Introduction

Western Digital (or simply WD) is the world's largest manufacturer of storage solutions, mostly known for their wide range of hard disk offerings. With their acquisition of SanDisk in 2016, WD became one of the largest manufacturers for flash storage, too.

Today, we are taking a look at the WD Red SA500 SSD, which is optimized to provide fast storage for your NAS system. Since the NAS is always on, WD has engineered the SA500 in a way that's "specifically designed and tested for 24/7 usage."

Internally, the WD Red SA500 uses a Marvell 88SS1074 controller—a model we've previously seen on the Crucial MX300 and Kingston UV500. While it is an older model from circa 2014, it still has plenty of punch for a modern SATA SSD. It has also seen a lot of use, so it is known to run stable and operate bug-free. As expected, the flash chips come from WD subsidiary SanDisk, who produces them in collaboration with Toshiba. The Western Digital WD Red SA500 is available in capacities of 500 GB ($83), 1 TB ($143), 2 TB ($283), and 4 TB ($678). M.2 SATA (not NVMe) versions are available, too. Endurance is rated at 350 TBW, 600 TBW, 1300 TBW, and 2500 TBW respectively. All models come with a 5-year warranty.

In our review, we're taking a look at the WD Red SA500 1 TB version, which offers a good mix between capacity and cost.