WD Black SN850 SSD Review in 2022 – Still Worth it for your PS5 & PC?

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Contents hide
1 WD Black SN850 SSD Heatsink Edition Review, Temperature & Benchmark
2 WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Quick Conclusion
3 WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Packaging
4 WD Black SN850 SSD Review – PS5 Benchmark
5 WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Hardware Specifications
5.1 Hardware Focus of the WD Black SN850 SSD Series
6 WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Official Stats First
7 Testing the WD Black SN850 m.2 PCIE4 NVMe SSD
8 WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Conclusion
9 📧 LET ME KNOW ABOUT NEW POSTS 🔔
10 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?
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WD Black SN850 SSD Heatsink Edition Review, Temperature & Benchmark

Whether you are considering buying a new super-fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid-state drive upgrade for your PC gaming rig or shiny new (ish) PS5 console, then there is an exceptionally high chance that one of the very first SSDs that you came across/considered was the WD Black SN850. Released in Autumn 2020, the SN850 was the latest drive to join the long-running gamer series of SSDs and HDDs from WD in their ‘WD Black’ labelled media, as well last being one of the fastest commercially available SSDs in the market when it’s launch (only really challenge by the Samsung 980 Pro released shortly before). However, that was close to 1.5yrs ago and in that time ALOT of other brands have taken the time to catch up and (in many cases) exceed the performance of the ‘OG’ WD Black SN850 in terms of 4K performance, speed and durability. That said, all that additional time in the market, along with being developed and produced ‘in-house’ at WD without 3rd party components, has resulted in the WD Black SN850 arriving noticeably lower in price than many of its competitors SSDs (such as the Seagate Firecuda 530 released in Summer 2021) and also having better global availability to boot. So, now in 2022, many buyers are wondering whether the WD Black SN850 SSD still deserves its place inside their gaming machine or has the shiny gone off this drive a bit and it’s better to buy a competitors wares (or wait for a new drive, such as a WD Black SN950 or SN850X perhaps)? Ultimately, does the WD Black SN850 still deserve your data in 2022? Let’s find out in our hardware review, PS5 testing and PC benchmarks.

Important – The WD Black SN850 SSD used for this review is supplied by WD, however, all opinions and judgements are purely my own. Additionally, the WD Black SN850 model used was the Heatsink equipped version running the latest firmware update as of Jan 2022. Finally, In the interests of perspective, throughout this review, I will be comparing the WD Black against numerous SSDs that have been released in the 1.5yrs since its original release, in order to put its abilities into perspective. However, hardware comparisons will largely be made against the Samsung 980 Pro as both brands have a shared ‘1st party’ build/design focus.

WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Quick Conclusion

The WD Black SN850 SSD can certainly still hold its own against all the ‘young whippersnappers’ that have entered the PCIe 4 NVMe SSD market since it first arrived on the scene back in 2020, with some consistently solid 4K random performance that rarely drops, reliably high read performance across the board and an average price point worldwide that means if it ISN’T on special offer/seasonal sale in your usual eRetailer, it definitely will be somewhere – having arrived at this party early, it is now so fantastically ‘everywhere’ that many would consider it a no brainer to be your perfect SSD pick – and fair play, they are likely right. Right the way down to big names in the industry recommended its versatility (Mark Cerny, PS5 designer arriving louder than most), the WD black branding being a mainstay of professional gaming and the simple fact that the WD Black SN850 does exactly what it says it can do, no ifs, no buts, make it still a solid choice. All that said though, PCIe 4 NVMe SSD development has certainly moved forward and although the SN850 holds it’s own in some key benchmarks and build qualities, there are now more enduring SSDs in the market, with higher throughput drives available to buy and (possibly most crucially of all for some) the SN850 can get noticeably hotter than others in the market as more efficient SSD controllers were researched, developed and released in 2021. In pure gaming usage, the WD Black SN850 can still get the job done, but in mixed-use or content creation/production, there might well be better options out there for you. And lest we forget, WD Black might well have a PCIe5 in the works to pip everyone to the punch again – keep your eyes peeled!

SPEED - 8/10
HARDWARE - 8/10
PERFORMANCE - 8/10
PRICE - 9/10
VALUE - 9/10


8.4
PROS
👍🏻High Availability Worldwide
👍🏻
👍🏻One of the first PS5 Expansion Compatibility confirmed SSDs
👍🏻
👍🏻Performance still stands up well in 2022 (almost 1.5yrs since original release)
👍🏻
👍🏻Impressively dense NAND for one of the earliest gen PCIe 4 SSDs still
👍🏻
👍🏻Still has some of the highest 4K Random IOPS in the market
👍🏻
👍🏻Very Good Pricing Now
👍🏻
👍🏻Regular Firmware updates
CONS
👎🏻Heat dissipation in a PS5 environment was not as good as I hoped (PS5 closed bay design at fault really)
👎🏻
👎🏻Traditional Write performance, even at 2TB, looks a little lacklustre against the competition in 2022
👎🏻
👎🏻Still no 4TB version commercially available


WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Packaging

The WD Black SN850 for our review was the heatsink equipped version (arriving at around 30-35 more than the bare version) and straight away, you can see the retail packaging on this SSD absolutely oozing with that oh so familiar WD Black branding.

The heatsink and almost immediately recognizable ‘WD’ design is clearly the bit show-off factor here, as well as the usual brand shouting of sequential read performance (all brands do it). Though I will say that there has been a heck of a trend recently for SSDs to arrive in white and black packaging – PS5 retail design synergy? Who knows (highlighted this in my Samsung 980 re-review recently) and I am pleased that WD has not caved in with a redesign to blag some console gamer attention, sticking with the existing design that’s largely unchanged since it’s original launch.

Opening the retail box of the WD Black SN850 SSD shows us the drive (with heatsink pre-applied – very important, as I will discuss later) encases in a plastic 2 piece shell frame, as well as a support, setup and instructions manual.

WD consumer and prosumer SSDs have always arrived like this, but I always want to highlight it regardless as way, WAY too many brands cut corners here (in the age of predominant eRetail, most consumers see the retail packaging AFTER buying, not before) and I like both the design of this presentation, as well as the protection this kind of kit provides. Not huge (as SSDs are nowhere near as fragile as a traditional platter and disc-based HDDs) but still a higher level of protection is afforded here than most.

Removing all of the packaging provides us with a particularly sleek and modern looking SSD+Heatsink combo indeed. You will typically find that SSDs targeted at gamers, content creators or those working in post-production fall into two aesthetical design choices. Either ‘eSports’ style that has a million LEDs and sharp edges/corners to give off an aggressive feel OR a ‘mature-professional’ look that is sleek, understated yet modernist in design. PNY chose eSports, Seagate and Samsung chose ‘mature professional,? The WD Black SN850 Pro box design is very much going for middle ground gamer design. But, let’s be honest, all of this is rather pointless in terms of how it all looks, as after Day 1 – an ideal M.2 NVMe SSD will NEVER be seen again (encased in a PC, Mac or PS5 for its use), so how does the WD Black SN850 heatsink design translate into cooling and temperature management?

