Western Digital Rolls Out Up to date Funds WD Blue SN5000 SSDs, Provides 4TB Mannequin

Western Digital expanded its WD Blue NVMe household of finances SSDs this week with the introduction of the the WD Blue SN5000 sequence, an up to date lineup of SSDs that, amongst different issues, provides a 4 TB mannequin. Being finances drives, the SN5000 sequence is just not going to be a efficiency monster, however their mixture of capability, reliability, and comparatively low worth might make them common each amongst informal patrons and amongst lovers on the lookout for comparatively low cost bulk solid-state storage.

Western Digital’s WD Blue SN500 NVMe drives are available an M.2-2280 form-factor and are based mostly round an in-house WD controller (the corporate not often discloses their codenames lately). WD’s controller is a 4 channel, DRAMless design, which is what we usually see for finances and mainstream SSDs. Externally, the controller helps a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection, and per WD’s specs, even this finances drive needs to be quick sufficient to place the extra bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 to good use. All the drives are single-sided, and are coated with a skinny graphene heatspreader for warmth dissipation.

Extra shocking right here is WD’s selection of NAND. Based on the corporate, they’re utilizing a mixture of completely different generations and various kinds of NAND, relying on the mannequin. The 500GB/1TB/2TB fashions are utilizing WD/Kioxia’s older 112 layer BiCS 5 TLC NAND. In the meantime the brand new 4TB capability is being enabled with the corporate’s newer BiCS 6 NAND – however the QLC selection. All drive capacities are being backed by the identical controller, so there’s a thread of commonality between them, however at a excessive stage WD appears to be utilizing the upper efficiency of BiCS 6 to offset the change from TLC to QLC.

On the subject of efficiency, the WD Blue SN5000 sequence drives are rated for learn speeds between 5000 MB/sec and 5500 MB/sec relying on the capability, whereas write speeds vary from 4000 MB/sec to 5000 MB/sec. As for random efficiency, we’re taking a look at as much as 690K 4K IOPS random learn speeds in addition to as much as 900K 4K IOPS random write speeds for the best capability mannequin, whereas the lower-end 500 GB mannequin is rated for 460K/770K 4K random learn/write IOPS.

Total, even with the 4TB mannequin utilizing QLC NAND, WD is touting it at providing higher efficiency than any of the decrease capability fashions. We’re accustomed to seeing QLC drives are available behind TLC drives on this respect, in order that newer technology of NAND is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting to place it forward of the opposite fashions.

This goes for write endurance as effectively; the 4TB QLC mannequin has the best endurance ranking, at 1200 TB written, adopted by 900, 600, and 300 TBW for the decrease capability fashions respectively. Relying on the particular drive mannequin, this works out to between 300 to 600 drive writes in complete, or round 0.164 drive writes per day, which is typical for drives on this class.

Total, the brand new drive household supplants WD’s earlier technology of Blue drives, last year’s SN580 series. Comparatively, the SN5000 drives are rated to supply higher sequential and random drive efficiency at each tier. And the the tiny 250GB drive has been dropped totally, making room for the brand new high-capacity 4TB mannequin on the high-end whereas the 500GB drive mannequin is the brand new entry-level capability.

Whereas the WD Blue SN5000 NVMe household appears to be effectively positioned to be a low-cost drives meant to compete aggressively on the pricing, for now WD’s launch costs are a bit formidable. The $70 price ticket for the five hundred GB model is fairly typical, whereas the $280 advisable worth for a 4TB mannequin places it in a bizarre spot between numerous different 4TB drives. The tad slower Essential P3 Plus 4TB could be discovered for $217, whereas WD’s personal significantly sooner WD_Black SN850X 4TB is barely $30 extra, at $310. Finally, provided that Western Digital’s Blue drives are supposed to be cheap SSDs, we anticipate retail drive costs to meet up with market realities shortly.