WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 SSD Comparison

Last updated on 28 Aug 2022 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 PCIe 4 NVMe SSD Comparison – WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530
2 WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Price & Capacity
3 WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Reported Read & Write Speed
4 WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Reported IOPS
5 WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – NASCompares Tests
6 WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Endurance & Durability
7 WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Conclusion
8 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

PCIe 4 NVMe SSD Comparison – WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530

In all my years of covering the subject of storage here on the blog, there are a few brand rivalries that stand out more than any other – and when it comes to HDDs and SSDs it has always been Western Digital vs Seagate! These two brands are grown into the two biggest names in storage, recognizable both inside/outside of the industry as the go-to media makers! In the Hard Drive industry, these two brands dominate more than 2/3 of the industry, but when it comes to SSDs, things get a little more complex. You see, Seagate utilizes long-running partnerships with 3rd Party companies such as Phison, Micron and SK-Hynix, whereas WD develops their SSDs using in-house teams and acquired companies that are part of the Western Digital family, such as Sandisk and HGST. This means that although both brands are targeting the same areas of the solid-state storage industry, their results arrive with very different architecture that ends up prioritizing very different user needs. Today I want to compare the two fastest PCIe4 M.2 NVMe SSDs that either company has ever commercially released (to date). The 2021 released Seagate Firecuda 530 and the Summer 2022 released WD Black SN850X (not to be confused with the 2020 released original WD Black SN850).

Brand/Series Seagate Firecuda 530

500GB – $119.99, 1TB – $159.99, 2TB – $299.99, 4TB – $729.99

 WD Black SN850X

1TB – $159, 2TB – $289, 4TB –$699
PCIe Generation PCIe Gen 4 PCIe Gen 4
NVMe Rev NVMe 1.4 NVMe 1.4
NAND 3D TLC Micron B47R 176L BiCS4 114L TLC
Max Capacity 4TB – Double Sided 4TB
Controller Phison E18-PS5018 WD_BLACK G2 NVMe Controller
Warranty 5yr + 3yr Data Recovery (Rescue) 5yr
NASCompares Review
NASComapres YouTube Review
 

I want to look at these two SSDs and compare them on Price, Value, Architecture, Performance and Durability, in order to help you decide which of these two SSDs is best for your PC or PS5 Storage needs. Let’s begin.

WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Price & Capacity

Now, the prices below for the Seagate Firecuda 530 and WD Black SN850X SSD are from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk as of August 9th 2022 and do not take into account any promotions/deals. It is worth highlighting that due to a huge range of reasons (hardware shortages locally, cost of living rises affecting buy patterns, post-pandemic supply chain issues and a pain in the bum that was Chia crypto currency in 2021) the price and availability of SSDs have been particularly unstable. Still, even if we JUST look at this snapshot of the pricing of these drives, spread across the available capacities, we can definitely see that the prices for the WD Black SN850X are unusually mixed across the different currencies. Now, the Seagate Firecuda has been in the market much longer now and has had time to spread itself out and have a more balanced pricing structure (much as the original SN850 did a couple of years ago).

Brand/Series Seagate Firecuda 530

WD Black SN850X

500GB Model ZP500GM3A013 N/A
Price in $ and $ $139 / £119 N/A
1TB Model ZP1000GM3A013 WDS100T2X0E
Price in $ and $ $189 / £159 $159 / £159**
2TB Model ZP2000GM3A013 WDS200T2X0E
Price in $ and $ $399 / £359 $289 / £309**
4TB Model ZP4000GM3A013 WDS400T2X0E
Price in $ and $ $799 / £769 $699 / £749**

Nevertheless, there is no avoiding the fact that the Seagate Firecuda 530 is almost always going to be the more expensive choice over the WD Black SN850X, wherever you are in the world. Now, it is worth remembering that Price is not everything, whereas as VALUE is much more significant – AKA what you GET for your money. In this area, it could be argued that the Seagate Firecuda 530 (despite it’s 10-15% higher price tag) gives you a tiny bit more. The higher layer density NAND of 176L, the higher durability (will touch on that later) and the inclusive forensic level data recovery services all add up to (in the eyes of many) justifying that increased spend. Now, it should be highlighted that only a small % of users will likely use/see the benefits in these and once you cost up the budget of your kit, chances are that this small price diff (particularly in bulk/RAID builds) is going to mount up, but it would be remiss to ignore it.

