Western Digital Announces the WD Black PCIe SSD

[Raevenlord]

Western Digital has announced the WD Black PCIe SSD, their first PCIe SSD for the consumer market. This particular SSD is aimed at the cheaper half of the M.2 PCIe SSD market rather than competing for the highest performance: it will be available in 256GB and 512GB capacities for $109 and $199.99 respectively, making it cheaper than any currently available M.2 PCIe SSD except the Intel 600p.





The WD Black makes use of the PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe interface, and offers sequential read speeds of 2050 MB/s for both 256 GB and 512 GB capacities, with the smaller capacity drive offering sequential write speeds of 700 MB/s and its bigger sibling upping that to 800 MB/s. The drives' random read (4 KB) is rated at 170K IOPS, whereas the random write (4 KB) is rated at 130k IOPS on the 256 GB drive and 134K on the 512 GB one. Both drives sport peak power consumption of 8.25W, and idle of just 5.5 mW. Write endurance ratings are 80 TB and 160 TB for the 256GB and 512GB models respectively, with Western Digital throwing in a 5-year warranty and 1.75M hour MTTF rating for good measure.

Western Digital says its firmware includes advanced power and thermal management algorithms that supposedly allow for consistent performance and low power consumption. The WD Black is rated for operating temperatures up to 70°C, so it may engage thermal throttling at a lower temperature than some other PCIe SSD.

The WD Black PCIe SSD will be available in the first half of 2017.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RejZoR]

I don't understand why they don't make regular SSD drives. You know, the segment of the market most interested in upgrades these days?

 

[silentbogo]

I don't understand why they don't make regular SSD drives. You know, the segment of the market most interested in upgrades these days?

They do, and that's not including an extensive SanDisk lineup, that they now own.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I don't understand why they don't make regular SSD drives. You know, the segment of the market most interested in upgrades these days?

Define regular. The market is over saturated with SATA3 SSDs, while the M2 market is still on its infancy. I would love to see more 1 and 2TB M2 SSD tbh.

Btw, I really hope this is way faster than those shitty pieces of junk called Intel 600p, slower than SATA drives.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Define regular. The market is over saturated with SATA3 SSDs, while the M2 market is still on its infancy. I would love to see more 1 and 2TB M2 SSD tbh.

Btw, I really hope this is way faster than those shitty pieces of junk called Intel 600p, slower than SATA drives.

Faster, but hardly way faster http://www.anandtech.com/show/10994/western-digital-announces-wd-black-pcie-ssd

 

[Aquinus]

I don't understand why they don't make regular SSD drives. You know, the segment of the market most interested in upgrades these days?

You would be surprised at how many thin laptops only use M.2 now. My wife's Lenovo Yoga only has space for a M.2 card and comes with one, same with my Macbook Pro for work.

 

[AsRock]

The WD Black is rated for operating temperatures up to 70°C, so it may engage thermal throttling at a lower temperature than some other PCIe SSD.

And yet they still put a big fat sticker on the chips, some one need to make a thermal sticker so a heat sink would work better when applied.

 

[cdawall]

I don't understand why they don't make regular SSD drives. You know, the segment of the market most interested in upgrades these days?

So you are saying less companies should sell nvme drives? Yea no. We need more options in that market everyone sells a stupid sata3 drive they are all the same. Nvme actually requires shopping.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

And yet they still put a big fat sticker on the chips, some one need to make a thermal sticker so a heat sink would work better when applied.

If its anything like Samsung, then the sticker doubles as heat spreader with some form of metal on the bottom side. Sticker is hopefully not just decoration.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

And yet ANOTHER NVMe lineup that tops out at 512GB. Why is only samsung making 1TB, or heck, 2TB NVMe drives?

Also, that write endurance is atrocious. only 160TB on a 512GB drive?

 

[cdawall]

And yet ANOTHER NVMe lineup that tops out at 512GB. Why is only samsung making 1TB, or heck, 2TB NVMe drives?

