One of the fatal points of almost all SSDs is the fact that when their DRAM collapses in number of requests or its buffer fills up the performance of the device plummets. What was designed as a weapon to maximize file transfer and play with bandwidth is a double-edged sword that WD wants to eliminate. That’s why today it launches the WD Black SN770, the first high-performance SSD without DRAM.
Without a doubt, the WD Black series is one of those that have a great reputation for performance and durability, so it makes sense that this SSD, due to the aforementioned novelty of excluding DRAM, enters directly into it. In addition, there are other small news that are interesting and highlight the good work of WD with this series of SSDs.
WD Black SN770: the way forward?
It’s a great question that is pertinent when looking at what WD has done with this Black SN770. And it is that doing without the DRAM and thus offering 4 different capacities is not an easy task, especially if you double the maximum size of the previous series.
And it is that to understand what this series of SSDs represents, it is necessary to understand that we start from the SN750 SE, a solid state drive that was offered as an update to the normal SN750 with the only change being PCIe 4.0, which did not imply any advantage performance, so it was more of a marketing move than anything else.
We now know that it was the introductory forerunner of this WD Black SN770, where the brand has overcome the Terabyte barrier. The SN750 SE was not a high-performance SSD, although it was the first without DRAM, so this new model is the first without it and is also considered among the best in transfer rate and IOPS and therefore should be the path to be followed by manufacturers, even if it is offering very high yields without being TOP.
Four different capacities and competitive prices
The speeds of each of the SSDs are limited by capacity. That said, four models are offered in the M.2 2280 form factor under PCIe 4.0 x4:
- 250GB -> 4,000MB/s sequential reading and 2,000MB/s sequential write (240,000 KB IOPS and 470,000 4KB IOPS) per $59.99.
- 500GB -> 5,000MB/s sequential reading and 4,000MB/s sequential writes (460,000 4KB IOPS and 800,000 4KB IOPS) per $79.99.
- 1TB -> 5,150MB/s sequential reading and 4,900MB/s sequential writes (740,000 4KB IOPS and 800,000 4KB IOPS) per $129.99.
- 2TB -> 5,150MB/s sequential reading and 4,850MB/s sequential writes (740,000 4KB IOPS and 800,000 4KB IOPS) per $269.99.
As we can see, the 1 TB version is 50 MB/s faster in sequential writing than the 2 TB version, something really insignificant that is mitigated by twice the capacity. WD however ensures that these new Black SN770 They are a 20% more efficient from the energy point of view than its predecessor, which we understand logically influences the final temperature of each model for good.
The launch took place in the afternoon yesterday at the prices announced just above and can now be purchased directly from their website.
