WD Black SN850X PCIe 4.0 drive review: What a gaming SSD should be

The most popular high-performance SSDs for consumer PCs, the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850, were released about two years ago.
They are still in high demand, but frankly, they are no longer the best and fastest PCIe 4.0 drives today.
The situation was fundamentally changed by the advent of Micron B47R 176-layer TLC memory, which allowed other SSD developers to release not only comparable speeds, but even faster models.
The Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850 were mainly drives based on the Phison E18 controller.
There are countless manufacturers of various calibers, and this, of course, could not go unanswered by the market leaders for long.
Both Samsung and Western Digital have chosen this fall to update their flagship SSD models and try to return their products to the leading position in the ranks of the best SSDs for high-performance gaming and work systems.
So, Samsung introduced the 990 Pro on a new Pascal chip and 176-layer proprietary memory, while Western Digital released the Black SN850X with more advanced BiCS5 memory and an improved proprietary controller.
Both models promise better performance than their predecessors, but they differ slightly in the way manufacturers present them.
If for 990 Pro the Samsung company promises \"incredible speed and endless victories\" always and in everything, the novelty Western Digital is described as a primarily gamer product with \"dizzying speed in games\" and a special Game Mode 2.0.Naturally, the laboratory 3DNews can not leave such ambitious claims without practical testing.
And first for the detailed analysis we have received the new WD Black SN850X - this drive is already available in local stores.⇡#Appearance and internal designWD Black SN850X is a drive, clearly aimed at the audience of gamers.
Therefore, it will hardly be a surprise to anyone that it is equipped with a heatsink with configurable RGB backlighting.
However, for those users who prefer SSD cooling systems available on modern motherboards, Black SN850X versions without a radiator are also available.
They are, by the way, as much as $20 cheaper.
That's why, choosing a version of the drive for a detailed acquaintance, we settled on the radiatorless terabyte.
Such storage has the recommended price of $135, and in Russia you can buy it for about 13 thousand rubles (naturally, we mean the parallel imports).
The \"bare\" WD Black SN850X will hardly surprise anybody with its appearance.
It is a single-sided M.2 2280 board with a simple sticker carrying a usual set of information: title, capacity, serial number, PSID to reset the encryption and so on.
Of interest on the label is the date of manufacture of the drive.
Our copy, for example, was released in July.
Without the label WD Black SN850X is very similar to its predecessor, Black SN850.
The PCB design of the old and new models is almost exactly the same.
Similar (but not identical) are also the sizes and markings of the chips installed on the board.
But the difference between the drives is significant, it becomes clear with a closer look.First, the new Black SN850X uses an upgraded controller: in fact we are talking about a version 2.0 proprietary eight-channel chip designed by engineers SanDisk, which was used in the Black SN850.
His new version has received support for faster types of flash memory, plus those exclusive gamer optimization and Game Mode 2.0, the presence of which the novelty is so carefully emphasized Western Digital.
Secondly, the flash memory itself has changed.
The Black SN850 was based on 96-layer BiCS4 (TLC 3D NAND), then the new drive moved to BiCS5 with 112 layers.
We have already had an opportunity to see how fast BiCS5 is on the example of WD Black SN770, because thanks to it four-channel bufferless SSD was unreachable leader in its class.
However, when using BiCS5 in the eight-channel Black SN850X there was an unpleasant nuance.
This memory has an increased to 512 Gbit capacity kernels, so in a terabyte SSD decreased the degree of parallelism - the controller can only use the double interleaving of devices in the channels.
However, the Western Digital developers believe that this is more than compensated by the accelerated to 1.2 GHz interface and a 50% reduction of latency BiCS5.
And the specifications of the new model as if to confirm the absence of the negative effect of changing the memory in a terabyte: even at this capacity new SSD promises 5-20% higher linear speeds compared to the previous model.As for the last component Black SN850X, buffer DRAM, then she, in fact, no change

China has released a tower cooler for M.2 SSDs - it can more than halve the temperature

Chinese computer component manufacturer JiuShark has released a tower cooler for M.2 form factor NVMe SSDs.
Called the JuiShark M.2 Three, the new product has two heat sinks, a heat pipe, and is also equipped with a fan.Image source: JuiSharkThe fastest NVMe drives have a tendency to overheat.
With the arrival of models equipped with the new PCIe 5.0 interface, which can deliver speeds up to twice as fast as PCIe 4.0 models, this problem may become even more acute.
JiuShark claims its new JuiShark M.2 Three is capable of reducing the temperature of a solid state NVMe drive by over 50%.The JuiShark M.2 Three is 82mm high, 35.5mm thick with the fan, and 74.5mm long.
The company has included its own 60mm diameter fan that runs at speeds up to 3000rpm, provides airflow up to 23.7 m3/h and has a noise level no higher than 25.4dBA.
The cooling system includes an aluminum block to mount the NVMe drive, which is connected by a heat pipe to a 27-rib aluminum radiator.
The contact surface of the bottom heat sink and heat pipe is CNC aligned for better thermal conductivity.
The total weight of the cooling system is 113 grams.The graphs below show the temperature of the NVMe drive with the active cooling system (bright green bar), without the fan (dark green bar), and without the fan and radiator (orange).
The test used a 500GB Samsung 980 Pro at 25 degrees Celsius ambient temperature.
The upper graph shows the temperature of the NAND flash memory chips, and the lower graph shows the temperature of the SSD controller.
The JuiShark M.2 Three cooler is available in two versions: graphene-painted (black) and unpainted.
The black version is priced at $13.30, the regular version at $8.80.