First off, the solid-looking design-block design that the casual glance would provide is quickly revealed to be actually quite heavily ventilated in a number of ways. The middle part of the heatsink is ventilated throughout the entire length in its width, allowing air to pass through and assist in moving the heat/energy being dissipated from the WD Black SN850 controller, NAND, etc.

Additionally, the top of the WD Black SN850 heatsink is ridged in an effort to capture air passing over it, which will further assist dissipation. I think these will be tremendously useful in a PC environment, but I would be curious how the more restrictive M.2 expansion slot of the PS5 (with its much more limited airflow in this direction) would be able to take advantage of this.

Now, the WD Black SN850 doesn’t HAVE TO be purchased with that 1st party heatsink and in its absence, WD would still recommend that users purchased an m.2 2280 length heatsink and thermal pads when installing their drive in PC/PS5 systems (though never highlighting any specific brand/make/model aside from their own, which cannot be purchased separately). These typically range from as little as $5 to $20, depending on their complexity and active heat dissipation (some with copper piping, some with inbuilt fans). Here is how the WD Black SN850 SSD heatsink compares with a popular $10 PC designed heatsink, the Eluteng, in design and built:

Then there are physical design differences with another 1st party NVMe SSD heatsink from Seagate, with their Firecuda 530 series:

As you can see, the $10 also clearly tried to capitalize on active airflow, but a great deal more, substituting physical materials to draw the heat away from the SSD, in favour of allowing as much ventilation as possible to get rid of the heat as much as it can – a good design choice for an open-air and fan assisted PC, but less useful in the PS5 closed M.2 bay. Let’s open up the WD Black SN850 HEATSINK and take a look at the SSD. Inside is a fairly standard WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD, much like the un-heatsink equipped version. Though it is also worth mentioning that the later releases of this drive include the much more recent update to the SSD controller firmware, something that is considerably more difficult to update yourself without a PC + M.2 slot, as the PS5 does not include support for 3rd party SSD toolkits to be installed (and a firmware update on an m.2 SSD is not possible over USB, as a direct motherboard connection is required). Next, we removed the official heatsink from this SSD in order to see how it covers the SSD and its components.

The 1TB version of this SSD is single-sided (also known as single-rank or SR), so this means that heat generated on the base of the SSD is not really going to be a concern. Even in 2-sided SSDs (2TB/4TB typically), SSDs will have the NAND (where the data lives) and maybe half of the on-board DRAM/Memory, both of which are ok to get a ‘little warm’ to work their best. It is the controller on the top (the brains on the SSD that manages all the transmission of data, not unlike the CPU of your computer) that needs to stay as cool as possible.

So, let’s get some PS5 testing started first. I installed the WD Black SN850 into my PS5, with 2 temperature nodes in place. The first node was located underneath the heatsink and thermal pad, on top of the SSD controller (the WD NVMe In house designed controller) and the 2nd node was located outside of the PS5 M.2 SSD expansion bay, between the storage bay and the PS5 internal fan. This 2nd node was used to check the ambient system temperature as the SSD was being used to see if heat dissipated from the SSD and into the heatsink was impacting the PS5 ambient temperature.

Then I reapplied the M.2 SSD cover over the WD Black SN850 SSD and then placed the PS5 side plates. As counter-intuitive a it feels to cover the SSD up in this bay, this is something Sony recommend (which I will be looking into and comparing in a future video against running it WITHOUT the cover), so I went ahead with it.

During this temperature test of the PS5 with the WD Black SN850 SSD, I ran several tests. I performed a sustained write activity (moving several games from the internal PS5 SSD to the WD Black SN850), a gameplay session on GTA V (measuring the SSD controller temperature and the ambient temperature), repeated that test with Red Dead Redemption II, then performed a heavy read application (moving those games back to the PS5 internal SSD). These results were compared against the exact same test with a WD Black SN850 in the $10 Eluteng m.2 heatsink. Below, in the video, were the results and conclusion of that test.

Now, it should come as no surprise that the WD Black SN850 dissipated a greater degree of heat from the controller than the Eluteng $10 m.2 SSD heatsink, due to WD heatsink being designed around this single SSD and its components (therefore targeting whether the controller would be particularly well). However, what about when we compare the temperature testing of the WD Black SN850 against that of the Seagate Firecuda 530 with heatsink? Both of these are 1st Party heatsink equipped SSDs that have been designed around and applied at the factory level TOO their respective SSDs. Performing the same tests, with the same games/processes, here is how each SSD heatsink performed.

The WD Black SN850 SSD heatsink did perform better than the $10 SSD heatsink in terms of heat dissipation and temperature control, but not hugely better and I think a lot of that comes down to the PS5 having that closed M.2 slot. That said, when we performed the same tests with a more modern released SSD in the Seagate Firecuda 530 (released a year later and noticeably more expensive), the Seagate seemed to run cooler and/or the heatsink did a better job. We cannot ignore small factors such as ambient room temperatures and times or day, however even when you just look at the temp difference at the start and end of each test as a differential, Seagate seemingly kept things consistently cooler overall. So the big takeaway from that test for me was that the WD Black SN850 ran cooler in the PS5 than the bare SSD with a $10 heatsink, but the SSD still runs hotter than a few of its more modern released contemporaries. Next, let’s talk about the performance of the WD Black SN850 in PS5 gameplay, how it compares with the system’s own internal PS5 and how it fares against its competition.

So, What about the WD Black SN850 in PS5 deployment?

When I installed the WD Black SN850 into the PS5, the system immediately gave me a benchmark of 6,457MB/s, which is pretty impressive for the 1TB model. The PS5 uses a different test and benchmark algorithm than those of popular PC tools such as ATTO, CrystalDisk and IOMeter, focusing exclusively on read performance. There isn’t even a direct reference to whether this figure is based on sequential data or some PS5 game-data specific data size/frequency, so we very rarely see the 7,000MB/s sequential read figure that most SSD brands talk quite loudly of. Nevertheless, this 6,450MB/s+ figure is still very solid and repeated testing gave us 6222MB/s, 6455MB/s and 6551MB/s, so it was quite a consistent benchmark for PS5.

As you would hope, the WD Black SN850 immediately appears in the PS5 storage manager for us and there can be used in conjunction with the PS5’s own internal SSD (and USB drives).

Let’s see how the WD Black SN850 SSD compares with several PCIe4 SSDs that have been released in the almost year and a half since its release.

WD Black SN850 SSD Review – PS5 Benchmark

To put the WD Black SN850 SSD PS5 Performance Benchmark into a little perspective, here is how it compares against the Addlink A95, Adata XPG Gammix S70, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus and Gigabyte Aorus 7000s – four SSDs that are all PS5 supported and VERY similar architecture very little difference between the others in this tier, it is a solid benchmark.

