Today, we are looking at the WD Blue SN5000 1TB NVMe SSD. WD is always a popular brand for SSDs, and the Blue line is targeted at a mainstream and price-conscious audience. Previous WD Blue drives have been generally well received, and the WD Blue SN5000 has some expectations to fill in order to compete. Frequent readers might remember that we recently covered the WD Black SN7100, which is a visually similar drive targeting the high-end, while leaving the SN5000 to focus on a more midrange or mainstream audience.
WD Blue SN5000 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD
The WD Blue SN5000 1TB comes in a single-sided M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor.
The SN5000 version of the WD Blue drive retains its distinctive physical appearance. At this point the physical distance between the NAND package and the controller might as well be trademarked by WD, and this arrangement has been put forth as thermally advantageous with mixed results according to my testing. Regardless, the SN5000 is similar to the WD SN7100 in that it is highly vertically integrated; what I mean by that is that WD manufacturers the NAND as well as the controller, and there is no DRAM cache. The NAND is Kioxia 112-layer TLC, and the controller is an in-house controller proprietary to WD.
From what we understand, the 4TB model of the WD Blue SN5000 is equipped with Kioxia 162-layer QLC, rather than TLC.
The backside of the SN5000 contains nothing but silkscreened labels.
WD Blue 1TB SSD Specs
The WD Blue SN5000 is available between 500GB and 4TB capacity points.
My 1TB model comes rated for 5150MB/s read and 4900MB/s write, and is clearly targeting mid-range performance well below the maximum potential of its Gen4 interface. With that said, the SN5000 is more aggressive than its predecessor, the SN580, which only targeted 4150 MB/s for both read and write, so by that metric the SN5000 represents an upgrade.
Endurance is rated at 600 TBW for the 1TB drive, which is right in line with my standards for what is acceptable. Unfortunately, the 2TB drive is twice the capacity but only 50% additional endurance at 900 TBW, and the 4TB SKU is even worse off at only 1200 TBW endurance. While casual and mainstream users are still unlikely to encounter endurance issues with these drives, for drive capacities above 1TB these do fall below what I look for. Thankfully, the warranty is the industry-standard 5 years.
One note for the eagle-eyed, while the 500GB through 2TB models of the SN5000 use TLC, the 4TB SKU comes with QLC. Rated performance is similar to the rest of the SN5000 line, and the modest performance claims of the SN5000 line are certainly achievable by QLC, it is still something to keep in mind if you are considering the largest drive in the lineup.
CrystalDiskInfo can give us some basic information about the SSD and confirms we are operating at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds using NVMe 1.4.
Test System Configuration
We are using the following configuration for this test:
- Motherboard: MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (12C/24T)
- RAM: 2x 16GB DDR5-6000 UDIMMs
Our testing uses the WD Blue 1TB as the boot drive for the system, installed in the M.2_1 slot on the motherboard. This slot supports up to PCIe Gen 5 x4. The drive is filled to 85% capacity with data, and then some is deleted, leaving around 60% used space on the volume.
Next, we are going to get into our performance testing.
The review touches on the 4TB model as being QLC but I think undersells what’s been achieved. Benchmarks from a few other reviews I’ve seen show the 4TB model’s next gen QLC flash sustaining 540-600MBps post cache speed, which is closer to TLC level than past gen QLC and at least as performant as the TLC model figures here.
Greg,
I’ve got one of the 4TB drives, I plan on doing a review on it, but preliminary testing lines up with what you’re saying.
Thanks for the review!
I only wish we in the ‘server community’ could refrain from going away from the DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) classification as it serves a good understanding on how durable the drive is according to daily usage. Often it would also be the same across the capacities but in this particular review it would highlight the different technology used. To only write out the TBW value adds a math equation on readers part.
Thanks.