Page 10 - Conclusion
The Western Digital WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD 1TB is a PCIe 4.0-based NVMe SSD that promises to deliver a totally different level of performance compared to PCIe 3.0-based models. Did it obliterate anything we have seen in the past? Well, let me just say it has obscenely fast linear read and write speeds. It was as fast as the specifications suggest; delivering up 7000MB/s read and 5300MB/s write. No other PCIe 3.0-based drive even comes close -- the WD_BLACK AN1500 2TB with two SN730 SSDs in RAID 0 over the PCIe 3.0 x8 interface is the only formidable competitor, but still with a sizable performance gap. The SN850 1TB is also untouchable for general workloads that you will encounter on a day-to-day basis, as it can be seen in our PCMark 10 results using real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks. The only area where the SN850 1TB did not completely destroy the PCIe 3.0-based SSDs were workloads with high inputs and outputs per second, such as Crystal Disk Mark's RND4K Q32T1 tests and PassMark PerformanceTest's Advanced Disk Test. But even at that, this SSD remained competitive for the most part. Its 600TBW write endurance is pretty solid, even if it is not the highest I have seen. Furthermore, the SN850 comes with a 5-year warranty as with all premium Western Digital drives. For about $210 at press time, the WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD 1TB offers tremendous performance for the price. Spending an extra $40 will get you a heatsink, which is necessary to keep your drive from overheating under load, but almost every motherboard with a PCIe 4.0-based M.2 slot comes with one anyway. If you are looking for a top-notch SSD to go with your latest build, the WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD 1TB will no doubt deliver performance in a different league for years to come.
Western Digital provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH:Renewal 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 WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD 1TB is a PCIe 4.0-based NVMe SSD that takes storage performance to a whole new level.
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 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 10
9. Benchmark: PCMark 10
10. Conclusion
