WD Blue SN500 NVME SSD (250GB) Review - Specifications & Features

Specifications and features

Much like the Black series SN750 th SN500 is using (Triple-level cell written) written 64-layer NAND flash memory from Sandisk. For those that noticed a similarity, yes this is a rebranded OEM WD SN520 making a move from SATA3 to NVMe, now brought to the consumer market. Western Digital's in-house NVMe SSD controller architecture derives from SanDisk and was cut-down into a more affordable two PCIe lanes no DRAM interface design. This allows them to offer the big storage volume at a lower price point.  In 3D NAND, NAND layers, not chips, are stacked in a single IC. The good news is continued cost reduction, smaller die sizes and more capacity per NAND chip. Also, installed NAND toolsets in the wafer fabs can, for the most part, be reused, thereby extending the useful life of the fab equipment. Though the numbers vary per model due to available NAND channels to the controller (big SSDs have more chips and channels to work with) these SSDs will be plenty fast for any regular performance metrics, offering double and even triple times the speed (depending on how you look at it) of the fastest SATA3 class SSD. As mentioned, Western Digital offers the product series in two SKUs, a 250GB and 500GB version (for now).

WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD	250GB	500GB
Model Number	WDS250G1B0C	WDS500G1B0C
Form Factors	M.2 2280 (80mm x 22mm x 2.38mm)
Weight	6.5 g
Operating Temperature	32°F to 158°F (0°C to 70°C)
Storage Temperature	-67°F to 185°F (-55°C to 85°C)
Interface	PCIe Gen3 x2 (8 Gbps)
Endurance (Terabytes Written)	150 TBW	300 TBW
Seq. Read (up to)	1,700 MB/s	1,700 MB/s
Seq. Write (up to)	1,300 MB/s	1,450 MB/s
Rand. Read (up to)	210K IOPS	275K IOPS
Rand. Write (up to)	170K IOPS
MTTF	1.75M hours
Supply Voltage	3.3V ± 5%
Power (Sleep)	2.5mW
Power (Active)	75mW
Warranty	5-year
MSRP	$54.99	$77.99

For 4K random read and write operations the performance differs a bit here and there per model. Basically, the 500 GB version will offer the best numbers. Capacity might be the one potential drawback. At launch, only 250GB and 500GB capacities are being made available, we'd have loved to see a 1 TB version. We test the 250GB model, ergo we'll base our opinion on that one.