Page 2 - A Closer Look, Test System
There are two versions of the Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe SSD: One with a heatsink and one without. Our particular version is the one without a heatsink. Instead, you will get a sticker, as shown in our photo above. Regardless of the model you get, the Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe SSD 1TB looks nothing like your traditional Serial ATA solid state drive, and this is because it is not your traditional solid state drive. The Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe SSD 1TB is actually an M.2 2280 format SSD. If you are not familiar with the M.2 physical standard, M.2 2280 means it the size of the drive is 22mm by 80mm, hence its numerical designation. Its components are located on the black printed circuit board located behind the branding sticker, which we will take a closer look at in just a moment. The Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe SSD 1TB works on the NVMe 1.3 logical device interface and plugs into compatible motherboards directly. Electrically, M.2 NVMe interfaces with PCIe 3.1. The Black uses four lanes for up to 4000MB/s bandwidth in each direction. The specified weight is a paltry 7.5g for this SSD and 33.2g if you have the version with a heatsink.
Peeling the sticker back, and you can see what the Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe SSD 1TB is made from. There are three different components that can be seen. At the heart of Western Digital's Black SN750 NVMe SSD 1TB is a custom controller labeled 20-82-007011. It is an NVMe solution on the M.2 socket to overcome traditional Serial ATA bandwidth bottlenecks. An SK Hynix H5AN8G6NAFR DDR4-2400 2GB memory chip is present; it is used by the controller for system memory. The Black SN750's flash memory are SanDisk branded 64-layer BiCS 3D triple-level cells in two chips labeled 05560-512G. Its rated write endurance is a whopping 600TB, which equates to about 330GB per day for five years. This is really impressive by any metric. Its rated power consumption of 100mW low power, 2.8A peak power, and 2.5mW sleep is quite efficient. The SN750 can be prevented from entering standby using the WD Black SSD Dashboard utility for maximum performance at all times. 24GB out of the 1024GB total capacity -- just under 3% -- is provisioned for the drive controller for overhead, so the actual usable space is 1TB, as advertised. You will see 931GB in Windows.
Flipping the Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe SSD 1TB around and you will find no components of interest. The label on the Black NVMe SSD itself carries miscellaneous information such as its model name, capacity, serial number, and regulatory certifications on the other side. Other than that, it is completely blank as all the components are located on the other side. This SSD is made in China, which is unlike many Western Digital products we have reviewed in the past.
Specified at 3470MB/s read, 3000MB/s write, and up to 560,000 IOPS over NVMe 1.3 on PCIe 3.0 x4, these figures are really impressive. It is roughly seven times to speed of a regular SATA 6Gb/s drive and one of the highest rated drive we have ever tested here at APH Networks. For comparison, the ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB is rated at 3500MB/s read, 2300MB/s write, and up to 390,000 IOPS. Meanwhile, the Western Digital Black NVMe SSD 1TB is rated at 3400MB/s read, 2800MB/s write, and up to 500,000 IOPS, giving the SN750 a slight edge. To see how it translates to numbers in our benchmarks, we will pit them against the big boys of this game to see how this new flagship from Western Digital steps up against some popular PCI Express based SSDs from manufacturers like ADATA, Crucial, Gigabyte, Kingston, Patriot, and Toshiba OCZ in the next nine pages or so.
Our test configuration is as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.6GHz
CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D15S
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK
RAM: Patriot Viper 3 Low Profile PC3-17000 4x8GB
Graphics: Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 960 4GB
Chassis: Fractal Design Define R6 Blackout TG
Storage: OCZ Vector 180 240GB; Crucial MX200 500GB
Power: Seasonic PRIME Ultra Titanium 850W
Sound: Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD
Optical Drive: LiteOn iHAS224-06 24X DVD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Compared Hardware:
- Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe SSD 1TB
- ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB
- Crucial P1 1TB
- Crucial P1 500GB
- Gigabyte M.2 PCIe SSD 256GB
- Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe 480GB
- OCZ RD400A 512GB
- OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB
- Patriot Hellfire M.2 240GB
- Toshiba RC100 240GB
- Western Digital Black NVMe SSD 1TB
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 6.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 9.0
9. Benchmark: PCMark Vantage
10. Benchmark: PCMark 8
11. Conclusion
