WD Black SN770M 2 TB

[W1zzard]

Designed with the Valve Steam Deck and similar handheld devices in mind, the WD Black SN770M 2 TB SSD provides generous storage for expanding gaming libraries. Under the hood we found TLC NAND flash, which is much faster than the QLC offered by the competition.

Show full review

 

[umdterps71]

You listed “No DRAM cache” under negatives twice.

love to see this be released

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

The SN770 series performs much better on Windows than Linux, right?

Or is the HMB magic in Linux too now?

 

[Hugis]

Another great review , cheers W1z

 

[bug]

Didn't I read recently that WD is getting out of the SSD business?

 

[W1zzard]

You listed “No DRAM cache” under negatives twice.

love to see this be released

Fixed

The SN770 series performs much better on Windows than Linux, right?

Or is the HMB magic in Linux too now?

afaik Linux supports HMB, not 100% sure

Didn't I read recently that WD is getting out of the SSD business?

Clickbait .. on the stock market WD is splitting into WD (HDDs) and SanDisk (SSDs), this increases value for shareholders

 

[b1k3rdude]

The only thing missing from this and every other SSD-for-deck-reviews is how does it effect the temps and battery life of the deck.

"According to Valve's guidelines, users must pay close attention to the power consumption of the SSD. If a third-party SSD draws more power than the stock SSD, users could experience overheating and reduced battery life."

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

afaik Linux supports HMB, not 100% sure

For some reason I thought the SN770 series had a driver-specific impelementation that only worked on Windows. I will have to look back and see.

 

[W1zzard]

For some reason I thought the SN770 series had a driver-specific impelementation that only worked on Windows. I will have to look back and see.

I'm not installing any special drivers (like 99.99% of users)

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I'm not installing any special drivers (like 99.99% of users)

Sorry, I was meaning the automatic driver.

It seems I may have been mistaken. I can't find anything on that.

 

[GreiverBlade]

Can i laugh?
I received that one, today,

Spoiler: SN770M? Yep, that's the same

as mentioned ln https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/whats-your-latest-tech-purchase.225885/post-5139005

For my Rog Ally

Thanks for the review, since i did not have the time to do so

Ok now i'm impressed... 220$ the 2tb? Retail price is, for once, 187chf (~207$) i paid 120chf (132.82$) in promotion.

 

[bug]

Clickbait .. on the stock market WD is splitting into WD (HDDs) and SanDisk (SSDs), this increases value for shareholders

Well, it's not really clickbait if there won't be WD branded SSDs anymore. But it's a good move overall, cleaner separation, even if it means WD will eventually go the way of the dodo.

 

[Scircura]

You listed “No DRAM cache” under negatives twice.

It's understandable that W1zzard sometimes forgets what he had typed previously, since he also lacks a DRAM cache

 

[Cheeseball]

Can i laugh?
I received that one, today,

Spoiler: SN770M? Yep, that's the same

View attachment 321031

as mentioned ln https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/whats-your-latest-tech-purchase.225885/post-5139005

For my Rog Ally

Thanks for the review, since i did not have the time to do so

Ok now i'm impressed... 220$ the 2tb? Retail price is, for once, 187chf (~207$) i paid 120chf (132.82$) in promotion.

I must be lucky with pricing or something because:

 

[bonehead123]

If this little card is even remotely as solid & well-performing as their 2280 drives (like all those 850x's I bought a while back), then it should be a hit with the console crowd for sure

 

[W1zzard]

I must be lucky with pricing or something because:

View attachment 321060

Wow .. where did you buy that?

 

[GreiverBlade]

Wow .. where did you buy that?

well for me, in Switzerland with an E-tailer i never knew before yesterday, and the price was a promo, either black friday or lauch promotion

nonetheless the normal pricing is close to your 220$ although i am surprised it's "only" 207$, since being in Switzerland we usually have a seen price of at least 25% higher than MSRP

 

[Cheeseball]

Wow .. where did you buy that?

Best Buy here in the US. But I will admit, it was on sale for 3 days around a week ago, BUT it should be going on the same sale around the Black Friday/Cyber Monday as it was specifically an "Early Black Friday" deal.

At the moment one can get it for $219.99 as mentioned by @GreiverBlade above.

