WD Black SN8100 SSD evaluate: Fantastically quick, frustratingly inconsistent
Skilled’s Score
Professionals
- Extraordinarily quick artificial benchmark outcomes — at occasions
- DRAM for wonderful random efficiency
- 5-year, 600TBW guarantee
Cons
- Write speeds assorted from 300MBps to 13GBps on our typical take a look at mattress
- Dear
Our Verdict
This fantastically speedy PCIe 5.0 SSD will ship the 14GBps items. But it surely had compatibility points on our take a look at mattress with write speeds far and wide — as excessive because the marketed 13GBps, however as little as 300MBps.
Value When Reviewed
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Finest Pricing In the present day
Finest Costs In the present day: WD SN8100
With WD’s 8TB Black SN850X being our top-rated PCIe 4.0 SSD, and the WD Black SN7100 holding sway because the second-ranked HMB (host reminiscence buffer) PCIe 4.0 SSD, I used to be anticipating nice issues from the corporate’s newest: the PCIe 5.0 WD Black SN8100. Effectively, I received nice issues, but additionally some not-so-great issues — for causes that stay unclear.
Word that I’ll revisit this evaluate if and when the “issues” state of affairs (learn the efficiency part) with the SN8100 clears up. Additionally, it appears Sandisk, after a latest “break up” from WD, is now advertising and marketing WD drives — i.e., that is the Sandisk WD Black SN8100.
Learn on to study extra, then see our roundup of the perfect SSDs for comparability.
What are the WD Black SN8100’s options?
The WD Black SN8100 is a PCIe 5.0, NVMe 2.0, 2280 (22mm huge, 80mm lengthy) M.2 SSD. It makes use of stacked BiCS8 TLC NAND and a Sandisk controller plus DRAM for quick random operations.
Sandisk supplies a five-year guarantee on the WD Black SN8100, mitigated by a 600TBW-per-terabyte-of-capacity ranking — in different phrases, when you write greater than 600TB to the drive, it might go into read-only mode and the guarantee is void at that time.
Word that the majority SSDs are good for much extra writes than their ranking, and it’s unlikely you’ll write anyplace close to that a lot in even 10 years.
How a lot does the WD Black SN8100 value?
Sandisk sells the WD Black SN8100 in three capacities: 1TB for $180, 2TB (examined) for $280, and 4TB for $550. That’s greater than the Samsung 9100 Professional and the equally quick Essential T705 (that are each on sale for $170 and $142, respectively, on the time of this writing), however in the identical ballpark as their MSRPs. I’d count on the SN8100 to settle in at a aggressive value. All issues being equal, that may make it an excellent worth, however…
How does the WD Black SN8100 carry out?
When working accurately, the SN8100 was proper up there with its quickest PCIe 5.0 opponents. Nonetheless, scorching on the heels of the Sandisk Excessive Professional SSD with USB4 (that’s the precise identify) not all the time connecting at full pace, I skilled a considerably related challenge with the WD Black SN8100. Albeit solely with writes.
When utilizing the identical M.2/PCIe 5.0 slot with which I’ve efficiently examined all NVMe SSDs during the last two years, the 8100 initially carried out as much as snuff. Subsequently, nonetheless, write speeds in artificial benchmarks dropped to 2GBps/PCIe 3.0 ranges, after which mysteriously to 600MBps/SATA ranges and even decrease.
The phenomenon was additionally wildly inconsistent: In the future efficiency was as anticipated, the following day it could fall off the planet. Reboots would appear to treatment the difficulty, then it could reappear.
Transferring the WD Black SN8100 to a ROG PCIe 5.0/NVMe adapter card nestled within the take a look at mattress’s sole PCIe 5.0 slot, write efficiency persistently reached anticipated ranges — monitoring with out fail at 13.5GBps in all of the artificial benchmarks.
Thermals weren’t a difficulty because the SN8100 by no means cracked 50 levels Celsius. Nonetheless, Sandisk touts the drive’s excellent power financial savings, so perhaps there’s one more reason for it throttling down writes, which require much more power than reads.
In the future efficiency was as anticipated, the following day it could fall off the planet.
I retested the 2 competing drives, Essential’s frantastic T705, and Samsung’s blazing 9100 Professional on the adapter card, however each carried out barely worse, so the numbers on the charts are from the unique exams within the typical M.2 slot. No have to punish them for WD/Sandisk’s challenge.
With these caveats, the SN8100 did fairly nicely, even taking the highest spot in a few exams.
As soon as once more, the SN8100 was proper up there with its opponents and even managed two first locations in CrystalDiskMark 8’s random exams.
Our 48GB switch exams had the SN8100 falling barely behind the competitors. Not by a lot, however nonetheless simply outdoors of the margin of error.
The SN8100 once more lagged behind the opposite two drives within the real-world 450GB write take a look at, although not by lots. Word that the top-performing drives on this take a look at are virtually all HMB (host reminiscence buffer) designs. And principally PCIe 4.0. Go determine.
Though barely slower within the real-world switch exams, the SN8100 remains to be a really quick SSD. The problems with our motherboard M.2 slot are mysterious, and a slightly lengthy cellphone name with Sandisk didn’t make clear the matter — the corporate was unable to copy the difficulty and a second SN8100 exhibited the identical habits.
I’m inclined to chalk it as much as motherboard/drive incompatibility that you simply’re unlikely to expertise. However that’s definitely not a promise, so run CrystalDiskMark 8 a number of occasions throughout boots earlier than the return window closes. It may be tough to identify SSD slowdowns with the bare eye, and as I mentioned, the difficulty was inconsistent.
Must you purchase the WD Black SN8100?
The WD Black SN8100 is likely one of the quickest NVMe SSDs in artificial benchmarks that I’ve ever examined. However imagine me once I say that it offers me no pleasure to advocate that you simply examine compatibility utilizing CrystalDiskMark 8 or related earlier than absolutely committing to your buy — WD/Sandisk has created nothing however stellar storage merchandise up till not too long ago.
Once more, I’ll revisit this evaluate if the state of affairs adjustments — hopefully with an answer to the uneven write efficiency thriller and a greater star ranking.
How we take a look at
Our storage exams presently make the most of Home windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit working on a Z790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of reminiscence complete). Intel built-in graphics are used. The 48GB switch exams make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB complete reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Professional 2TB, which additionally accommodates the working system.
Every take a look at is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Word that as any drive fills up, efficiency will lower because of much less NAND for secondary caching, and different components.
The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped in addition to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can fluctuate by capability because of extra or fewer chips to learn/write throughout and the quantity of NAND out there for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Distributors additionally often swap elements. When you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report (techniques being roughly equal), by all means — tell us.
