The Western Digital Blue (1TB) SSD Review: WD Returns to SSDs
by Billy Tallis on October 11, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- SSDs
- Storage
- Western Digital
- SanDisk
AnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage and unlike our Iometer tests, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, a few data points about its latency, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
The WD Blue fails to keep up with the competition on The Destroyer, trailing behind everything except the Crucial BX200. Where the SanDisk X400 was one of the fastest TLC SSDs, the WD Blue is merely acceptable.
The average service time of the WD Blue is only slightly worse than the SanDisk X400, and still clearly better than the OCZ Trion 150. This suggests that the WD Blue's lower average data rate is due to it being uniformly a bit slower, and that it isn't experiencing any severe stalling.
The WD Blue does not suffer from any more high-latency outliers than other TLC drives at the 100ms threshold, but at the 10ms threshold it is worse than average where the X400 exceeded expectations.
The WD Blue thankfully shows no regression in power efficiency and falls in the second tier of drives with energy usage, on par with the SanDisk X400.
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Lolimaster - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
At this age, anyone should put their browser cache in a virtual ramdrive. ReplyLolimaster - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
Unless you edit videos, no one noticies the 2GB/s+ speeds unless for e-pen1s rights. ReplyMagichands8 - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
That's funny you should say that since I've been noticing it for years. Every single time I move around large files to reorganize or back them up, in fact. But I'm sure that I'm the only non-video editing person on the planet who doesn't use his computer exclusively for reading and writing tiny text files and browsing the internet. I'm also sure that I'm the only who would have a problem paying a premium for very low capacity devices just so I could experience their limitations. Replynpz - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
Except the NAND and controllers used here WONT give you any better performance on pcie interface. ReplyMagichands8 - Friday, October 14, 2016 - link
Of course. That being a part of my whole point. No matter how you look at these products they're a massive fail. ReplyMichael Bay - Thursday, October 13, 2016 - link
Oy vey, nobody in the market cares for my special snowflake wants, it`s anudda shoah! Replymapesdhs - Friday, October 14, 2016 - link
You need more explosions in your posts. ;D Replybeginner99 - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
It's cheap but not really excitingly cheap. Doesn't really beat the aged MX200 which also comes with MLC NAND which I deem superior to this TLC low-end crap. Only advantage this has over MX200 is price. Good for a cheapo game-drive maybe but would avoid as OS drive. ReplyArnulf - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
Ewww, 15nm planar TLC along with WD branding. ReplyJimmiG - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
I remember the time when the 850 Evo was considered a "budget" SSD. Now it's almost a high-end SSD. Reply