 

[Scircura]

The only thing missing from this and every other SSD-for-deck-reviews is how does it effect the temps and battery life of the deck.

"According to Valve's guidelines, users must pay close attention to the power consumption of the SSD. If a third-party SSD draws more power than the stock SSD, users could experience overheating and reduced battery life."

Concerns put to rest by our very own Chrispy_ in another thread:

At launch, there was a lot of FUD about "oh you have to use this specific drive because Valve's tested it for power draw and EMI". FYI, Valve themselves use at least half a dozen different models depending on availability. It's a generic M.2 NMVe slot and the only requirement is that it's single-sided and doesn't run too hot, because there's near zero cooling for it. Don't go putting something crazy-hot in there, but most 2230 SSDs are designed to run in ultrabooks and extremely compact laptops with limited airflow, so you do need to go out of your way to find one that's not compatible with the Steam Deck's enclosure.

Ebay, Amazon, and Aliexpress are loaded with used/refurbed 2230 SSDs designed for the Microsoft Surface from Samsung, Kioxia, WD, and others. All of them fit, all of them work, none of them draw too much power, and all of them are specifically manufactured to be as efficient and cool as possible by design. These aren't PCIe 5.0 monsters chasing performance and needing additional cooling, the 2230 form factor is for low-power, compact designs with no space for cooling.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

We are in the GOLDEN AGE of storage. It's absolutely amazing you can get a 2TB stick like this.

Wake me when there are 4TB and 8TB sticks

 

[Chrispy_]

Concerns put to rest by our very own Chrispy_ in another thread:

This does appear to be one of the more power-hungry 2230 drives I've seen, though it will almost certainly be fine in the Steam Deck for two reasons:

1. It's power hungry because it's fast. Actual energy efficiency per GB of writes is slightly better than average, so completely normal and in line with other trouble-free drives that have racked up hundreds of thousands of hours for hundreds of thousands of Deck owners at this point in the Deck's life, most likely. There are enough Decks out in the wild now that if people were able to find an SSD too hungry for the Deck, Reddit would be absolutely flooded with PSAs and recommendations based on feedback. That thread simply doesn't exist, and Reddit is where it would be if there were such a thread.
   
   
2. It's never going to use as much power as tested here on TPU when in an actual Steam deck, since power consumption is linear with write speed, and the Steam deck lacks the PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot to get the fastest writes. I suspect 3.5W peak burst power on a 3.0 interface, and if you cross-reference the "power consumption vs write speed" graph with the "no fan thermal throttle" graph, you can see that this is unlikely to sustain more than 1.5W of power draw for any larger file copies.

 

[Mussels]

This would work great in little USB NVME enclosures

The only thing missing from this and every other SSD-for-deck-reviews is how does it effect the temps and battery life of the deck.

"According to Valve's guidelines, users must pay close attention to the power consumption of the SSD. If a third-party SSD draws more power than the stock SSD, users could experience overheating and reduced battery life."

power consumption answers that one, especially idle power consumption of these drives

High speed drives are more efficient under load, while lower power consumption at idle is what matters for battery life the rest of the time.

 

[W1zzard]

Actual energy efficiency per GB of writes is slightly better than average

But read efficiency is the best ever tested, which matters more imo, due to the read-heavy nature of the Steam Deck?

 

[chrcoluk]

You know whats coming w1zzard my UK price check.

£108 on WD website, not available from amazon. MP600 mini up to £96 now. The WD drive might be better though. This is much better value than the QLC you reviewed though, which is now £88.

Well, it's not really clickbait if there won't be WD branded SSDs anymore. But it's a good move overall, cleaner separation, even if it means WD will eventually go the way of the dodo.

Why would WD do that? their brand is stronger than sandisk in my opinion.

 

[Scircura]

But read efficiency is the best ever tested, which matters more imo, due to the read-heavy nature of the Steam Deck?

I would imagine the lack of support for L1 ASPM trumps both read and write efficiency with regards to battery life, although I have no idea how often the Steam Deck puts its NVMe device in L1 state.

It looks like for all WD SSD's, idle power consumption is the same regardless of the L1 ASPM setting. Is power management really broken on all WD SSD's?

Now that I noticed this L1 ASPM detail in the review, I personally wouldn't choose this drive for any battery-powered device.