Feed: AnandTech
Feed Link: https://www.anandtech.com
---

Title: Western Digital Rolls Out Updated Budget WD Blue SN5000 SSDs, Adds 4TB
Model

Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2024 10:00:00 EDT
Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/21454/western-...

Western Digital expanded its WD Blue NVMe family of budget SSDs this week
with the introduction of the the WD Blue SN5000 series, an updated lineup of
SSDs that, among other things, adds a 4 TB model. Being budget drives, the
SN5000 series is not going to be a performance monster, but their combination
of capacity, reliability, and relatively low price could make them popular
both among casual buyers and among enthusiasts looking for relatively cheap
bulk solid-state storage.

Western Digital's WD Blue SN500 NVMe drives come in an M.2-2280 form-factor
and are based around an in-house WD controller (the company rarely discloses
their codenames these days). WD's controller is a 4 channel, DRAMless design,
which is what we typically see for budget and mainstream SSDs. Externally,
the controller supports a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection, and per WD's
specifications, even this budget drive should be fast enough to put the
additional bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 to good use. All of the drives are single-
sided, and are covered with a thin graphene heatspreader for heat
dissipation.

More surprising here is WD's choice of NAND. According to the company, they
are using a mix of different generations and different types of NAND,
depending on the model. The 500GB/1TB/2TB models are using WD/Kioxia's older
112 layer BiCS 5 TLC NAND. Meanwhile the new 4TB capacity is being enabled
with the company's newer BiCS 6 NAND - but the QLC variety. All drive
capacities are being backed by the same controller, so there is a thread of
commonality between them, but at a high level WD seems to be using the higher
performance of BiCS 6 to offset the switch from TLC to QLC.

WD Blue SN5000 SSD Specifications Capacity 500 GB 1 TB 2 TB 4 TB Controller
WD In-House: 4 Channel, DRAMless NAND Flash WD BiCS 5 TLC WD BiCS 6 QLC Form-
Factor, Interface Single-Sided M.2-2280, PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe Sequential Read
5000 MB/s 5150 MB/s 5150 MB/s 5500 MB/s Sequential Write 4000 MB/s 4900 MB/s
4850 MB/s 5000 MB/s Random Read IOPS 460K 730K 650K 690K Random Write IOPS
770K 800K Peak Power 6.3W? SLC Caching Yes TCG Pyrite Encryption 2.01
Warranty 5 Years Write Endurance 300 TBW
0.33 DWPD 600 TBW
0.33 DWPD 900 TBW
0.24 DWPD 1200 TBW
0.16 DWPD MSRP $70 $80 $140 $280

When it comes to performance, the WD Blue SN5000 series drives are rated for
read speeds between 5000 MB/sec and 5500 MB/sec depending on the capacity,
while write speeds range from 4000 MB/sec to 5000 MB/sec. As for random
performance, we are looking at up to 690K 4K IOPS random read speeds as well
as up to 900K 4K IOPS random write speeds for the highest capacity model,
while the lower-end 500 GB model is rated for 460K/770K 4K random read/write
IOPS.

Overall, even with the 4TB model using QLC NAND, WD is touting it at offering
better performance than any of the lower capacity models. We're accustomed to
seeing QLC drives come in behind TLC drives in this respect, so that newer
generation of NAND is doing a lot of heavy lifting to put it ahead of the
other models.

This goes for write endurance as well; the 4TB QLC model has the highest
endurance rating, at 1200 TB written, followed by 900, 600, and 300 TBW for
the lower capacity models respectively. Depending on the specific drive
model, this works out to between 300 to 600 drive writes in total, or around
0.164 drive writes per day, which is typical for drives in this class.

Overall, the new drive family supplants WD's previous generation of Blue
drives, last year's SN580 series. Comparatively, the SN5000 drives are rated
to offer better sequential and random drive performance at every tier. And
the the tiny 250GB drive has been dropped entirely, making room for the new
high-capacity 4TB model at the high-end while the 500GB drive model is the
new entry-level capacity.

While the WD Blue SN5000 NVMe family seems to be well positioned to be a low-
cost drives meant to compete aggressively on the pricing, for now WD's launch
prices are a bit ambitious. The $70 price tag for the 500 GB version is
pretty typical, while the $280 recommended price for a 4TB model puts it in a
weird spot between a number of other 4TB drives. The tad slower Crucial P3
Plus 4TB can be found for $217, while WD's own considerably faster WD_Black
SN850X 4TB is only $30 more, at $310. Ultimately, given that Western
Digital's Blue drives are meant to be inexpensive SSDs, we expect retail
drive prices to catch up with market realities shortly.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528