Also, that write endurance is atrocious. only 160TB on a 512GB drive?

Intel, OCZ (Toshiba), SK Hynix and Samsung all make 1TB NVMe drives.


http://ark.intel.com/products/94926/Intel-SSD-600p-Series-1_0TB-M_2-80mm-PCIe-3_0-x4-3D1-TLC

https://ocz.com/us/ssd/rd400-ssd

https://www.skhynix.com/eng/product/ssdClient.jsp

Lite on currently uses the SK Hynix product rebranded.

 

[AsRock]

If its anything like Samsung, then the sticker doubles as heat spreader with some form of metal on the bottom side. Sticker is hopefully not just decoration.

I say put the dam sticker on the other side in the 1st place. or a real heasink with a sticker on it.

We know it may throttle but we make it worse by sticking a sticker on it HAHA, Meh and people buy them still. OMG shit hit the fan if AMD or nvidia did that to memory chips on the back of the card.

But apparently these company's get away with this BS>

 

[cdawall]

I say put the dam sticker on the other side in the 1st place. or a real heasink with a sticker on it.

We know it may throttle but we make it worse by sticking a sticker on it HAHA, Meh and people buy them still. OMG shit hit the fan if AMD or nvidia did that to memory chips on the back of the card.

But apparently these company's get away with this BS>

Hard to put a heatsink on something that they say will fit in an ultrabook with zero clearance and hopefully a thermal pad attaching it to the case.

 

[Hood]

everyone sells a stupid sata3 drive they are all the same. Nvme actually requires shopping.

After owning several 850 Pro drives, that segment does seem stagnant and boring. For now, though, SATA SSDs are the mainstream upgrade path for the millions of PCs that still have mechanical hard drives. As such they are relevant for the push to eliminate spinning rust altogether, as they surely will when SSDs are $100/TB and less. NVMe drives are sort of in the same place SATA SSDs were 10 years ago - an expensive enthusiast option and not ready for mainstream adoption. Apparently even SATA SSDs aren't really mainstream yet, as Dell's latest desktop offerings don't include an SSD as standard until the price reaches $1800.

 

[cdawall]

After owning several 850 Pro drives, that segment does seem stagnant and boring. For now, though, SATA SSDs are the mainstream upgrade path for the millions of PCs that still have mechanical hard drives. As such they are relevant for the push to eliminate spinning rust altogether, as they surely will when SSDs are $100/TB and less. NVMe drives are sort of in the same place SATA SSDs were 10 years ago - an expensive enthusiast option and not ready for mainstream adoption. Apparently even SATA SSDs aren't really mainstream yet, as Dell's latest desktop offerings don't include an SSD as standard until the price reaches $1800.

There are cheaper models that offer an SSD. If you walk into a computer store you can get Dell, HP, acer and Lenovo models in the $600-900 price range with a 256GB/1 or 2TB drive

 

[silentbogo]

NVMe drives are sort of in the same place SATA SSDs were 10 years ago - an expensive enthusiast option and not ready for mainstream adoption.

That's probably as ridiculous as riding a donkey backwards with a broomstick on a joust...
I still have a fresh imprint in my memory of buying a 2.5" Sandisk X400 for $135 and being super-happy because normally in my country it would cost almost twice than it was @ newegg upon release (something like ~$149.99 originally).
And not much further than 3-4 years ago I paid almost $190 for my very first 240GB SATA-III SSD. Don't even want to remember how much I paid for my 128GB XP941...

Not really mainstream? Who cares. It's same size same price, twice the speed in half the package!
With this rate of price drops on NVMe drives I could probably afford a 1TB upgrade by this same time next year. Maybe even throw away my bottom-mounted HDD rack in favor of CPU watercooling.

The reason SSD's are not popular/mainstream - is habit.
Just like buying a TV: an enthusiast looks at specs/features, and a normal person looks at screen size and how cool it's gonna look in his/her living room.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Is funny how SATA Express arrived dead in water and there are no solution for this standard ))))

Which is a very good thing tbh.