While the latest PC chipsets and game consoles bring support for PCIe 4.0 based NVMe SSDs, Western Digital officially introduces its first NVMe M.2 SSD with PCIe 4.0 interface called the WD Black SN850. The new drives come with an optional heatsink, RGB lighting, and comes in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities
The new WD Black SN850 drives offer a sequential read speeds up to 7000MB/s, and this applies to all the three storage variants. That’s as fast as the recently announced Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus and the Samsung 980 Pro. However, the new WD Black SN850 comes with different write speeds for each of its storage variants. The 500GB model features a write speed of 4100MB/s, followed by the 1TB model that can write with speeds up to 5300MB/s, and the 2TB model with write speeds of 5100MB/s. Notice that the 1TB model has a faster write speed than the 2TB drive.
While the 500GB WD Black SN850 has a lower write speed overall, it is at least way faster than most of the PCIe 3.0 drives in the market. And it’s also faster than the previous WD SN750 that features a read and write speed of 3100MB/s and 1600MB/s, respectively. It should be noted that the write speeds of the three WD Black SN850 drives are slower than Sabrent and Samsung’s latest PCIe 4.0 drives. The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus can push write speeds up to 6850MB/s, and the Samsung 980 Pro up to 5000MB/s. That said, WD mentions that the 500GB SN850 features an endurance of 300TBW, which isn’t really great if your work involves writing a lot of data. However, the 1TB model features an endurance of 600 TBW and the 2TB model with 1200TBW. The drives come with a limited 5-year warranty.
WD also mentions that the SN850 offers a smooth and responsive gaming experience with up to 1,000,000 random read IOPS. The new drive is powered by the WD/Kioxia BiSCS4, which is a 96-layer TLC 3D NAND memory. WD will also sell the SN850 with an optional heatsink. The heatsink features a gamer-aesthetic sleek design, along with an RGB lighting system that is customizable with the WD Black Dashboard software. The RGB system only comes with the heatsink-equipped WD Black SN850 drives.
With the upcoming Sony PlayStation 5, many game console owners will be looking out for a good PCIe 4.0 drive. While Sony hasn’t exactly published any sort of official compatibility list for the drives that can work best on the new console, WD has already marked the WD Black SN850 as a drive that is compatible with the PS5. We wonder if the WD Black SN850 with a heatsink would fit well on the PS5’s PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot.
The new WD drives are said to be available before the end of October, but we need to receive an official confirmation for the local availability and pricing. The 500GB WD Black SN850 without heatsink costs 149.99 dollars (Approx. 600 AED), and with the heatsink, it costs 169.99 dollars (Approx. 650 AED). The 1TB model base model and the one with heatsink costs 229.99 dollars (Approx. 900 AED) and 249.99 dollars (Approx. 950 AED), respectively. The 2TB model without heatsink costs 449.99 dollars (Approx. 1700 AED), and the heatsink variant cost 469.99 dollars (Approx. 1750 AED).
