WD Black SN850X SSD: Face-meltingly fast

Comes darn close to supplanting the FireCuda 530 in real-world testing as well as random ops.

- JON L. JACOBI

WD's Black SN850X lit up our test meters with outstanding real-world and random performance. It equaled or surpassed the mighty Seagate FireCuda 530 (fave.co/3vs8HYI) in a couple of tests, and by a rather wide margin in one.

Even if it couldn't quite match its rival's sequential throughput under synthetic benchmarks, the SN850's overall performance makes it a more than viable alternative to Seagate's best. It's also just a bit cheaper, though its TBW ratings are also far lower.

PRICE AND DESIGN

As you might guess given our glowing report on performance, you won't be seeing the WD Black SN850X in the bargain bin. Indeed, while it's less expensive than the FireCuda 530 at the moment, it's still not cheap, with an MSRP of $160 for the ITB model, $290 for the 2TB, and $700 for the 4TB capacity. Add $20 if you want a heatsink (most modern motherboards provide their own) for the 1TB and 2TB capacities. The 1TB and 2TB (tested) versions are single-sided; I’m guessing the 4TB is double-sided, hence the lack of a heatsink option.

The SSDs themselves sport the usual 2280 (22mm×80mm) M.2 form factor and are PCIe 4×4 NVMe types. The NAND is 112-layer TLC (Triple-Level Cell/3-bit) with what the company claims is a Western Digital–designed controller. WD’s solid state expertise comes courtesy of SanDisk, a company it purchased a while back, and that’s the name on the controller.

WD provides a generous five-year warranty, but the TBW (terabytes that may be written) ratings, while about average for cheaper drives, are a bit parsimonious for a top-shelf drive—basically, 600TBW for every 1TB of capacity, less than half of what Seagate provides for the FireCuda 530.