Addlink A95 PS5 Benchmark – 6556MB/s XPG GAMMIX S70 PS5 Benchmark – 6235MB/s
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus – 6557MB/s Gigabyte Aorus 7000s PS5 Benchmark – 6557MB/s

As you can see, the WD Black SN850’s PS5 benchmark is in a similar bracket to these other four SSDs, though they did seem to outpace it on repeated benchmark tests, back to back. A more recently published PS5 performance test over on our YouTube channel of the WD Black SN850 compared with the Seagate Firecuda 530 and Samsung 980 Pro using the Unreal 5 Tech engine demo showed us that the WD still works like an absolute charm even 6 months since the storage expansion feature was enabled:

Full PS5 Testing of this SSD is available as a playlist over on the NASCompares YouTube channel, with a total of 25 GAMES TESTED SO FAR! But for now, let’s carry on with looking at the hardware of the WD Black SN850, how it conventionally benchmarks and how it compares with currently favourite PS5 SSDs like the Samsung 980 Pro and Seagate Firecuda 530 in the numbers!

WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Hardware Specifications

As you might expect from an M.2 NVMe SSD that boldly promises performance of over 7,000MB/s sequential read (ie BIG data), the hardware specifications and architecture of the WD Black SN850 are quite modern. Indeed, for all the big talk of the Seagate Firecuda 530 hardware (still currently the ‘score to beat’ PCIE Gen4 m.2 NVMe right now) being top tier, the WD Black SN850 is pretty darn similar on the spec sheet, despite releasing a year earlier! Though there are some key build differences that I will touch on later. Below is how it looks:

WD Black SN850

500GB – $139.99, 1TB – $249.99, 2TB – $409.99
PCIe Generation PCIe Gen 4
NVMe Rev NVMe 1.4
NAND BiCS4 96L TLC
Max Capacity 2TB
Controller WD_BLACK G2
Warranty 5yr

I know a lot of the above will seem needlessly technical, so below we can bring the most important considerations into sharper focus.

Hardware Focus of the WD Black SN850 SSD Series

The WD Black SN850 SSD benefits from an almost completely ‘in-house’ architecture, which means that the NAND for storage and the controller is designed by WD themselves, without relying on 3rd parties such as Phison or Innogrit for its controller. This is WD’s PCIe Gen 4 chip called “WD Black G2 NVMe Controller.”.

 

It is produced on an 8 nm production process in WD’s factory. At its launch, it noticeably outpaced the Phison E16 in terms of design, but now has given way in many ways to the Phison E18 controller which arrived on the production scene around the time the WD Black SN850 was first released. Still a solid SSD controller never the less and backed by more in-house components. The WD Black SN850 also features their own DDR4 memory/flash chip which provides 1GB of fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables, etc. As you would expect, this scales as the storage capacity scales.

The storage NAND of the WD Black SN850 is 96L WD TLC NAND, which has and is separated across 2x cells on the 1TB of a capacity of 512GB. (4x 512GB on the 2TB). This is one particularly interesting area that I don’t think gets enough credit. Right now, at the start of 2022, there is a very small handful of SSDs that are using NAND of a higher layer count than 96L (ones such as the Seagate Firecuda 530 at 176L), but this is a trend that we are starting to see change with even more affordable brands such as Addlink and ADATA embracing 176L Micron NAND as standard in their prosumer tiers. It’s a small factor but definitely worth highlighting and something that brands like Seagate and Samsung exceeded very early on.

Overall the build of the WD Black SN850 is still pretty strong compared with most SSDs in this performance tier and the inclusive heatsink certainly makes it be even more appealing for some. You really cannot fault the hardware inside/onboard the WD Black SN850, as it is still (even 16-18 months after release) higher performing in sequential Read than many other M.2 NVMe PCIe 4 SSDs released in that time. Before we go into the full testing, however, it is worth taking a moment to look closely at the reported performance benchmarks of the WD Black SN850, as although the performance seems stellar at sequential Read and 4K random IOPS numbers, there are areas such as write and endurance when compared with its main rivals that it perhaps falls a little short.

WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Official Stats First

Right now at the start of 2022, the WD Black SN850 is continuously being compared by buyers with two other big-name SSDs, the Samsung 980 Pro and the Seagate Firecuda 530 (I am as guilty as anyone on that!). Both these SSD’s arrived with optional Heatsink versions (the Samsung only recently though), though the Samsung SSD was released much close to the WD Black SN850 drive (with the Seagate SSD arriving in Summer 2021). Below is how these three SSDs compare in the traditional hardware architecture and durability.

Brand/Series WD Black SN850

500GB – $139.99, 1TB – $249.99, 2TB – $409.99

 Seagate Firecuda 530

500GB – $149.99, 1TB – $239.99, 2TB – $489.99, 4TB – $949.99

 Samsung 980 Pro

1TB – $179, 2TB – $299
PCIe Generation PCIe Gen 4 PCIe Gen 4 PCIe Gen 4
NVMe Rev NVMe 1.4 NVMe 1.4 NVMe 1.3c
NAND BiCS4 96L TLC 3D TLC Micron B47R 176L Samsung 128L 3D TLC
Max Capacity 2TB 4TB – Double Sided 2TB
Controller WD_BLACK G2 Phison E18-PS5018 Custom Elpis
Warranty 5yr 5yr 5yr
500GB Model WDS500G1X0E-00AFY0 ZP500GM3A013

MZ-V8P500BW
Price in $ and $ $139.99 $139 / £119 $119 / £109
1TB Model WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP1000GM3A013 MZ-V8P1T0BW
Price in $ and $ $249.99 $239 / £199 $209 / £179
2TB Model WDS200T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP2000GM3A013 MZ-V8P2T0BW
Price in $ and $ $409.99 $419 / £379 $390 / £369
4TB Model N/A ZP4000GM3A013 N/A
Price in $ and $ N/A $949 / £789 N/A
500GB Model WDS500G1X0E-00AFY0 ZP500GM3A013

MZ-V8P500BW
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 300TB 640TB 300TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,750,000 1,800,000 1,500,000
DWPD 0.3DWPD 0.7DWPD 0.3DWPD
1TB Model WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP1000GM3A013 MZ-V8P1T0BW
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 600TB 1275TB 600TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,750,000 1,800,000 1,500,000
DWPD 0.3DWPD 0.7DWPD 0.3DWPD
2TB Model WDS200T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP2000GM3A013 MZ-V8P2T0BW
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 1200TB 2550TB 1200TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,750,000 1,800,000 1,500,000
DWPD 0.3DWPD 0.7DWPD 0.3DWPD
4TB Model N/A ZP4000GM3A013 N/A
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) N/A 5100TB N/A
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) N/A 1,800,000 N/A
DWPD N/A 0.7DWPD N/A

Some differences are quite easy to understand, such as the NVMe revision, as the update between NVMe 1.3 and 1.4 happened around the time of the WD Black SN850 release. Then there is the pricing differences between these three SSDs, with the Seagate Firecuda arriving at a noticeably higher price point. The price difference here can be attributed to several factors, such as the longer time being available at retail and both the WD Black SN850 and WD Black 850 in-house component built. However, one of the other big reasons for that differing price is in the durability of the Seagate over the WD and WD SSD, with its terabytes written over its lifespan and drive writes per day arriving at more than double. What about random performance and sequential throughout?

