WD Black SN850X SSD - Should You Buy It?

[Music] hello and welcome back and that is right it's time for another before you buy and today we are looking at this the wd black sn850x i've already done a long long long review and pc benchmark for this down i was even wearing this t-shirt in there but today i want to give you the quick five by five five reasons why you might want to consider getting this drive for your own personal storage setup and five reasons why you might want to give it a miss let's crack on [Music] that is right the performance of this drive is way higher than any other wd black drive that came before it with a reported benchmark of 7 300 megabytes per second sequential read and six thousand six hundred megabytes per second sequential right it is the best wd black we've seen on the market right now and although at the time of release it's still not the cheapest drive out there has to be said that as time weighs on this is gonna be more affordable and on offer so ultimately if you are in a position where you are considering getting a wd black ssd and you've been won over by the marketing one over by the reputation or won over by the likes of mark cerny then take my word for it right now this is the best wd black ssd in the market right now [Music] now game mode isn't going to be hugely beneficial to everyone it has to be said that unless you're a pc user they're not really going to feel the benefits but game mode is something which pc gamers be you esports professionals streamers or someone that's just casually knocking around on cod you are going to see the benefits game mode that kind of changes the gears in the internals of your pc system to take advantage of the the ssd's performance it does things like um prioritizing the processes of games that you are running with the drive on top of that it does predictive loading where it can see the heights and peaks of when games are loading and make sure that the ssd is unfettered by other processes when you need it most game mode has always existed in the wee dashboard toolkit that you get when you want to update the firmware and more on your ssd but never the less it has been improved with the release of the wd black sn850x and that is always going to be something to enjoy for pc gamers it's a small thing and certainly not a benefit for everyone but if you are a pc gamer it's going to be very important to many of you to know that not only is your ssd fast but that avg or some nonsense app in the background isn't going to buckle your ssd when you're running around online and need it the most [Music] again this is another relatively minor point but it did address an issue that a number of users had with the wd sn 850 that came out in 2020 and put simply the x version arrives in four terabytes 4tb is becoming increasingly popular although a lot of users look at the 4tb of any pci gen 4 ssd in the market and go how much it has to be said that some people that want to have their entire steam library sitting there in one go or are running editing processes of raw photo or video footage that need a substantial amount of space as a scratch disk or more or for versioning are going to appreciate that the newer generation of wd black ssd arrives in 4tb they've removed the lower tiers and if you want a 500 gig or 250 gig you gotta look at the other products in the family but it has to be said that one two and four tbs are going to be the sweet spot for most ssd users right now this is another tangential bonus of the sn850x arriving on the scene but it's gonna make its predecessor cheaper now the predecessor the sn850 that arrived in 2020 is already regularly on sale that is like normal sale prime day black friday you name it it always arrives in different promos depending on where you are and on different seasons and different websites however the arrival of a now even faster ssd that is not replacing it but is existing alongside it alongside the sn 7700 is going to mean that this predecessor drive is going to become even more affordable so even if you're not convinced by this it has to be said that the arrival of this drive means that this drive is almost certainly going to be a little bit better price point [Music] this last bonus is something that isn't just about this drive but it's kind of about all wd drives in general and it's the fact that it's all first party it's all in house whether it is the heatsink that you can get optionally with the drive that is attached at the manufacturer's level and a dust free oh sorry a dust controlled air controlled environment with perfect application against the components that need it most or the fact that the nand and the controller and the memory are all developed by in-house brands such as sandisk and coaxer the result is that you have a drive where the whole thing is designed at the ground level by a single entity which always results in the best possible product now you look at other ssds in the pc84 bracket and a number of them are taking advantage of the same third-party controller that faison e18 which is still a great controller all the inner grip ig 5326 those are good ssd controls but they are still third party and designed to be more multi-purpose and therefore a lot more work has to go into getting the most out of them a first-party product from the ground up means firmware updates will be better and the drive itself could be completely and specifically geared in a certain direction and also it means that in the event of a repair or a failure required first party only typically means and not doesn't just apply to ssds but hard drive manufacturers as well a much faster a more efficient turnaround with advanced replacement and rmas overall but of course it's not perfect nothing is and alongside those five reasons why i genuinely think this drive is a great thing there are five reasons why i think some of you might go now you're all right mate [Music] that's right because of the similarities in its architecture with its predecessor drive it has to be said that it still manages to run a little hot now i say a little hot it certainly runs a little less hot than the sn850 thanks to presumable improvements in the architecture of the ssd but when i compared it against the performance of many other ssds that have been released since the sn850 and before this drive arrived on the scene the wd black series of pci gen 4 ssds does seem to still run just that little bit hotter in more intensive and sustained operations you'd really have to punish the ssd to feel the you know any kind of detriment to that but it has to be noted that this ssd still manages to run a little hotter than the majority of ssds in the market [Music] now this next point is something i touched on in the review and just like i said in the full review is probably not permanent and if you're watching this in the future even three to six months since its release almost certainly doesn't matter anymore but the global pricing of this ssd is a bit off depending on where you are in the world even if you're using wd's own website the price for the whole drive or price per terabyte is all out of whack with some regions being more expensive than others even if you take into account tax and currency conversions indeed it's not even consistent across the capacity tiers and right now be it to do with hardware shortages be it to do with non-synchronized release patterns if you want to blame the pandemic or whatever you or hardware shortages the price point of wd black sn850x is by no means consistent globally which is a real