My testing of the WD Blue SN5100 found it to be a worthy PCIe 4.0 successor

Best Prices Today: WD Blue SN5100

When push involves shove, not an entire lot of customers want or can use 14GBps PCIe 5.0 NVMe efficiency. Especially when Windows Explorer can’t take full advantage of it.

So why pay additional money for one thing you don’t want when you’ll be able to have one thing considerably cheaper such because the PCIe 4.0 WD Blue SN5100, which will get you 95 % of the best way there 95 % of the time?

Also, what some readers could not notice is that a lot of the perceived (and actual) efficiency of NVMe comes courtesy of its lightning-fast search occasions. These don’t enhance considerably by technology — PCIe. 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 SSDs are nearly as fast to find recordsdata as PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

As to the corporate’s competitors with itself for longest product moniker — WD is profitable. “WD Blue SN5100 powered by Sandisk,” which is the drive’s full PR identify, trumps even “WD Passport HDD, works with USB C” by a few letters. Congrats.

Read on to study extra, then see our roundup of the best SSDs for comparability.

What are the WD Blue SN5100’s options?

The WD Blue SN5100, successor to the SN5000, is a 2280 (22mm vast, 80mm lengthy) NVMe 2.0, PCIe 4.0 SSD using a Sandisk controller and 332-layer Sandisk BiCS8 QLC NAND. It’s additionally single-sided so the SSD will slot in nearly any 2280 NVMe-capable system.

QLC stands for Quad-Layer Cell (4-bit), which generally performs in addition to different NAND till you exhaust secondary cache (QLC written as SLC to be later written as QLC) throughout lengthy writes.

In the case of newer QLC, it’s not fairly as tragic as with older variations — sustained transfers drop solely to SATA SSD ranges, not 2.5-inch SATA HDD ranges or worse, as was the case.

Jon L. Jacobi

The Blue SN5100 is a number reminiscence buffer (HMB) design, that means it makes use of system reminiscence for main caching roles. HMB designs are sometimes simply as quick and even sooner than designs that use devoted DRAM for main caching (relying on the way you switch recordsdata) with sustained reads and writes, however not as quick as DRAM designs on the subject of smaller random operations.

How a lot does the WD Blue SN5100 price?

This is the deal, isn’t it? Competition on the low-end of the SSD market, and PCIe 4.0 HMB is the low-end as of late, is fierce and there’s not an entire lot of distinction in worth between the highest canine.

That makes the retail costs that WD quoted to me a bit on the excessive aspect: $55 for 500GB, $80 for 1TB, $150 for 2TB, and $300 for 4TB. No doubt you’ll discover them cheaper not lengthy after launch as there are just too many cheaper choices for these costs to carry — model identify or not.

How quick is the WD Blue SN5100?

Until it runs out of secondary cache when writing giant quantities of information, the 2TB Blue SN5100 that I examined may be very quick for a PCIe 4.0 host reminiscence buffer SSD.

Even when secondary cache does run out, write speeds waffle between a satisfactory 250MBps and 700MBps. This signifies that you doubtless gained’t run screaming into the night time cursing the one that really useful the drive if and while you see the write price drop. Hint, trace…

The Blue SN5100 was a particular enchancment over the older Blue SN5000 by way of sustained throughput, although a bit surprisingly, the older drive proved more proficient throughout CrystalDiskMark 8’s random operations assessments.

Note that the SN5000 proven within the charts is the 4TB model, which featured BiCS6 QLC, the place the 1TB and 2TB variations used sooner TLC. As far as I do know, all capacities of the SN5100 use the aforementioned BiCS8 QLC.

As talked about, I used to be not anticipating the SN5100 to fall so handily to its older cousin in CrystalDiskMark 8’s 4K assessments. This makes the older SN5000 doubtless the higher SSD for working an OS off of.

One significantly sluggish write (a 48GB folder below Explorer) within the 48GB switch assessments (which now embody the far sooner Xcopy and FastCopy outcomes) noticed the Blue SN5100 lose by simply over a second to the SN5000. However, it bettered the older drive within the majority of assessments.

Note that Windows Explorer tends to even out efficiency by advantage of being relative rubbish at transfers — even in comparison with its personal command-line Xcopy. The Xcopy and FastCopy outcomes are extra indicative of true efficiency and I extremely advocate the latter to avoid wasting time throughout giant file transfers.

The following 450GB write outcomes once more spotlight the Blue SN5100’s benefit in sustained throughput over the older Blue SN5000. It rivals WD’s personal Black SN7100.

I stored ready for the Blue SN5100 to falter within the 48GB and 450GB write assessments, however I couldn’t drive it to deplete its secondary cache (QLC written as SLC) till I wrote a 950GB file to it. At simply previous the 500GB mark, the slowdown made it fairly apparent that the NAND was QLC.

That stated, this QLC iteration is kind of a bit sooner writing than older QLC, waffling between 250MBps to 500MBps whereas older generations might drop to as little as 75MBps and keep there. Livable, if not optimum, and the way usually will you write 950GB in a single fell swoop?

Note that the 4TB SN5000 additionally has a livable native (off secondary cache) write price.

The Blue SN5100 is a particular enchancment over its predecessor by way of sustained throughput, and an excellent SSD for the typical consumer, however pay attention to that QLC native write pace (no secondary cache) when you often write giant quantities of information. Most customers gained’t ever see the drop although it can happen considerably sooner within the much less capacious 500GB and 1TB fashions.

On the opposite hand, you aren’t giving up all that a lot when you discover the Blue SN5000 at a considerably lower cost.

Should you purchase the WD Blue SN5100?

At the proper worth, and for the proper causes, sure. It’s quick sufficient for many customers, and quick sufficient in most eventualities for all however the pickiest execs. Plus, whereas it slows down loads in super-long writes, it’s not a stupidly painful drop.

How we take a look at

Drive assessments presently make the most of Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit working off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 feeding/fed by two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence whole). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are built-in and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. PCIe 5.0 SSDs concerned in testing are mounted in a Asus ROG PCIe 5.0 M.2 adapter card or a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 4-port M.2 adapter card.

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8 (and 9), AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 artificial benchmarks (to maintain article size down, we solely report one) to seek out the storage system’s potential efficiency, then a collection of 48GB and 450GB transfers assessments utilizing Windows Explorer drag and drop to indicate what you’ll see below Window, in addition to the far sooner Xcopy and FastCopy to indicate what’s doable.

A 25GBps two-SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Highpoint 7604A is used because the second drive in our switch assessments. Formerly the 48GB assessments had been finished with a RAM disk.

Each take a look at is carried out on a NTFS-formatted and newly TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency could lower as a result of much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different elements. This concern has abated somewher with the present crop of SSDs with extra mature controllers and much sooner late-generation NAND.

Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we had been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can range by capability as a result of extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND out there for secondary caching. Vendors additionally sometimes swap parts. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.