WD Black NVMe SSD Review: A Step Ahead with New Controller

Small is becoming big, greater storage space yet smaller form factor, this the today’s reality. Earlier we reviewed WD Black PCIe M.2 NVMe-based SSD and this time we got a chance to test its higher version with a huge capacity of 1 TB.

The new WD Black SSD is targeting professionals and gamers looking for high-performance PCs and ultra-slim laptops. In this WD SDD Review we will test its read and write speed which WD claims to have sequential read and write speeds of up to 3,400 and 2,800 MB/s.

Detailed Specifications

Capacity - 250GB, 500GB, 1TB

Interface - PCIe Gen3 8 Gb/s, up to 4 lanes

Form Factor - M.2 2280

Sequential Read/Write -  Up to 3,400 MB/s Read Up to 2,800 MB/s Write

Random Read/Write -  Up to 500,000 IOPS Read Up to 400,000 IOPS Write

M.2 Form Factor: Sleek and Small

The 1 TB SSD has M.2 2280-S3-M form factor, suitable for high-end gaming PCs or tower desktops and ultra-slim notebooks with support for an M-key connector. It has PCIe Gen3 8 Gb/s, up to 4 lanes interface. On the top, it houses DRAM, 3D NAND, and controller covered by a sticker with product information and branding. It is a single sided SSD, thus the other side is blank.

Proprietary SSD controller: Enhancing the overall performance

WD equipped a new proprietary SSD controller in the WD Black SSD that helps to boost the overall performance plus makes the device power efficient. WD paired the new controller with its 64-layer BICS TLC NAND.

Fast and Reliable SSD

The drive comes in three variants – 250GB, 500GB and 1TB. It comes with innovative power management and thermal throttling consistently to prevent overheating plus deliver maintain high performance. Combining Western Digital 3D NAND technology, it can achieve up to 600TBW and 1.75M hours MTTF.

The WD Dashboard SSD software is designed for the Black series SSDs that lets user update the firmware, monitor the SSD’s health and check the performance in real-time. You can monitor your drive’s available capacity, operating temperatures, SMART attributes and more. Acronis True ImageTM WD Edition software, available as a free download, can clone drives and back up your operating system, applications, settings, and all of your data.

Perfect for a wide range of PCs

WD Black NVMe SSD is certified by WD F.I.T. Lab for compatibility with a wide range of high-performance PC configurations. The thin single-sided M.2 design makes it an ideal drive to install on almost any PC or laptop. It can be used on your tower PC as well as in a modern ultra-thin laptop.

In case your PC has previous generation motherboard that doesn’t have an M.2 port, you can install it in a PCIe card and then on your PC. Also, you can use it as an external drive, by adding it in an external M.2 SSD casing, if you are seriously looking for a reliable external drive to keep your precious data secure.

Exceptionally Fast

WD claims the sequential read/write speed of the SSD is up to Up to 3,400 MB/s and Up to 2,800 MB/s. We tested the drive on our test bench bed (Intel Core i7 CPU, 4 GB Kingston DDR3 RAM, Windows 10 OS and Cooler Master 350 Plus).

In our random test in which we transferred the assorted 5GB data (Video, PDF, word and other files) from our HDD drive to the WD SSD drive, it took only 1 min 06 sec. While transferring the same data from WD drive to PC drive it took about 1 min 21 sec, which is faster than previous WD Black PCIe SSD. On the other hand, when I transferred 1GB movie to the drive, it took only 15 sec which is similar to the last drive.

Running the synthetic benchmarks, to identifying the key strengths and weaknesses of a drive. It performed really well on Crystal Disk Mark (sequential) and resulted in 1672 MB/s read and 1378 MB/s write speed.

Using the HD Tune Pro, it delivered maximum and minimum read speeds of 734 MB/s and 417.2 MB/s respectively.

Benchmarking random access, resulted in 18732 IOPS operation/sec, 0.053 ms avg. access time, 0.247 ms max. access time, and 9.147 MB/s avg. speed.

In the 4KB file transfer sequential benchmark, it delivered 1109765 KB/sec read and 979911 KB/sec write speed.

The AS SSD benchmarking (sequential) was also splendid, 1268.83 MB/s read, 1145.91 MB/s write.

Using the copy benchmark, it delivered –
ISO 661.15 MB/s speed
Program 220.69 MB/s speed
Game 449.49 MB/s speed

Other Benchmarks

Real life performance

To test its real-life performance, I installed Windows 10 on this drive and added all the essential software including Adobe Photoshop, MS-Office, etc. The boot time of the machine was boosted from 25 secs to 8 sec. While working on the PC, we experienced faster processing and app loading as well.

The SSD is built for professional and gaming enthusiasts, so we installed some of the high graphics intensive games on the machine such as Thief and Need for Speed games. The gaming operation was quite smooth with great rendering and amazing performance. Playing games like ‘The Hobbit’ was an amazing experience on the machine using the drive. It boosted the rendering speed as well as the enhanced overall gaming performance.

Overall the drive did better than the previous WD SSD, meaning it can go beyond the performance and let the experience the unexpected.