One of the main upgrades from the older SN500 model that we tested last year is the increase in PCI Express lane allocation, which directly affects peak throughput. In this test the WD Blue SN550 holds its own against pricier drives like the Patriot P300, while also keeping pace with performers like the Seagate and TeamGroup. Next is a more granular measure derived from one of PCMark 10's background "traces." In its 0 fill CDM benchmarks, the drive was yet again a consistent performer, but lost out versus the Kingston SSDNow KC400512GB and Toshiba Q300 480GB in its Random Read 4Kb benchmarks. We use 16GB of DDR4 Corsair Dominator RAM clocked to 3,600MHz, and the system is using an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition as its discrete graphics card. The MX500 is Crucial’s current flagship consumer SATA SSD featuring their latest second generation 64-layer 3D TLC NAND. The 250GB at 14 years and the 500GB at 28 years. If you're looking to write 20GB/day to the drive, the WD Blue 1TB is rated to last 56 years - an incredible number, given that most refresh their PCs in less than five. Terms of use. This is why WD has certified it with the WD F.I.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) and TRIM, which are handy for those who are interested in achieving faster speeds and reliability. It is available in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, and 4 TB capacities. Sure, it's always nice to see bigger numbers for any specification you publish, but what does that actually mean for the people who buy and use the product? Nevertheless, it could all be a simple firmware/software error - but worth noting. Blog Support Contact Wish List . Item Description. First, there's the overall PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark. Next up is a game-launching set, which simulates how quickly a drive can read shallow-depth small random 4K byte packages. The WD is by far one of the most expensive drives out there, even in comparison to other 1TB SSDs in the market, such as the SanDisk Ultra II SSD 960GB at £199.99 and Crucial MX300 1TB at £227, it's safe to say the WD have ignored its competitors in terms of price per GB. Though it's a bit difficult to put them up against one another 1:1 (the nature of the copied data is different in each case), the scores in the AS-SSD copy tests reiterate much of the same story we saw in the PCMark 10 run: the WD Blue holds its own. In these traces, the WD Blue SN550 regularly scores in the top tiers of its competitors when launching games like Overwatch or COD, though it lagged slightly behind more gaming-oriented drives like the Seagate FireCuda 510 and TeamGroup T-Force Cardea II in Battlefield 5. Lab™), every WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD is verified for compatibility with a wide range of desktop and laptop computers. (Note: At this writing, the 1TB version was selling from most etailers for 20 percent above its MSRP.). It's clear to see that WD have done a good job in bringing out their product to the market - however, given that it's a very crowded market, with chip manufacturers often using the same memory controllers and NAND flash technology, we feel that WD have missed a trick here. This score includes a weighted average of every simulated activity that the PCMark 10 storage test runs, from copying files to launching games, booting an OS to running creative applications. Learn more. The drive can be found in 250-, 500GB and 1TB sizes. The WD Blue doesn’t get heated quickly, and there will be no loss of data due to its protected case with no moving parts. WD - Blue 1TB Internal SATA Solid State Drive. The WD Blue SSD 1TB offers consistent speeds, but comes in at a a hefty £295 price tag. However, it should be noted, that these two tests don't tell the whole story of how a drive will perform for creative applications. As anyone who regularly works in programs like Adobe Premiere or Photoshop can tell you, oftentimes the most excruciating part of the whole experience is the time it takes for the program to launch. In his free time, you’ll find him shredding the local mountain on his snowboard, or using his now-defunct culinary degree to whip up a dish in the kitchen for friends. Tested sequential performance: 498.1/472.1 MB/s, Claimed power consumption: 0.07W active / 0.045W idle. PCMag is obsessed with culture and tech, offering smart, spirited coverage of the products and innovations that shape our connected lives and the digital trends that keep us talking. Right out of the gate, the WD Blue SN550 proves itself as a very fast option (alongside the ADATA Spectrix S40G) if you're regularly shifting around programs or ISO files of the kind in these PCMark 10 traces. If you're a heavy user (40GB/day) the WD Blue is rated at 7, 14 and 28 years for the 250-, 500GB and 1TB models respectively. Install WD Discovery for Mac. WD Blue 1TB 3D NAND SSD M.2 2280. LEADING-EDGE RELIABILITY. The WD Blue SN550 offers up a great value in a PCI Express-based M.2 solid-state drive, holding its own in our tests against drives almost twice its cost. This trio of tests involves copying large files or folders from one location on the test drive to another…. The drive supports S.M.A.R.T. One place I'd like to see a bit more muscle, though, is in the terabytes written (TBW) rating. WD also shared its rated workout for extreme (80GB/day) users - at 3.5, 7 and 14 years respectively. While at first these numbers might look low compared to the straight sequential-throughput numbers achieved in benchmarks like Crystal DiskMark 6.0 and AS-SSD, that's due to the way this score is calculated. The WD Blue has gone from two lanes (PCI Express x2) in the previous