, so maybe I've just been lucky

Neither my original nor RMA replacement SN750 will reliably function in the middle two slots on my Unify-X. Granted, it uses a peculiar chipset/CPU lane switch for those two slots, but my SX8200 never has any issues.

There was also that whole ordeal about SN850s underperforming on chipset lanes. Think WD released a firmware update for that one.

That's not to say I would avoid WD, I'd just not pick a board that puts all its bets on a single chipset M.2 slot (eg. X570 ITX/TB3). Their RMA process is still top in this neck of the woods.

 

[bug]

Really sad to see DRAM-less Black. What's next, QLC?

 

[Bomby569]

Really sad to see DRAM-less Black. What's next, QLC?

why can't poor people have blacks? seems very elitist /s

 

[zlobby]

Really sad to see DRAM-less Black. What's next, QLC?

Probably it will come in parts and you'd need to DIY, soldering and all.

 

[bug]

Probably it will come in parts and you'd need to DIY, soldering and all.

Still better than a bag of sand you have to cook for yourself, I guess

 

[Chaitanya]

Really sad to see DRAM-less Black. What's next, QLC?

Give them couple of months to pull a bait and switch and you will see SN770 with QLC flash.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Price sucks though...

 

[TheLostSwede]

Price sucks though...

MSRP usually does.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Do we know what kind of NAND this is?

IF this OLC based, the moron that decided to put the "WD Black" nomenclature on this drive needs to be fired and never allowed to work in the industry again.

If this is TLC with an advanced SLC caching mode, as long as the performance numbers are excellent, this might be something good.

To arrive at a logical conclusion we need the detailed specs and benchmarks.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Do we know what kind of NAND this is?

IF this OLC based, the moron that decided to put the "WD Black" nomenclature on this drive needs to be fired and never allowed to work in the industry again.

If this is TLC with an advanced SLC caching mode, as long as the performance numbers are excellent, this might be something good.

To arrive at a logical conclusion we need the detailed specs and benchmarks.

BiCS 5 112L 3D TLC NAND is an educated guess by Anandtech.

Western Digital Introduces WD_BLACK SN770: A DRAM-less PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD

www.anandtech.com

 

[lexluthermiester]

BiCS 5 112L 3D TLC NAND is an educated guess by Anandtech.

Western Digital Introduces WD_BLACK SN770: A DRAM-less PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD

www.anandtech.com

Fair enough. Anandtech usually gets things right. But I'd still like an official statement on details specs from WD.

 

[R0H1T]

This won't sell well with the recent launch of SN570, probably will be a short lived lineup!

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

On one hand, why????

On the other hand, **slow clap** well done Western Digital! Instead of just silently switching components on the SN750 SE, you launched a new product with a different name and everything like it should be done. It's a low bar to clear, but congrats on clearing it nevertheless, here's your star

Contrary to what happens with GPUs, SSDs often sell bellow their initial msrp as time goes by

Unless You'r samsung, they keep increasing their ssd prices more and more

Harddisk go brrrrrrrrt. Haha.

Yeah HDDs aint going away anytime soon, ssd prices Are getting stupid whith a consitant downgrade in quality, just saw the 870 evo 1tb, a freaking sata drive for 170$, wtf

 

[bug]

Fair enough. Anandtech usually gets things right. But I'd still like an official statement on details specs from WD.

I like how Anand spins this as a power saving feature for laptops and then goes on to list power draw as "? W".
Reading the comments, some say the performance is almost up to par the DRAM equipped drives. Be that as it may, DRAM and DRAM-less should not be both under the same name.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

I just ignore anything with a cost of over 10c/GB. PCIe 4.0 and for the next couple of years PCIe 5.0 are giving all the excuses to manufacturers to keep prices/GB up. I am happy with any TLC NVMe that offers at least 1.5-2GB/sec for a reasonable price.

Yeah, their has to be some sort of corporate plotting to jack up prices, just look how many articles You see about nand prices gets higher, i think i see two every month for about 2 years now

 

[lexluthermiester]

I like how Anand spins this as a power saving feature for laptops and then goes on to list power draw as "? W".

That's easily explained. The actual power draw is unknown ATM. However, with the absence of a DRAM chip, power draw is certain to be lower.

Be that as it may, DRAM and DRAM-less should not be both under the same name.

We could not agree more on that point!

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Really sad to see DRAM-less Black. What's next, QLC?

It sure is coming, i think most laptop ssds are going to be qlc, and they want to sneak qlc to desktop with vage marketting and bait, and switch best selling drives to qlc, its a slow boiling frog situation