The Western Digital Black PCIe SSD (512GB) Review
by Billy Tallis on March 8, 2017 8:30 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here.
As with The Destroyer, the WD Black's average data rate on the Heavy test is not beyond the reach of the very best SATA SSDs, but it is faster than most SATA SSDs, including the WD Blue. The WD Black also handles the pressure of a full drive better than many TLC SSDs and suffers relatively less performance drop than even some MLC-based PCIe SSDs like the Patriot Hellfire.
The average service time delivered by the WD Black scores in the low end of the range for PCIe SSDs but it is clearly better any SATA SSD. Once again the impact of running the test on a completely full drive is minimal.
The WD Black suffers from more high-latency operations over the course of the Heavy test than several SATA SSDs, but it ranks better than most budget TLC SSDs.
The WD Black's power efficiency during the Heavy test is only slightly better than the Intel SSD 600p. All of its MLC-based competition is at least a little bit more efficient, and Samsung's PCIe SSDs are much more efficient.
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dgingeri - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
At least they priced it about right. It's more expensive than the Intel 600p, but far less expensive than the 960 EVO and slightly less expensive than the M8Pe. This part of the market is odd. Usually, the fastest performing parts are FAR more expensive for just a small return on performance. In SSDs right now, the differences in price are fairly small, but the differences in performance are huge. I think the 960 EVO is about the best deal for a SSD, and this thing is just a shame to the "Black" label.Guspaz - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
So, the product called "WD Black" is coloured blue, but there is also a "WD Blue" product? Let me guess, that one has a black PCB?Gasaraki88 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
Nope, it would have made sense if they spent the money to use a black pcb for the black drive, a blue pcb for the blue drive and the green pcb for the green drive. Nope.This drive gives the "Black" label a bad name anyway.
MrSpadge - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
They probably thought "our Black HDDs are really slow nowadays, with all those budget SSDs around, so let's call a barely-not-too-slow SSD: BLACK".madspartus - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
WD Black: planar 15 nm TLC NANDI'll be sure to remember that WD doesn't give a shit about the quality and performance of their products and branding. Way to dilute the brand, hope the short term gains are worth it.
shabby - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
The branding is fine, the wd green ssd will be a qlc nand drive.bug77 - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
True, black has always been the performance line, it shouldn't go on any TLC parts. Not even on 3D TLC.romrunning - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
On your Storage Bench - Light (Latency) graph, you show the Intel 750 and Patriot Hellfire on top despite the Samsung drives beating them both in "Full" condition. So if they tie on the empty drive score, the Samsungs should be on top due to their full drive latency.Gasaraki88 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
How come you didn't test any drives that use the Phison E7 controllers? Patriot Hellfire, MyDigitalSSD BPX, and Corsair Force?BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link
This certainly isn't an impressive product.