Below is how the WD Black SN850, Seagate Firecuda 530 and WD Black SN850 compare in performance, based on maximum possible and directly from the brands:

Brand/Series WD Black SN850

500GB – $139.99, 1TB – $249.99, 2TB – $409.99

 Seagate Firecuda 530

500GB – $149.99, 1TB – $239.99, 2TB – $489.99, 4TB – $949.99

 WD Black SN850 H/S

1TB – $179, 2TB – $299
500GB Model WDS500G1X0E-00AFY0 ZP500GM3A013

MZ-V8P500BW
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 7000MB 7000MB 6900MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 4100MB 3000MB 5000MB
1TB Model WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP1000GM3A013 MZ-V8P1T0BW
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 7000MB 7300MB 7000MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 5300MB 6000MB 5000MB
2TB Model WDS200T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP2000GM3A013 MZ-V8P2T0BW
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 7000MB 7300MB 7000MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 5100MB 6900MB 5100MB
4TB Model   ZP4000GM3A013 N/A
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB N/A 7300MB N/A
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB N/A 6900MB N/A
Brand/Series WD Black SN850 Seagate Firecuda 530 WD Black SN850 H/S
500GB Model WDS500G1X0E-00AFY0 ZP500GM3A013

MZ-V8P500BW
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1,000,000 400,000 800,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 680,000 700,000 1,000,000
1TB Model WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP1000GM3A013 MZ-V8P1T0BW
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1,000,000 800000 1000000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 720,000 1000000 1000000
2TB Model WDS200T1X0E-00AFY0 ZP2000GM3A013 MZ-V8P2T0BW
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 710,000 1,000,000 1,000,000
4TB Model   ZP4000GM3A013 N/A
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 N/A 1,000,000 N/A
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 N/A 1,000,000 N/A

Between all three SSDs, in terms of sequential Read and Write performance, the WD Black SN850 (for the most part) sits in third place here pretty consistently. That said, it is still very close to the WD Black in most cases. In terms of random 4K IOPS, things fare a little better for the WD Black SN850 and although still outpaced by the much later released Seagate Firecuda 530 in traditional Read and Write performance, it comes out consistently 1st place in IOPS overall. So, now that is the manufacturer supplied performance figures done, let’s do some of our own tests on a mid-range PCIe 4 M.2 enabled Windows PC for some benchmarks.

Testing the WD Black SN850 m.2 PCIE4 NVMe SSD

The WD Black SN850 was selected for this test and it was tested using multiple benchmark tools, from a cold boot, in the 2nd storage slot (i.e not the OS drive). Each test was conducted three times (full details of this are shown in the YouTube Review of the WD Black SN850 over on NASCompares):

Test Machine:

  • Windows 10 SN850 Desktop System
  • Intel i5 11400 Rocket Lake – 6-Core 2.6/4.4Ghz
  • 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Memory
  • Intel B560M mATX Motherboard
  • OS Storage, Seagate Firecuda 120 SSD
  • Test SSD connected to Secondary PCIe Gen 4 M.2 Slot

Using CrystalDisk, we got a good measure of the drive and verified that this PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD was indeed using the 4×4 lane. Additionally, the temp averaged out around 44C between each test being conducted. Much like the PS5 temperature testing, the WD Black SN850 was able to get rid of the heat it had gathered very quickly. Additionally (as the grahy below shows) in the more open air based PC environment, the temperatures of the WD Black SN850 and it’s heatsink were considerably better than inside the PS5 closed storage bay:

The first tests were conducted using the ATTO disk benchmark software. The first was a 256MB test file size and below is a breakdown of the transfer rates and IOPS. The 2nd Test was a 1GB test file and finally, the last test was with a 4GB test file. The system was given 1-minute cool downtime between tests, no screen recording software was used (remove overhead) and a heatsink was used throughout (no reboots)

ATTO Disk Benchmark Test #1

256MB File PEAK Read Throughput  = 6.45GB/s

256MB File PEAK Write Throughput = 4.91GB/s

 

 

ATTO Disk Benchmark Test #2

1GB File PEAK Read Throughput  = 6.45GB/s

1GB File PEAK Write Throughput = 4.91GB/s

 

 

ATTO Disk Benchmark Test #3

4GB File PEAK Read Throughput  = 6.44GB/s

4GB File PEAK Write Throughput = 4.95GB/s

 

Next, although the ATTO tests were quite good, but not what I would have hoped from this SSD, so I moved on to the Crystal Disk Mark testing to see how well it would handle our lasts barrage of tests. The first test was the 1GB file testing, which measured both sequential and random, as well as the read and write IOPS. Test were conducted on a 1GB, 4GB and 16GB Test File. I also included a mixed 70/30 read and write task to give a little bit more of a realistic balanced workload. These tests were conducted with 1-minute cooling break in between

CRYSTALDISK MARK 1GB TEST

CRYSTALDISK MARK 4GB TEST

CRYSTALDISK MARK 16GB TEST

 

Next, I switched to AS SSD benchmark. A much more thorough test through, I used 1GB, 3GB and 5GB test files. Each test includes throughput benchmarks and IOPS that are respective to the larger file sizes (important, if you are reading this and trying to compare against the reported 4K IOPS from the manufacturer).

AS SSD Benchmark Test #1

 

AS SSD Benchmark Test #2

 

AS SSD Benchmark Test #3

 

Ordinarily, I would introduce tests like BlackMagic and AJA into the mix here, but even a short burst of testing on an NVMe like this would over saturate the cache memory on board. Nevertheless, in the short term we still could ascertain the reported performance on 1GB, 4GB and 16GB file testing was:

1GB AJA File Test Results (Peak) = 5868MB/s Read & 5547MB/s Write

4GB AJA File Test Results (Peak) = 6001MB/s Read & 5530MB/s Write

16GB AJA File Test Results (Peak) = 6015MB/s Read & 5530MB/s Write

Overall, the WD Black SN850 was certainly able to provide some solid performance, as well as potentially exceed the test figures here on a more powerful machine. Given the reported Read and Write statistics that the brand has stated publically, I think there is enough evidence here to back up those claims. IOPs were a little lower than I expected, but again, we were testing very large file types, so this would have to be taken in context with the PC used and not the monster machine that most brands feature for their printed benchmarks (i.e 8-12 core Ryzens).

WD Black SN850 SSD Review – Conclusion

The WD Black SN850 SSD can certainly still hold its own against all the ‘young whippersnappers’ that have entered the PCIe 4 NVMe SSD market since it first arrived on the scene back in 2020, with some consistently solid 4K random performance that rarely drops, reliably high read performance across the board and an average price point worldwide that means if it ISN’T on special offer/seasonal sale in your usual eRetailer, it definitely will be somewhere – having arrived at this party early, it is now so fantastically ‘everywhere’ that many would consider it a no brainer to be your perfect SSD pick – and fair play, they are likely right. Right the way down to big names in the industry recommended its versatility (Mark Cerny, PS5 designer arriving louder than most), the WD black branding being a mainstay of professional gaming and the simple fact that the WD Black SN850 does exactly what it says it can do, no ifs, no buts, make it still a solid choice. All that said though, PCIe 4 NVMe SSD development has certainly moved forward and although the SN850 holds it’s own in some key benchmarks and build qualities, there are now more enduring SSDs in the market, with higher throughput drives available to buy and (possibly most crucially of all for some) the SN850 can get noticeably hotter than others in the market as more efficient SSD controllers were researched, developed and released in 2021. In pure gaming usage, the WD Black SN850 can still get the job done, but in mixed-use or content creation/production, there might well be better options out there for you. And lest we forget, WD Black might well have a PCIe5 in the works to pip everyone to the punch again – keep your eyes peeled!