WD Black SN850X SSD = Best Price

Seagate Firecuda 530 = Best Value

*TBC at the time of writing and will be addressed/confirmed later. The video below will break down the definitions and meaning of the terms used throughout this review and the comparison tables

** Pricing for the SN850X is quite varied online at launch and regardless of tax and currency exchange rates, the pricing here (taken from the official WD store and then undated with Amazon pricing) seems a bit uneven. This will hopefully even out soon.

WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Reported Read & Write Speed

Next, we should discuss the traditional sequential performance of the Seagate Firecuda 530 and WD Black SN850X SSD, as this is by far the most common way drives have been compared (despite the rise in importance of IOPS and durability when it comes to SSDs, in the eyes of many the ‘MB/s’ and ‘GB/s’ figure will always reign supreme). As both of these drives are part of the m.2 PCIe 4 x4 NVMe generation of SSDs, that means that each drive has 8,000MB/s of PCIe bandwidth to attempt to saturate and, frankly, they do an incredible job of it! Now, it is important to keep things relative when you see performance stats, as the capacity of the drive plays a HUGE part in hitting higher speeds. The reason for this is because the actual storage on an SSD is the NAND, one or more modules on the PCB that scale in density and frequency depending on the scale of the drive total capacity. So, for example, a 1TB SSD will either be a single block of NAND at 1024GB or two blocks of NAND at 512GB. Two blocks mean that the drive can be read/written to twice as much and tends to increase performance in most cases. This same logic extends to higher capacities (e.g. 2TB = 1x 1TB or 4x 512GB) and depending on the quality of the NAND (e.g MLC vs TLC, or 96L vs 176L) and factors such as power use and heat, different SSD brands tend to pick their physical architecture differently. This is very much the case when it comes to the Seagate Firecuda 530 and WD Black SN850X SSD, meaning that the scaling performance of each drive model as you jump between each capacity tier is quite pronounced. Note that sequential performance refers to big ‘blocks/blobs’ of data when data, not hugely spread across the drive in small chunks (that is more accurately measurable in IOPS, which we will touch on in a bit). Another key point to remember is that these reported speeds are supplied by the brands themselves, in test scenarios running high high end CPU+GPU combos (eg, 12-16 Core Xeon/Ryzen and 64GB Memory) that they represent to maximum performance possible, but domestic and mid-range commercial users are going to hit max performance thresholds a good 10-15% lower. Use the links at the top of the article to see the full testing and benchmarks of the WD Black SN850X and Seagate Firecuda 530 in my 11th gen i5 + 16GB RAM setup.

Brand/Series Seagate Firecuda 530

WD Black SN850X

500GB Model ZP500GM3A013 N/A
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 7000MB N/A
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 3000MB N/A
1TB Model ZP1000GM3A013 WDS100T2X0E
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 7300MB 7300MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 6000MB 6300MB
2TB Model ZP2000GM3A013 WDS200T2X0E
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 7300MB 7300MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 6900MB 6600MB
4TB Model ZP4000GM3A013 WDS400T2X0E
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 7300MB 7300MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 6900MB 6600MB

Now, both drives here predominantly hit the reported maximum 7,300MB/s sequential read figure on the bulk Terabyte scale drives, which is very good indeed and largely saturates the maximum potential bandwidth of PCIe4 nicely. The write performance is a fraction different (as write performance typically has a pinch more work to do than read) and on that score, the Seagate Firecuda 530 takes a small lead, at 6900MB over 6600MB on the larger capacities. Alot of this advantage comes down too the NAND on the Seagate, in two very clear ways. 1) the NAND is 176L and of a higher density count and 2) the 2TB on the Seagate is double-sided (4x 512GB modules) and the spread is still better on the 4TB in memory chips and NAND as well. The WD Black SN850X is a tremendous leap in Write (and partially Read) over the WD Black SN850 released almost 2 years previously and the increased range of a 4TB option is great news, but when it comes to traditional transfer sequential performance, the Seagate Firecuda 530 wins on points.