pain in the bum when you're trying to make a youtube video letting people know how much it costs [Music] another element i touched on in my full review were to do with durability of this ssd now there is good and bad first and foremost across the whole wd black series durability is consistent just because you go for the drives that cost a little bit less you get the same durability rate across all of them of around 0.3 drive writes per day or 300 600 1200 or 2400 terabytes written depending on the capacity you go for so it's nice that they've managed to balance the durability across all three drives why is that something i bring up with this drive because right now this is the latest release in the wd black series but nevertheless there are other drives that have been released in the last year to year and a half in the pcie gen 4 bracket that have got a higher durability of 0.5 drive rights per day 0.7 drive rights per day there which means they can sustain more right activity and recycling of data in their lifetime and this is a big deal for some people who have a high refresh rate and recycle rate of their data most gamers and can average consumers are never going to exceed the drive rights per day of these but if you are working in a high frequency ref rate environment for your data you're going to worry about that this next point again is a very small criticism but i think this is more about presentation and the language by wd that's being put out there that is improving but unfortunately this drive is some of the messaging behind it is going to get lost in translation and that is ps5 players may buy this drive thinking it's going to vastly improve things and it's not going to improve things any more than the wd black sn850 now the reason for that being the wdsn 850 the one that came out a couple of years ago recently got certified as fully compatible and endorsed by sony as an upgrade for the playstation 5 system great news right and it is mark cerny right on day. of ps5 upgrades was championing that as his drive of choice something we talked about on the channel last year however this drive a lot of users are going to hear that this has got a higher performance that it's a ride later on the scene as enhanced components inside over that of the sn850 the thing is the performance difference in read and write in terms of read which is the chief measurement that the ps5 prioritizes is only around 300 megabytes something you're not really going to feel beyond fractions of a second in ps5 loading there the right performance is substantially higher at six thousand six hundred megabytes per second over the five to five and a half thousand of the original wd black there however the playstation as it stands right now does has no real benefit to right operations due to a lot of the encryption and unpacking and deep and repacking off data as it gets compressed through the system therefore if you buy this drive think you're going to get tremendous improvement for ps5 you're not and you may be spending too much now wd are remedying this point they are changing the presentation of the wd black sn850 to be more ps5 friendly and more ps5 focused which is good you know changing the packaging delay re-labeling it and stuff like that but still nonetheless i think they could stand to be a lot louder about how this drive is not geared really towards ps5 users they could really make a point of making that louder perhaps that's something they're going to do but as it stands right now at the point of release i'm not really seeing that this last point again is a minor quibble but i do think i permanent quibble nonetheless and it is to do with the performance now when the wd black sn850 original from 2020 arrived on the scene with its 7 000 megabytes per second everyone stood up and went whoa that is ridiculous now when it arrived it arrived on the scene almost exactly the same time as this the samsung 980 pro another drive that had a reported 7 000 megabytes per second they weren't the first commercial pcie gen 4 ssds on the market but they were the first to arrive with that 7 000 megabytes per second performance now why am i bringing that up because in the two years since that drive has arrived on the scene many other ssds have arrived on the market some of them using third-party controllers like the inner grip some of them using the phys on like the seagate via cuda and these drives have arrived with performance much higher in both read and write than that original wd so you would think right now when this newer generation wd black sn850x arrived on the scene that it would have remedied that and brought performance benchmarks that basically blows everyone else out of the water just like that drive did and sadly that's not the case although the performance on it is very very high at 7 300 over 6 600 at the highest capacity there are still drives out there right now that are faster than this that have arrived in the market in the last six to eight months at least so if you're going for this drive thinking it is the fastest out there right now it isn't there are drives albeit between 150 and 300 megs faster on reader night which is only small in the grand scheme of things but it's worth highlighting this is still not the fastest m2 ssd in the market right now that goes out again to some of the drives i've already mentioned in the video and some that are still ready to come and with the pcie gen 5 generation somewhat dragging its heels due to the pandemic and hardware shortages that should have arrived by now which unfortunately looking more like a 2023 um release strategy it seems to me that wd black bring this on the market with a performance that isn't quite tippity-top arriving as it does at the end when they are practically book ending the entire ps4 general pcie gen 4 generation it's a real shame that they weren't able to just crank a few extra 100 megs out of that drive but this has been my before you buy five reasons to go for the wd black sn850x and five reasons why you might want to look elsewhere but me personally if you're watching this video and those five points didn't convince you tell my word the wd black sn850 on its own it's like great ssd and i recommend you check that out otherwise thank you so much for watching check out the full review linked in the description click like if you've enjoyed the video it really helps click subscribe if you want to learn more as we talk about this drive compare it against others and even more on the subject of data storage and use the links in the description to buy location different stores where you can get this drive where if you use those links it costs you nothing extra and we get a little kickback to help make uh keep making videos and the free advice section over on nas compares genuinely free that you can use to help you decide the right drive for your needs man by two humans me and eddie who will answer your questions thank you so much for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: NASCompares

Views: 17,437

Keywords: WD BLACK HEATSINK, WD BLACK SN850X, WD BLACK SN850X 2022, WD BLACK SN850X HEATSINK, WD BLACK SN850X PS5, WD BLACK SN850X SSD, WD BLACK SN850X SSD PS5, WD BLACK SN850X WORTH IT, WD BLACK SN850XX, WD BLACK SN950, WD SN850XX, WD SN860, WD SN950, WD Black SN860, WD Black SN950, WD Black SN850X vs SN850, WD Black SN850X, WD Black SN850X PS5 Test, SN850X PS5 TEST, WD BLACK PS5 TEST, WD Black SN850X vs SN770, WD Black SSD Guide, wd bLACK sn850 VS sn770

Id: iw2qDI6wvVk

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022