PROs of the WD Black SN850 CONs of the WD Black SN850
High Availability Worldwide

One of the first PS5 Expansion Compatibility confirmed SSDs

Performance still stands up well in 2022 (almost 1.5yrs since original release)

Impressively dense NAND for one of the earliest gen PCIe 4 SSDs still

Still has some of the highest 4K Random IOPS in the market

Very Good Pricing Now

Regular Firmware updates

 Heat dissipation in a PS5 environment was not as good as I hoped (PS5 closed bay design at fault really)

Traditional Write performance, even at 2TB, looks a little lacklustre against the competition in 2022

Still no 4TB version commercially available

 

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    The WD Black SN850 SSD Review - Still Worth Your Data in 2022?
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    519 thoughts on “WD Black SN850 SSD Review in 2022 – Still Worth it for your PS5 & PC?”

    1. Thank you so much! 1 point I will make as DIY person … “thermopads strategically placed” – generic heatsync + razor + measurement tape + basic understanding of where heat would come. Made my mind. Sabrent heatsync is cheaper + wd850x is cheaper then heatsync version
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    6. I installed this on my 2019 , 27” imac and tried to use bootcamp…it failed , is this a common thing? I am using a Samsung 2TB SSD as the main OS after failing with the 870 and the same for the Samsung SSD. I cannot get Bootcamp to function on a digital hdd.
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    10. Hi! is this good as my daily driver (external storage) as a graphics designer/video editor? I’m considering this, a Crucial P3 Plus and TEAMGROUP T-Force CARDEA Zero with my iMac 5k 2017. All 4TB. SABRENT 4TB Rocket would be swell but it’s way over my budget. Thanks!
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    11. I just got one, 1tb to use on PS5, £114 on Amazon atm, 2tb I should go for but can’t justify to my wife why the memory costs nearly as much as the bloody console, so that 1.6tb internal and ssd 4tb external, with my XBSX I have 1.8tb with 5tb SSD external, need the bloody things because you don’t get many games on 0.6tb in the PS5 as it is, thanks for the review mate, for the price it’s worth it, has heatsink as well, does anyone know if you are supposed to put the cover panel back on once you install the drive of leave it off because of heat, the way things are going I’ll be using the PS5 as a console and a heater ???? my entire family sitting behind the PS5 and XBSX warning up while I game would be very awkward, I imagine I pull some odd faces as I game, I’m one of those that moves the controller to the right or left while turning in a racer as if that helps ???? I’m a ????.
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    17. this ssd is one sale with heatsink on the wd official website for $110… I won’t be using it on a workstation of anything professional (just games) but idk if it’s worth going up to
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    22. Can you make a recommenation for an external enclosure for the WD Black SN750, by any chance? The heat sync makes it too larget to fit into a regular sized enclosure and WD has told me if I remove the heat sync, I will void the warranty. It’s too large to fit into a new laptop. They use a smaller form factor, so my next option was an external enclosure. Nice video. Thank you.
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    24. Although this video does clearly prove that 980 Pro has got slightly less in ranking, I am still going to purchase it due to the quality they have been providing for so long.
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    31. Been using wd_black sn850 1tb for 5 months with 0 issues at all , not my first wd drive also gonna mention Sony chose the wd_black sn850 as the official ssd for ps5
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    33. Is it a good deal to get one now from Amazon for around 253 for a 2tb with heatsink or wait a lil longer? Also will there be a faster one than the sn850 down the road?
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    38. Hey man love the channel You have here. Will this SSD kill my console if it fails ? I have been seeing this online and don’t know which 2tb SSD to buy
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    39. Getting the WD 850 1tb myself

      Got the sucker for $105 from Amazon

      Going to pop it into an Acidalie M.2 active cooling heatsink and hopefully not have to worry about it for the next two or three years
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    40. Would you recommend or comment on putting this in a laptop ? WD Black SN850 just dropped in price in Denmark – june 2022 – but I am worried that it will get very hot in my Legion 5 Pro (there is some heatsink build in
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    41. SN850 with BeQuite MC1
      I have thermal probe and did some testing 45c with plate off and 52c with plate on. Sony does seem too know more then our Nand experts here who say to leave plate off. Or that cooler m.2 is better. Remember its the controller that is getting hot. It can handle heat. Its basically a cpu. Degradation of the nand is accelerated the hotter the nand module is but thats if you are pushing 70-80c. As long as its 0-60c you are fine. If you watch more in depth review the nand is always around 40c mark while controller is bit hotter. Overall WD is better choice.
      Wouldn’t trust Seagate with storage.
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    42. Hi, I would like to use the WD SN850 2TB as an external drive for my 2022 MBP M1 Max, as I will put it into a enclosure, would you recommend the version with the Heatsink, I can get the card for only $22 more than the SN 770. The reason why, I would like to use the external drive for data and the internal SSD only for Apps and the OS, just to keep the internal drive in a good shape.
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    49. How much thickness does the WD heatsink add? I’m thinking of upgrading a 2019 iMac with an SN850, but it can only accommodate a 3 mm thick heatsink. Eyeballing yours, it looks like it’s well over that.
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    50. How much thickness does the WD heatsink add? I’m thinking of upgrading a 2019 iMac with an SN850, but it can only accommodate a 3 mm thick heatsink. Eyeballing yours, it looks like it’s well over that.
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    51. Fire cuda in PlayStation makes 6300 first format… 5600 every format after that… it sucked and sent it back.. keeping WD black. Makes 6500 every format with no firmware update
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    52. Fire cuda in PlayStation makes 6300 first format… 5600 every format after that… it sucked and sent it back.. keeping WD black. Makes 6500 every format with no firmware update
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    53. I bought the SN850 w/ heatsink for $164 ($149 for non heatsink version) on Amazon. That is significantly less than what is shown in this video, 6 months later ????
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    54. I bought the SN850 w/ heatsink for $164 ($149 for non heatsink version) on Amazon. That is significantly less than what is shown in this video, 6 months later ????
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    59. Happy ro see I made a good decision today, I managed to nab one up for £90 of course without heatsink but there seems to be some decent cheaper ones on ebay so will grab one of those
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    60. Happy ro see I made a good decision today, I managed to nab one up for £90 of course without heatsink but there seems to be some decent cheaper ones on ebay so will grab one of those
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    61. have a different question. On a 850 how do you remove the heatsink? I ask because I have a MSI Aero Expander Card and the drive does not fit with the heatsink. The Aero Expander card has a huge heatsink and thermal pad.
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    62. have a different question. On a 850 how do you remove the heatsink? I ask because I have a MSI Aero Expander Card and the drive does not fit with the heatsink. The Aero Expander card has a huge heatsink and thermal pad.
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    63. And… great content thank you. Your diligence in testing and presenting all these drives (and showing how to fit them!) informed both my selection and installation this week!
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    64. And… great content thank you. Your diligence in testing and presenting all these drives (and showing how to fit them!) informed both my selection and installation this week!
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    69. Right now they are like 170 at best buy for a 1tb HEATSINK INCLUDED heck yeah had to pay a tax on the wd black gaming hd tho but its worth it still at $240 for 8tb
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    70. Right now they are like 170 at best buy for a 1tb HEATSINK INCLUDED heck yeah had to pay a tax on the wd black gaming hd tho but its worth it still at $240 for 8tb
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    71. Guys, i followed your suggestions about the factory heatsink; i sold my 1 TB 980 pro w/o heatsink and i bought the 1 TB SN850 with the factory heatsink: the best purchase of my life!
      On my Q370 board the sn850 runs in pcie 3.0 mode and the temps never goes over the 47°C!
      You are absolutely right! Buy a ssd with the factory heatsink is the best choice!
      Thanks for your awesome channel full of test and precious suggestions!
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    72. Guys, i followed your suggestions about the factory heatsink; i sold my 1 TB 980 pro w/o heatsink and i bought the 1 TB SN850 with the factory heatsink: the best purchase of my life!
      On my Q370 board the sn850 runs in pcie 3.0 mode and the temps never goes over the 47°C!
      You are absolutely right! Buy a ssd with the factory heatsink is the best choice!
      Thanks for your awesome channel full of test and precious suggestions!
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    79. I would want to see the read rate in realtime during these demos.. I don’t think these early ps5 games are maxing the drive out. the matrix demo runs fine on xbox, with half the throughput. unless they gave this one bigger textures or something, it’s just not a good benchmark at all. we would need to see numbers, unless there are obvious problems on-screen.
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    80. I would want to see the read rate in realtime during these demos.. I don’t think these early ps5 games are maxing the drive out. the matrix demo runs fine on xbox, with half the throughput. unless they gave this one bigger textures or something, it’s just not a good benchmark at all. we would need to see numbers, unless there are obvious problems on-screen.
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    83. Oh yeah and I’m on a custom PC build I built myself from scratch. The PS5 is a waste of time and money and I may wait several years to get one if I even get one, just like I didn’t get a PS4 Pro until November 27, 2019 when it released November 15, 2013. And really the only reason I got it was in prep for FF7 Remake. I only have 5 games and I ordered 4 when I got it because a deal was going on seeing it was Black Friday. So I haven’t bought a game for almost 2 years. Wish I waited an extra year for FF7 Remake to release on PC so I could have gotten it for free, as I did when it released on PC plus I also got the Yuffie DLC for free that I haven’t even played but a minute or 2 just for testing.