Seagate Firecuda 530 = Best Sequential Performance

WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Reported IOPS

Now, unlike the traditional performance benchmarks of transfer speeds in sequential Read/Write, IOPS has a much more important place in modern SSD use – especially as we start to see the capabilities of CPU, Memory and GPUs to harness the bandwidth of PCIe NVMe (such as Microsoft Direct Storage and modern gen consoles). Because modern high-scale computer processes (databases, loading game sandboxes and AI engines) use incremental loading and in-world loading on the fly, the abilities of an SSD to load vast numbers of smaller assets into the memory (either directly towards the GPU or unpacked by the CPU first) is incredibly important. The IOPS figure presented by SSD manufacturers is presented as a 4K random IOPS operation in Read and Write (4K being an incredibly small packet size and random, meaning constantly accessing data locations across the NAND). Both the Seagate Firecuda 530 and the WD Black SN850X SSD score very, very high in IOPS (once again, based on high-end PC hardware and benchmarks by the brand themselves) and either one will do a fantastic job of loading/recording vast scales of low-volume/high-frequency data – but which one does it better?

Brand/Series Seagate Firecuda 530

WD Black SN850X

500GB Model ZP500GM3A013 N/A
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 400,000 N/A
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 700,000 N/A
1TB Model ZP1000GM3A013 WDS100T2X0E
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 800000 800,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1000000 1,100,000
2TB Model ZP2000GM3A013 WDS200T2X0E
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1,000,000 1,200,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1,000,000 1,100,000
4TB Model ZP4000GM3A013 WDS400T2X0E
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1,000,000 1,200,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 1,000,000 1,100,000

The WD Black SN850X has an almost clean sweep of the board here compared with the Seagate Firecuda 530, almost consistently living in the 1.1-1.2 Million IOPS reported mark. This is not a huge surprise and alot of this can be attributed to the in-house development of the hardware on board being much more fixed in its intended use. The Phison/Micron architecture of the Seagate Firecuda 530 is exceptionally good, but these components are used in several other branded SSDs in the market (Sabrent, Gigabyte, Kingston, MSI and PNY just to name a few) and that means they need to be a little more malleable. Much like the SN850 before it, the WD Black SN850X is extremely well geared to high volume and frequency operations and at 1.2 million ops per second is practically the highest in the PCIe4 M.2 NVMe sector right now commercially.

WD Black SN850X SSD = Highest IOPS Rating

WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – NASCompares Tests

Now, up to this point, we have been looking at the reported maximum performance of the WD Black SN850X and Seagate Firecuda 530 that was benchmarked by the respective brands. Although these are tremendously useful figures in isolating the max read/write for them both, the systems that they are tested with do not really represent the average user. So, in my reviews and benchmark video/article for each SSD, I use a Windows 10 Pro machine, running on an Intel Core i5 6-Core 11th Gen Processor, 16GB of DDR4 2666Mhz Memory and the M.2 NVMe SSD for the review being accessed as an additional drive (not OS, but still on a PCIe Gen 4×4 m.2 bandwidth slot). These are some of the results of that testing in traditional performance and IOPS:

Seagate Firecuda 530 ATTO 4GB Test R/W WD Black SN850X ATTO 4GB Test R/W

 

Seagate Firecuda 530 Crystal Disk 4GB Test R/W WD Black SN850X Crystal Disk 4GB Test R/W

 

Seagate Firecuda 530 AS SSD 5GB IOPS WD Black SN850X AS SSD 5GB IOPS

 

Seagate Firecuda 530 Temperature During Tests WD Black SN850X Temperature During Tests

Now, as you can see from the testing, there WAS an unfortunate hurdle of the Seagate Firecuda 530 being a 1TB and the WD Black SN850X being a 2TB! This was unfortunately unavailable, as I did not have comparable drives of capacity available from each bran’s SSD at the time, so these results need to have that VERY important piece of context taken into account and the write performance is too different to rely upon, because of how the NAND was distributed). However, in terms of Read performance in transfer rates and IOPS, we can still draw accurate comparisons. In all tests (with the exception of the Crystal Disk 4GB test and early parts of the ATTO tests), the WD Black SN850X was faster than the Seagate Firecuda 530 by a pinch in Seq Read and a noticeable jump higher in IOPS (even if you discount the capacity difference). In contrast, though, the Seagate Firecuda ran much lower in temp throughout all the testing (either though both were using quick large and highly proficient m.2 heatsinks).