WD Black SN770 PCIe 4.0 drive review: the fantastic SSD you can't find

\"The market has decided\" is a phrase often heard from skeptics who believe that free competition without regulation inevitably leads to quality deterioration due to manufacturers' desire to reduce production costs indefinitely.
While this may be the case, the market has taken a turn for the worse in the low-cost PCIe 4.0 SSD segment.
Indeed, leading manufacturers have almost completely abandoned the use of QLC-memory in such drives and now cheapen them not at the expense of slow flash memory with low life expectancy, and by using four-channel controllers and the introduction of technology HMB instead of adding a buffer SDRAM-memory.Initially, this design does not seem a good option - until recently, bufferless NVMe-drives do not look particularly attractive, offering a deliberately lower performance against their full counterparts.
The only relatively bright spot in this segment was the Samsung 980, but even that could not compete with midrange drives even from second- or third-tier companies, let alone more pedigree products.
But progress does not stand still, and very recently the market competition gave birth to the Innogrit IG5220 bufferless platform, a high class budget solution.
The first Patriot P400 SSD in our lab was a real sensation: as it turned out, bufferless SSDs are no longer a verdict, and in real-world workloads they are quite capable of offering near-flagship performance.
Even better, the Patriot P400 has stirred up other manufacturers as well, who also began to produce similar or even better in consumer characteristics solutions.
So, quite recently Western Digital has released a novelty that is no less attractive.
Despite the fact that at the end of last year it already released bufferless PCI 4.0-drive WD Black SN750 SE based on public platform Phison E19T, now it was replaced by a new model, strengthened on all fronts - WD Black SN770.
And this is a direct result of the market mechanisms.WD Black SN750 SE, obviously, could not compete adequately with solutions like Patriot P400, and Western Digital had to urgently restructure the lineup.
And this time the company decided not to step on the same rake a second time and instead of choosing another publicly available platform for the inexpensive PCIe 4.0 SSD made its own, which should be even better.
That's how the new hero, the WD Black SN770 appeared, which, although inspired by the Innogrit IG5220 platform, is made from start to finish by SanDisk's internal engineering team.Judging by the specs, the WD Black SN770 offers about a half as much performance as the Black SN750 SE and gets into the same league as the Crucial P5 Plus, even though we are talking about a simple bufferless model.
That said, the Black SN770's recommended price is on par with the Black SN750 SE and almost identical to the Samsung 980's recommended price, which is causing a lot of interest in the novelty.
And although Western Digital drives are no longer supplied to Russia through the official channel, there is hope that the Black SN770 will still get to domestic retailers under the parallel import scheme.
To prepare ourselves for this moment, we have carried out comprehensive testing of this SSD.⇡#Appearance and internal designWD Black SN770 is made as a single-sided M.2 2280-board with black textolite and without any pre-installed cooling means.
You could say that it looks like a typical budget SSD, but there is one peculiarity - all its stuffing is tightly packed into just two chips.
One chip is a proprietary SanDisk controller labeled 20-82-10081-A1.
Western Digital does not disclose details of its developments, but we know that this chip is built on the same functional blocks as the controller 20-82-10034-A1, which is used in the flagship WD Black SN850.
But in this case it is considerably simplified: DRAM interface is removed from it, instead of which the support of HMB technology is added, as well as the number of flash-memory channels is reduced to four.
However, there is good news.
First of all, the WD Black SN770 controller still has full support for four PCIe 4.0 lanes.
Secondly, it is compatible with the modern and fast 112-layer BiCS5 memory with an interface frequency of 1.2 GHz, which Western Digital has been producing since the beginning of last year.
In fact, the second chip on the WD Black SN770 carries SanDisk's BiCS5 memory chips.
In this case it is 512 Gbit TLC 3D NAND devices in the amount corresponding to the capacity of the drive.
For the purposes of this review we are considering a terabyte, and in it the flash memory array is assembled from 16 crystals

HighPoint unveils RAID controllers for eight M.2 NVMe drives - speeds up to 28 GB/s