      Yeah, The Last of Us was a great game that I’ve beaten several times along with Horizon Zero Dawn, The Uncharted Trilogy, Spider-Man and God of War but PC will always be the better deal, especially if you know what you are doing and are not the commoner who sticks with consoles because PCs are beyond their grasp and/or because the general population are lazier than ever, with both their minds and bodies
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    84. Oh yeah and I’m on a custom PC build I built myself from scratch. The PS5 is a waste of time and money and I may wait several years to get one if I even get one, just like I didn’t get a PS4 Pro until November 27, 2019 when it released November 15, 2013. And really the only reason I got it was in prep for FF7 Remake. I only have 5 games and I ordered 4 when I got it because a deal was going on seeing it was Black Friday. So I haven’t bought a game for almost 2 years. Wish I waited an extra year for FF7 Remake to release on PC so I could have gotten it for free, as I did when it released on PC plus I also got the Yuffie DLC for free that I haven’t even played but a minute or 2 just for testing.

      Yeah, The Last of Us was a great game that I’ve beaten several times along with Horizon Zero Dawn, The Uncharted Trilogy, Spider-Man and God of War but PC will always be the better deal, especially if you know what you are doing and are not the commoner who sticks with consoles because PCs are beyond their grasp and/or because the general population are lazier than ever, with both their minds and bodies
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    85. Well it better be good seeing that it increases the price by $130. You can get a 1 TV 970 Evo Plus for $110. I ordered the 2 TB SN850 without the heatsink for $260 before tax and will be getting it March 8-11. And I’ll be using the heatsink included with my Gigabyte B550m Aorus Pro. It has worked well with my 500(465) GB 970 Plus but I haven’t even needed a heatsink with the 970 Plus. I used it for almost 2 years without a heatsink and it has been working just fine but then again, Samsung says you don’t even need a heatsink with the 970 Plus and it is said that even the label on the 970 Plus works as a heat spreader, along with the special thermal control in the 970 Plus
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    86. Well it better be good seeing that it increases the price by $130. You can get a 1 TV 970 Evo Plus for $110. I ordered the 2 TB SN850 without the heatsink for $260 before tax and will be getting it March 8-11. And I’ll be using the heatsink included with my Gigabyte B550m Aorus Pro. It has worked well with my 500(465) GB 970 Plus but I haven’t even needed a heatsink with the 970 Plus. I used it for almost 2 years without a heatsink and it has been working just fine but then again, Samsung says you don’t even need a heatsink with the 970 Plus and it is said that even the label on the 970 Plus works as a heat spreader, along with the special thermal control in the 970 Plus
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    91. NONE WIN.
      – overpriced.
      – over hyped.
      – and on a CLOCK 2-5 years max time usage.
      – DONT PROMOTE GOODS JUST BECAUSE YOUR PAID not to criticize their weaknesses.

      YOU barely said ANYTHING negative YET most people know there are CHEAPER BETTER brands.
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    92. NONE WIN.
      – overpriced.
      – over hyped.
      – and on a CLOCK 2-5 years max time usage.
      – DONT PROMOTE GOODS JUST BECAUSE YOUR PAID not to criticize their weaknesses.