model, a decidedly budget move, to four (PCI Express x4) in the SN550. We found this particularly interesting, as we've never seen Windows or benchmarking tools to pick up an incorrect drive - this might suggest that the drive's NAND flash is made by Samsung and optimised by WD. With that bit of background out of the way, let's get into the benchmarks to see how this DRAM-less SSD handles... We test all of our PCI Express 3.0 SSDs on an Asus Prime X299 Deluxe motherboard with an Intel Core i9-10980XE processor clocked at a max boost frequency of 4.6GHz. It should be noted that the M.2 variant shares the same theoretical speeds as the SATA III 6GB/s 2.5in variant, as it does not use NVMe (where you can achieve 1500+ MB/s speeds). It’s available in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB capacities in a 2.5-inch form factor. This DRAM-less SSD (more on that later) may not be the right choice for anyone who needs tons of write-durability, relative to other drives, but for the rest of us, it's a solid pick for the price. This score represents how well drives do throughout the entire PCMark 10 run, and are the sanctioned scores presented by UL's software at the end of each run. Western Digital rates the 1TB variant of the drive (the one we're testing here) for peak throughput of 2,400MBps on sequential reads and 1,950MBps on writes, and it carries a five-year warranty. Every WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD goes through extensive compatibility and reliability testing to ensure it meets the high standards of the WD brand. WD - Blue 1TB Internal SATA Solid State Drive. The lack of moving parts ensures virtually zero noise when operating, and it also reduces the risk of data loss … WD has launched its new SSDs to the market, WD Blue and Green - here's our... WD Blue SSD 1TB review: TLC NAND flash with SLC cache technology. High capacity and enhanced reliability Enhanced power efficiency Superior performance 5 year limited warranty . Optimized for multitasking and resource-heavy applications. The higher lane allocation puts the SN550 on par with most other mainstream M.2 drives nowadays. 1TB SSD, WDS100T2B0A - WD Blue PC SSD 2.5”/7mm cased, 3D NAND, SATA III - 6Gb/s, Read 560MB/s, Write 530MB/s, 95k/84k IOPS, 5 Year Warranty. Depending on the complexity of your work and the number of elements in a scene, your software may have to load 3D models, sound files, physics elements, and more. The WD Blue SSD is WD first branded SATA SSD … Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. But they're nonetheless interesting fodder for folks who live and breathe these Adobe apps. The drives can currently be found on the WD store - further retailers are set to feature the new WD SSDs. WD Drive Utilities for Mac. On 11 October 2016, SanDisk (now a WD company) released the WD Blue and Green line of SSDs to the market. Let's get into the drag races. The drive is marketed as a low power drive, which consumes very little energy - laptop users might rejoice to know that when the WD Blue is combined with both Slumber and DEVSLP modes, the drive will only require as little as 4.9mW. The drive comes with a limited three year warranty. Industry-leading 1.75M hours mean time to failures (MTTF) for lasting reliability. By Christopher Minasians, Contributor | 11 Oct 2016. Okay, off of PCMark 10 and onto a more traditional measure. Also released today is the WD Green, an OEM version of the same drive, once again in both M.2 and 2.5” form factors and with the same capacities. WD’s Blue SN550 is available in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities to suit the mainstream crowd. GoodSync for WD. The first test is the Windows 10 boot trace, which simulates a full operating system startup procedure and records how quickly the drive is able to feed the data required for that task. The WD Blue is a SATA SSD that comes in two form factors (2.5” or M.2) and three capacities: 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. WD Blue 3D NAND SATA 1 TB Internal SSD - 2.5" Take advantage of high reliability and impressive capacity with this WD Blue 1TB internal solid-state drive. Whether you’re working, creating, casually gaming, or processing large amounts of data, take advantage of this powerful internal drive’s high speeds to do more, faster. Beyond the raw bandwidth numbers, it's clear that the WD Blue SN550 is a great pick for all-around budget buyers who aren't overly concerned about write-durability ratings. Other than offering another option to PC builders and those who want to ramp up their PCs performance, the WD Blue SSD isn't anything to shout about, especially at its higher price per GB. If you're looking for a solid SSD that can do almost everything it promises at a respectable price point, the WD Blue SN550 is worth a second a third look. We received the WD Blue 1TB (that comes with 931GB of real-world capacity), which according to WD is able to last 400TB of written data (TBW). Simon Crisp December 10, 2019 Featured Tech News, Featured Tech Reviews, Reviews, SSD Drives, Tech News. The 250GB offers 100TBW and 500GB is rated at 200TBW. Through our CrystalDiskMark (CDM) Random benchmarks, we found the WD Blue SSD 1TB to sit in the middle - performance was consistent, with a sequential read of 498.1MB/s and write of 472.1MB/s, the drive can be used to store large files. There are a lot of elements that creative applications need to load. WD also found a workaround for this, including just a few megabytes of SRAM on the in-house Western Digital controller, rather than the larger SRAM caches that you might see on other drives that implement a similar technique. 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