HighPoint has announced new SSD7140A and SSD7540 PCIe expansion cards designed to build RAID arrays from M.2 NVMe SSDs, the former working with PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, the latter with PCIe 4.0 x16.
Both support installation of up to eight SSDs.Image source: HighPointA HighPoint SSD7140A and SSD7540 cards can be combined in RAID 0, RAID 1 or RAID 10.
The first type is designed for maximum performance, the second for data backup, and the third is a combination of the first two.
Also offered is support for JBOD mode, which allows you to combine all installed drives into a single disk volume.The controllers used in the expansion cards support the installation of up to eight M.2 SSDs.
However, only four fast SSDs are sufficient for maximum throughput.
Each NVMe drive uses four PCIe lines.
Each expansion card offers support for 16 lines.
An additional four M.2 slots on the expansion cards allow for more total array capacity.
The dimensions of the HighPoint SSD7140A and SSD7540 expansion cards are 285 × 111 × 21 mm.
They are equipped with cooling systems consisting of large aluminum radiators and two fans.
The size of the latter is not specified, but they are probably up to 40mm in diameter.Since the HighPoint SSD7140A has a PCIe 3.0 interface, it can only provide a maximum data transfer rate of up to 14,000 Mbytes/s.
The HighPoint SSD7540 with the PCIe 4.0 interface offers double that, at 28,000 Mbytes/s.
However, you can combine two expansion cards of the same model into a Cross-Sync configuration, nearly doubling the speed, if desired.
So with two PCIe 3.0 cards, you can get transfer speeds of up to 28,000 Mbytes/s, and for the PCIe 4.0 model, almost 56,000 Mbytes/s.The HighPoint SSD7140A has a recommended price of $729.
The HighPoint SSD7540 with PCIe 4.0 interface is priced at $1099.
Both novelties can work in Windows and Linux operating systems.

ASUS to release ROG Strix SQ7 NVMe SSD with read speeds up to 7,000 Mbytes/s

Last month, ASUS hinted that it would release its first M.2 format NVMe SSD, to be named the ROG Strix SQ7.
Now the Taiwanese manufacturer has finally shared the specifications of its debut SSD.Image source: ASUSThe drive will be based on a Phison E18 controller with PCIe 4.0 x4 support.
The company specified that it will use 3D TLC NAND flash memory chips in the ROG Strix SQ7.
According to TechPowerUp, the published images of the device can be determined that the SSD uses 176-layer 3D TLC NAND memory from Micron.
The novelty will also get a buffer of DDR4 memory.Image source: ASUSASUS ROG Strix SQ7 will provide sequential read speed up to 7000 Mbytes/s, and sequential write - up to 6000 Mbytes/s.
In other words, it will be a flagship SSD model.
Unfortunately, the company did not specify the performance of new items in random read and write operations.Image source: TechPowerUpThe ROG Strix SQ7 is claimed to support TCG Opal and AES-256 encryption features for security.
The new product will also come with Backup Now EZ 5 software, which is a comprehensive data backup solution.
The manufacturer also mentioned about ROG Strix SQ7 compatibility with PlayStation 5 game consoles.Information about the cost and arrival date ROG Strix SQ7 company did not report.
At the moment, it is known that only one ROG Strix SQ7 model with a capacity of 1TB will be on sale.

Micron introduced the Crucial P3 and P3 Plus NVMe drives with read speeds up to 5000 Mbytes/s

Micron has introduced the Crucial P3 Plus and Crucial P3 consumer NVMe SSDs, which can be categorized as mid-priced solutions.
The former supports the PCIe 4.0 standard, the latter works with PCIe 3.0.
Both series offer drive models with capacities up to 4 TB.Image source: CrucialThe manufacturer did not go into technical details.
It only indicated that the Crucial P3 Plus series drives offer sequential read and write speeds of up to 5,000 and 4,200 MB/s, respectively.
The Crucial P3 series, in turn, offers speeds of up to 3,500 and 3,000 Mbytes/sec, respectively.
The company notes that the novelties presented are built using 176-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips by Micron.
According to the manufacturer, the solutions are ideal for professional and creative tasks, as well as for use in the gaming PC.Both series of solid-state drives Crucial P3 Plus and Crucial P3 will go on sale this summer.
The company didn't specify their cost, but it's unlikely to be too high.
For example, the more advanced Crucial P5 Plus and 1TB P5 are currently on sale in the US for $128 and $110 respectively.

Western Digital introduced PC SN740 SSDs with read speeds up to 5150 MB/s

Western Digital has introduced Western Digital PC SN740 SSDs.
The new products are designed primarily for computer OEMs, but one way or another may appear as inexpensive retail solutions.Image source: Western DigitalThe basis of Western Digital PC SN740 series drives is bufferless DRAM architecture, proprietary Western Digital controller (the manufacturer does not specify what it is), and BiCS5 3D NAND memory technology.
The 1TB and 2TB models offer sequential read speeds of up to 5,150 Mbytes per second, which is 50% faster than the previous-generation SN730.
The SN740 series SSD uses the PCIe 4.0 interface and offers support for advanced security features, including the optional TCG Opal 2.01, TCG Pyrite 2.0, and ATA password.
They also support Western Digital's proprietary SSD Dashboard software.
It can be used to monitor drive status, available space, temperature, and other media parameters.The company notes that the Western Digital PC SN740 SSDs have been certified and are already shipping to key OEM customers.
The drives are backed by a 5-year manufacturer's limited warranty.