      YOU barely said ANYTHING negative YET most people know there are CHEAPER BETTER brands.
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    95. Does this come with a stand-off and screw ? I want to get a M.2 but don’t have the standoff and screw. Anyone know a company that supplies hardware with the m.2. Thanks in advance
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    96. Does this come with a stand-off and screw ? I want to get a M.2 but don’t have the standoff and screw. Anyone know a company that supplies hardware with the m.2. Thanks in advance
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    99. hello from February 2022. price for these SSDs seems to have dropped even further since this video was uploaded. the 500gb, 1tb, and 2tb (w/o heat-sink) can now be had for $100, $130, and $260 respectively.
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    100. hello from February 2022. price for these SSDs seems to have dropped even further since this video was uploaded. the 500gb, 1tb, and 2tb (w/o heat-sink) can now be had for $100, $130, and $260 respectively.
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    103. Hey quick question for anyone out there how important is the firmware update or how much better will the ssd run with it compared to right out of the box? Don’t have a pc to update it but if it’s worth buying an adapter and updating it I’m sure I can go to a friends house to get it done.
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    104. Hey quick question for anyone out there how important is the firmware update or how much better will the ssd run with it compared to right out of the box? Don’t have a pc to update it but if it’s worth buying an adapter and updating it I’m sure I can go to a friends house to get it done.
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    111. I just found this drive at my local Walmart, 1tb with heatsink for $150. Seems like the best deal I’ve seen recently. Was considering picking this up while I can. Anyone that has this drive wana chime in and let me know your experience with it? Seems like a top choice
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    112. I just found this drive at my local Walmart, 1tb with heatsink for $150. Seems like the best deal I’ve seen recently. Was considering picking this up while I can. Anyone that has this drive wana chime in and let me know your experience with it? Seems like a top choice
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    121. SN850 2TB with heatsink on sale ATM in UK for 265£, which from 440£ I’d say is pretty good. I believe the other versions are on sale too if anyone from UK watching this ????
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    122. SN850 2TB with heatsink on sale ATM in UK for 265£, which from 440£ I’d say is pretty good. I believe the other versions are on sale too if anyone from UK watching this ????
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    123. Am I right in assuming that I can remove the heatsink on the cuda? For me it’s going in a laptop and may not fit. But would like the sinked version case I switch it to a co sole or pc.
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    124. Am I right in assuming that I can remove the heatsink on the cuda? For me it’s going in a laptop and may not fit. But would like the sinked version case I switch it to a co sole or pc.
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    128. Hi could you please tell us know what the ambient temp of the ps5 without ssd installed is.?
      also does the pny and Sabrent heatsinks work with the firecuda 530 or is it just worth getting it with its own heatsink ?
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    129. I just bought this NVME drive and was about to buy the one without the heat sink only because I have the x570 master motherboard and it came with heatsinks, I decided to buy the one with a heatsink because it is was on sale for a little more than the non heat sink version. Temp difference is huge.
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    133. ????thanks 4 the rundown I dig these real world comparisons. I bought a 2TB 980 Pro for 305 & a 2TB-MX500 for 150. Only Set the mx500 up as I only have last Gen games.. then I finally got a series x (F U scalpers) I have 400+ games so I have been playing on that. SN850 just dropped in price 270 all day-Amazon. I wanted the sn850 originally but $ wasn’t right. I also liked the specs of the Firecuda530. But Seagates pricing decisions for the X/S “storage expansions” over the past year have severely offended me! Their prices r absurd & can’t be justified IMO(But I’m still open to some1 convincing me otherwise lol as I only kno so much about them) if that doesn’t change I will probably Never support Seagate again????so the 530 is dead to me. w/ that out of the way lol do I friggin return the 980Pro w/the expectation of PCIe4x4 dropping in price as we get closer & closer to the PCIe 5.0 release, keep the 980Pro OR exchange it for the WD SN850@ 270???? Now I am prob “slightly” overthinking this lol but I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who cares about the real world 10ths of second differences???? (but does it matter..????)
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    137. I got the WD SN850 2TB with Heatsink when it still was pretty expensive. But i just wanted the best and no hassle. Paid €420 for it, nowadays they go for around €300, but i absolutely love it and have no regrets. ???? And next to that money isn’t really an issue for me, i work for it, so i spend it how i will. ???????? I had the opportunity and got the SN850 with its Heatsink and seeing this review then and now i made the right choice. ????????
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    138. I’m torn… been using my 4tb external hhd for my ps4 games to play on my ps5. Was going to wait for the ports to stop throttle speeds and get an external ssd(t7)/ while I wait as the internal ssds are still stupid high.
      But now internal ssd 1tb($180) and the external t7 ssd(114) are now both on sale. Too many decisions
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    139. I know that this video was uploaded 4 months ago and memory prices change so rapidly, but I could get the 2TB WD SN850 with Heatsink for $400 on Amazon or the 2TB WD SN850 without Heatsink for $271 on Amazon. That’s a massive difference in price. Sure, a $10 Heatsink may not perform as well as the WD Black Heatsink, but by how much? The test you showed was only a difference of about 1°. I don’t think that’s going to mean much when it comes to real life game play.
      What do you think?
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    141. Wd sn850 2tb without heatsink it felt like the right thing to do but I was surprised I thought the Temps would be much lower with the heatsink so pleased with my purchase
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    143. Hey dude ,I was just wondering if you really had one choice which would you go with? WD_BLACK 2TB SN850 NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive or Sabrent 1TB Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0 Gen4? Thanks.
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    147. You have it labeled wrong. The big sandisk chip on the right is the controller. Micron DDR4 chip is in middle…

      You’re assuming that small ST chip is a controller, its not..
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    148. 4:12 – Demon Souls

      6:03 – Control

      7:12 – Ratchet and Clank

      9:44 – GTA V

      11:30 – Doom Eternal

      12:42 – Destruction Allstars

      14:16 – Resident Evil Village

      16:19 – Conclusion
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    150. A gameplay frame rate drop and frame rate consistency would be way much more appreciated and do the video in 4k if it’s possible please with a PS5 game that will determine what’s the best SSD
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    151. Just got the 500GB one on sale with the factory heatsink. Between the drive and the internal storage, I have over 1TB of storage just for PS5 games. I also have an 8TB external drive for PS4 games and PS5 games I am not playing but don’t want to delete and have to redownload. Perfect set up for me atm.
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    153. I used to own the SN850 2TB
      Until I saw some ppl talking about theirs, and apparently, there’s quite few out with the thermal pad NOT touching the controllers.
      Got curios and checked mine, (also when I checked, I was surprised that it was pretty warm although my PS5 was in rest mode for the whole day just before I turned it on just to turn it off and waited for about 10mins before opening my PS5)
      It took me a few weeks arguing with western digital for a replace or a refund.
      Never got one till I talked to Amazon and Amazon took it back and gave me a refund.
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    154. Have you taken a close look, from the side, at the thermal pads? I just bought one of these and if you hold it up to a light nearly NONE Of the thermal pads actually make contact with the chips. You can see light between, almost like the pads are too thin. Neither Best Buy (where I bought it) or western digital will replace it. I’ve seen numerous folks online finding the same issue. You can almost see it @0:50 in your vid, the thermal pad on the left might have a tiny gap under it.
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    158. Was so glad for you to explain the 2 ssds on comparison….. cause was personallt figuring out which of the 2 to get but wasnt too sure the difference but glad to finally know
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    161. This is what next gen can do when these damn developers stop allowing sony and Microsoft to make these new games old gen compatible. When u cna spend your entire resources and man/women power on making a game strickly for next gen consoles this is what could be expected. Bravo WB
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    163. I’m seeing people say the ps5 ssd speed caps out at 6540.17 or something like that? I haven’t done the research myself but they say it doesn’t matter which m.2 gen4 you get they will all be the same speed because the cap?
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    167. Whether it is memory for PS5 or NAS, I think it might be interesting to see how apparent bad choices might behave in performance and over time. Would give us all confidence on why we should bother to spend the extra dough.
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    174. Would be better if it was optimized even more, be on what I heard the file sizes are the same across both pieces are hardware PS5/Series X. So it’s not using maximized compression of kraken and kraken oodle, it’s definitely using quixel mega scans but there is tons of optimizations missing. The first demo showing Nanite was better optimized, it was also faster when it came to streaming data, this demo limits your speed, I tried increasing it in fly mode but it comes to a halt strangely enough, so there is room for much more squeezed out of this engine in the hardware. Cars have horrible brakes on this game, lol. No tire noises which is weird.

