WD Black NVME SSD (1TB) Review - Introduction

WD Black NVMe 1TB M.2. NVMe SSD (2018)

Earlier in 2018 Western Digital launched their WD Black series NVMe SSDs. We finally have a chance to test one thoroughly. The SSD has SanDisk written all over it, literally, and that is a good thing as this storage unit reaches that 3400 MB/s level in performance.

Mind you that I tagged this product review with (2018), as WD tends to reuse the naming and we don't want to configure things with older and future models. Also, please do not confuse this NVMe model with the PCIe mode, they are completely different SKUs.

An SSD targeted towards gaming laptops and high-end PCs, it's thin and available in capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB and 1TB volume sizes. This SSD series offer peak read performance of up to 3,400 MB/s and a peak write speeds up to 2,800 MB/s. And gosh, that is so much faster way compared to what you can achieve with a SATA3 device. A small side note, performance will differ with different volume sizes, but smaller versions use less NAND channels and thus have slower writing. That said, whatever size you choose, the perf will be great. The random performance rated up-to 500K random read IOPS and up to 400K write for 4K IOPS. Being M.2., you do need a modern motherboard with capable NVMe supported M.2 (PCI-Expresse Gen 3.0 x4 (and not x2) connected) interface, please do check out your motherboard manufacturer for that. But ever the past year or two all Intel and AMD chipset released in the mainstream to high-end class support it very well. M2 is interesting stuff, these smaller form factors storage units are evolving from being "just as fast" as a regular SSD towards double, tripling, heck... even quadrupling that performance. It comes in a different package, M.2. The M.2 interface is so much more capable as it can deal with way more bandwidth using PCI-Express lanes. As such, M.2 solutions are intended for enthusiast class motherboards. The series M.2 SSDs are a breathtaking series of storage technology as they offer enthusiast class performance yet remain reasonable in pricing depending on NAND type. 

The SSD is WDs latest iteration of their consumer-ready Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) M.2 form factor SSD series. The SSDs have been fitted with Sandisk NAND (64-layer) and is powered by a SanDisk 20-880007011 series NVMe controller. This means WD can make pretty much everything in-house. The SSD follows a smaller M.2 2280 (8cm) form factor so it will fit on most ATX motherboards capable of M.2 just fine.  Have a peek, and then let's head onwards into this review.

 WD BLACK series M2 NVMe SSD with Sandisk controller and Sandisk NAND Flash