Page 11 - Conclusion
With the refresh of the Blue NVMe lineup, Western Digital has increased the number of PCI Express lanes available while also doubling the maximum drive capacity. Furthermore, they have kept excellent traits such as a lengthy write endurance and five-year warranty period. In performance metrics, the Western Digital Blue SN550 pulled out very strong numbers against other budget-oriented NVMe drives, including its predecessor. We did still saw similar struggles in areas such as the slower ramp-up for smaller packet transfers and lower peak sequential speeds. As I have already mentioned, the Blue lineup is targeted at the general consumer base rather than the performance enthusiast, so it is no surprise flagship NVMe drives are much faster. In simulation tests, the WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD was more than capable. Furthermore, in the longer PCMark 8 storage consistency results, this drive was quite good in each of its phases on average, despite showing less overall consistency in its results. While the end result might not be as surprising as the original Western Digital Blue NVMe drive, this drive is a result of incremental changes and Western Digital should still be applauded for its overall improvements. At a retail price of $100 USD, this is one of the most affordable NVMe drives, hovering at the same price as the Crucial P1 1TB and cheaper than the SATA-based Crucial MX500. With all this in mind, the refreshed Western Digital Blue SN550 NVMe SSD 1TB only further cements its status as a great fast and affordable storage option.
Western Digital provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH equal.balance Award
Since April 30, 2007, Number Ratings have been dropped for all CPUs, motherboards, RAM, SSD/HDDs, and graphics cards. This is to ensure the most appropriate ratings are reflected without the inherent limits of using numbers. Everything else will continue using the Number Rating System.
More information in our Review Focus.
The Western Digital Blue SN550 NVMe SSD 1TB still holds the crown of price-to-performance storage options.
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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 7
10. Benchmark: PCMark 8
11. Conclusion