      Edit: is there a way to measure the amount of data being streamed on real time from this? What about the Series X, its SSD has a massive bandwidth deficit compared to PS5. Are there any differences between the two when it comes to streaming data in this demo? ????
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    183. Cheers for the video fella…I just bought myself the WD 850 for my PS5 thanks to ur previous video about manufacturer fitted heat sink. Well worth the extra $$$ for mine
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    188. Could you maybe also test these SSDs with the other heatsinks? The Sabrents, Elutengs etc. I have seen also in other reviews that the WD gets much hotter than the Seagate in a PC, and it would be nice to see if the 3rd party heatsinks do a better job than the ones from the manufacturers.
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    192. So glad i bought the wd sn 850 without the heatsink and instead the sabrent ps5 heatsink, this test is very disappointing I thought the sn850 with heatsink would do better but these temperatures are not worth the price
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    193. I always had bad experience with seagate ,since 2000. They mechanical HDD tend to die without reason. Thats the reason i avoid seagate, tbad exp with them. Hitachi and WD were best in my case
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    195. So to some it all up. I’m a sucker for following Mark Cerny’s advice and getting the WD 1TB w/heatsink.

      Great. A lot of hard earned money down the drain…damnit
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    202. Absolutely fantastic once again ????. I think you should do a you Quick recap video on all the heatsinks but only use the same ssd in all test. I think that should be the sn850 as it clearly runs the hottest out of all nvme ssds. For an overall tier ranking list. As I have noticed you have used different ssds throughout your testing of the heatsinks which all run at different temperatures. Either way great video as always. Keep up the great work my friend ????????????
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    203. Great video as always! Now that the Matrix UE5 demo is out on PS5 that can be your new benchmark for loading/pop in/framerate. During the driving sequence I noticed when you go over 100 mph the framerate starts to get choppy, maybe it’s because the massive amount of data being streamed in. I’m sure an ultra fast ssd can mitigate this.
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    204. Hi! First of all I love your channel 🙂 Im getting a Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB SSD in a few days for my PS5. Kingston advertising and brag about their Low-profile graphene aluminium heat spreader. Do you think this will be enought? Or should I get a 3 party one? And so if; Should I remove the original, or just put the new one on top?
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    205. I bought my sn850 in August 21. I have my games on it and wasn’t aware of the firmware update. I went ahead and took it out from ps5 and into my PC. Used the dashboard amd installed the new firmware. Put it back in the ps5 and all my games were still installed. I noticed it’s a Lil quicker but I have no data to prove, could be a placebo affect. For those wondering hope this will help.
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    206. Ya think best buy would update my sn850 for me at best buy? I dont own a computer to update the drive ????????. I just looked at the drive best buy mailed me and the print date for it says oct 2020 so that must mean it’s on old firmware???
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    210. I bought this 1TB NVME drive for my PC and couldnt be more pleased – you get what you pay for! Just to cover all the bases I later bought the 1TB 980 Pro for my Dell XPS 15 laptop and again no complaints, the 2 top brands in my view with close to the same superior performance
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    220. I’d just thought I’d post this incase anyone forgot to update their firmware on an SN850 before installing into a PS5. I recently bought the 1TB WD SN850 (a few weeks ago from Bestbuy) I installed the drive right away before checking the firmware version on a PC. I just finished watching this current video and decided to remove it and install into my PC. The drive already had the latest firmware version. Just thought I’d tell everyone, assuming they bought it recently.
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    221. What kind of dumb question is this? Should you still get a M.2? Aren’t M.2s only a couple of years old? What the hell else are you going to use? A new revolutionary HDD M.3?
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    224. I don’t have a pc right now only laptop. Can I update firmware with one of these USB-Sata adapters from Amazon? I read online there were some issues with sn850 because of the old firmware I would feel better if I can update that before I install it in my ps5
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    230. Have found your videos extremely informative and interesting and they’ve really helped me make an informed purchase decision in a field I’m relatively inexperienced in, so thanks for all the effort you’ve put in! Greatly appreciated.
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    232. I’m making my first Black Friday/cyber Monday purchases mostly SSD related. Anyone know if it’s actually best to wait on those days specifically for any further price reduction or is anything we see this week basically the deals of the week?
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    235. Hey nas been wondering which is best for my ps5 the sabrent ps5 heatsink with my wd sn850 or the heatsink that comes with the wd sn850 i want to know what heatsink is best for optimal performance ? Thanks love the vids
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    236. I bought the 850 last month its fast BUT on my Aorus 570 mobo when WD installed on m.2A read/write were half the speed, heat sink installed. Wth? So using a pcie adapter installed the ssd and I was getting close to advertised speed?? Using the WD app. The 850 is capable of 4 but in the m.2 slot its 2. On the the pcie slot 4/4 according to the app. BIOs up to date. You figure m.2 closet to the CPU is the fastest.
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    237. Outstanding video! Thanks for the great info & tips. Just purchased the SN850 1TB for the OS and 2 x 8TB Black for games, storage, and backup on the new Alder Lake build. Considering adding another SN850 1TB to run games on. Good idea?

      Update: Bought another SN850 1TB

      Fair winds and following seas to all.
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    241. Too late… I bought the Firecuda 530 4tb for the Sony. With shortages going on, I jumped on the first decent option. Ridiculous price yep sure… But I feel I’ve future proofed the Sony for the foreseeable future.
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    242. Would like to see one of these breakdowns with the amazing FIRECUDA 530 Heatsink version on PS5 it’s been great running Call of Duty Vanguard. And The Last of Us 2 ????????????????
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    244. Hi. Do you think the original heatsink on Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB SSD will be good enought for the PS5? Or do I need to replace it? And are you gonna test the
      Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB SSD in a PS5? Love your channel!
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    253. I was very impressed with the results of this SSD since August, which convinced me to buy a WD Black SN850 1TB SSD (No heatsink) from the Western Digital site for £119.99, two days ago. Glad I waited for that Black Friday sale.
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    255. I just bought this and the Sabrent PS5 heatsink but havn’t opened either yet just incase a better deal appears on black friday. Do y’all think the firecuda is worth the extra $20/30ish?
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    256. Thank you, NASCompares, for a great review!
      I just purchased the WD SN850 2TB for my PS5, and I have a question:
      Can I upgrade the firmware on the WD SN850 SDD using the PS5 or should I upgrade it using another method and how?
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    266. Western Digital are charging £200 extra on a 1TB drive for a heat sink and £120 extra on the 2TB so price alone tells everyone they are being ripped off on the 1TB drive, never mind the obvious ludicrous price already, just under half the price of the PlayStation itself. This is Apple wheels price crazy. The drive has a 5 year warranty regardless, you don’t get a 10 year one with the heatsink. Pay £6 and you get 3 years of cover for everything regardless of the manufacturer warranty. This is for a PlayStation not for mission critical data, don’t be that sucker.
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    272. I got that WD black 1tb and eluteng HS for £144 altogether ???????????????? both off Amazon same day delivery.

      saved £40 if I was to get it from a couple sites, and £140 if I was to get it from Amazon! Shocking they’re charging so much for it with HS
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