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Today, Western Digital announces a major expansion of its WD Black family of gaming-oriented storage products. At a digital event later today on Twitch, Western Digital will introduce its first PCIe Gen4 SSD, a new high-end PCIe Gen3 SSD, and its first Thunderbolt Dock.
Black WD SSD SN850 PCIe Gen4
The new WD Black SN850 is Western Digital’s first PCIe 4 SSD and the successor to its WD Black SN750. The SN850 features Western Digital’s second-generation internal NVMe SSD controller and can achieve speeds of 7GB / s (sequential) and 1M IOPS (random). The SN850 will initially be available as a standard M.2 NVMe SSD, suitable for gaming PCs and is expected to work on the next Sony PS5. Western Digital is also working on a version of the WD Black SN850 that will add a heat sink and RGB lighting. The plain M.2 version will hit the market later this fall with capacities from 500GB to 2TB, while the RGB + heatsink version probably won’t be ready until next year.
| WD Black SN850 Specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 500 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | ||
| Form factor | M.2 2280 single-sided optional heat sink |
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| Interface | PCIe 4 x4 NVMe | ||||
| Controller | In-house Western Digital, second generation | ||||
| NAND flash | SanDisk 3D TLC | ||||
| Sequential reading | 7000 MB / s | ||||
| Sequential write | 4100 MB / s | 5300 MB / s | 5100 MB / s | ||
| Warranty | 5 years | ||||
| Write resistance | 300 TB 0.3 DWPD |
600 TB 0.3 DWPD |
1200 TB 0.3 DWPD |
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| MSRP (Without heat sink) |
$ 149.99 | $ 229.99 | $ 449.99 | ||
WD Black AN1500 SSD: PCIe Gen4 Speeds for Gen3 Systems
For desktop gamers that only support PCIe Gen3 speeds, Western Digital introduces a new high-end SSD option. The WD Black AN1500 PCIe 3 x8 add-in card SSD places two of its SN730 SSDs (OEM equivalents of the SN750) in a RAID-0 configuration for increased performance and capacity. The AN1500 uses the Marvell 88NR2241 NVMe RAID chip, which we reported earlier this week as part of HPE’s new RAID1 card for server boot drives. Thanks to that hardware RAID capability, the AN1500 operates as a single drive with a PCIe 3.0 x8 uplink enabling 6.5 GB / s read speeds and 4.1 GB / s write speeds. Since the AN1500 uses a pair of SN730 / SN750 M.2 SSDs internally, the capabilities of the AN1500 are doubled: the smallest model is 1TB and the largest option is 4TB. The card is shielded by a substantial aluminum heat sink and backplate that match the recent WD_BLACK design language, including customizable RGB lighting around the edge.
There are single chip NVMe SSD controllers that support a PCIe 3 x8 interface, but they are only used in high-end enterprise SSDs. That means the WD Black AN1500 is the first consumer NVMe SSD capable of using an 8-lane interface, without the hassle of software RAID as used by competing NVMe RAID solutions. The AN1500 does not require host system PCIe port fork support and can also be used (with reduced performance) in PCIe slots that only provide four lanes of PCIe.
| WD Black AN1500 Specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 1 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | ||
| Form factor | PCIe add-in card | ||||
| Interface | PCIe 3 x8 | ||||
| Controller | 2x Internal WD NVMe + Marvell 88NR2241 RAID-0 | ||||
| NAND flash | SanDisk 3D TLC | ||||
| Sequential reading | 6500 MB / s | ||||
| Sequential write | 4100 MB / s | ||||
| 4kB Random Read IOPS | 760k | 780k | 780k | ||
| 4kB Random Write IOPS | 690k | 700k | 710k | ||
| Power | Read | 15.7 W | |||
| to write | 12.8 W | ||||
| Idle | 8.5 W | ||||
| Warranty | 5 years | ||||
| MSRP | $ 299.99 | $ 549.99 | $ 999.99 | ||
WD Black D50 Thunderbolt 3 Gaming Dock
The WD Black product family for external storage is also getting a new member. The current lineup consists of the P10 portable hard drive, the P50 portable SSD, and the D10 3.5 “desktop external hard drive. The obvious gap is a desktop-oriented external SSD, but the new Western Digital WD Black D50 goes a bit further. There: Rather than simply providing Thunderbolt-connected NVMe storage, the D50 is a complete Thunderbolt 3 dock that provides a variety of port expansion. The D50 Gaming Dock will be available with 1TB or 2TB of NVMe storage, and in a single version for base without None of the three models is intended to allow the user to upgrade storage, of course customizable RGB lighting is present.
The natural competitor to the WD Black D50 will be Seagate’s similar FireCuda Gaming Dock. The Seagate dock comes with a 4TB hard drive and an empty M.2 PCIe slot for the user to install the SSD of their choice, and a few more ports. The WD Black D50 Gaming Dock is smaller overall, provides power to a connected laptop, and is designed to be used in a portrait orientation; It has a weighted base to help keep it upright.
The WD Black D50 without built-in storage has an MSRP of $ 319.99, the 1TB model costs $ 499.99, and the 2TB model costs $ 679.99.
As Western Digital continues to move its WD Black brand toward a specific focus on gaming, products have inevitably become infected with RGB lighting. Western Digital’s own WD_BLACK Dashboard software for Windows can control these lighting elements, but Western Digital is also working to integrate with other RGB control systems. They currently have support for Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and ASUS Aura, and support for Razer Chroma RGB will be ready soon.