WD Black SN850X SSD = Best Overall Performer in a Domestic PC

Seagate Firecuda 530 = Ran Much Lower Temp Throughout

WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Endurance & Durability

Unlike the other points in this comparison of the Seagate Firecuda 530 and WD Black SN850X, the Endurance and Durability of an SSD is an area that is overlooked often enough that I wanted to take a moment to focus a little more on this – you can thank you years from now! The importance of SSD durability and endurance in 2022/2023 is actually pretty massive. Now that the devices we use all feature incredibly powerful processors, often cloud/network hybrid AI processes and graphical handling that will be instantly bottlenecked by traditional hard drives, SSDs are no longer just the ‘boot’ drive for our OS and are now the day to day working drive. This combined with SSD being used as caching and larger SSD capacities allowing suitable substitution for HDDs entirely means that the CONSTANT concern about SSDs lifespan and the durability of those NAND cells is now quite paramount. SSDs wear out – it’s as simple as that. The more you write, the more wear those individual NAND cells suffer – degrading performance over the years and inevitably leading to drive failure. Likewise, the smaller the drive, the greater likelihood that you will be writing, then rewriting, then rewriting, time and time again. The Seagate Firecuda 530 and WD Black SN850X are no exception and alongside massive research and development in better controllers and interfaces to improve performance, the way NAND is improved has led to SSDs lasting lover than ever before. However, SSDs and NAND are not built equally and there is actually quite a large difference in durability between the WD Black SN850X and the Seagate Firecuda 530. The Storage industry typically measures the predicted durability and endurance of an SSD as TBW, DWPD and MTBF. They are:

TBW = Terabytes Written, rated as the total number of terabytes that this SSD can have written to it in its warranty-covered lifespan. So if the TBW was 300TB and the warranty is 5 years of coverage, that would mean that the drive can receive on average (with deleting/overwriting data each repeatedly) 60 Terabytes per year (or 5TB a month). After this point, the manufacturer highlights that durability, endurance and performance will decline. Often highlighted as an alternative to warranty length when gauging the predicted lifespan of a SSD.

DWPD = Drive Writes Per Day / Data Writes Per Day, this is a decimalized figure that represents what proportion of the capacity of an SSD (where 1.0 = 100% capacity) can be filled, erased and/or rewritten on a daily basis. This is provided using the warranty period and TBW figure. So, for example, if a 500GB drive has a 0.3DWPD rating, that is approx 150GB of data per day

MTBF = Mean Time Between Failure, which is the interval between one failure of an SSD and the next. MTBF is expressed in hours and most industrial SSDs are rated in the Millions of Hours. MTBF and MTTF (Mean Time to Failure) have largely become overlooked in recent years in favour of TBW and DWPD in SSDs, but are still stated on most Data Sheets.

So, now you know what those large Terbyte stats, hours and decimal point details are on the average SSD datasheet. So where do the Seagate Firecuda 530 and WD Black SN850X stand on this:

Brand/Series Seagate Firecuda 530

WD Black SN850X

500GB Model ZP500GM3A013 N/A
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 640TB N/A
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,800,000 N/A
DWPD 0.7DWPD N/A
1TB Model ZP1000GM3A013 WDS100T2X0E
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 1275TB 600TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,800,000 1,750,000
DWPD 0.7DWPD 0.3DWPD
2TB Model ZP2000GM3A013 WDS200T2X0E
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 2550TB 1200TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,800,000 1,750,000
DWPD 0.7DWPD 0.3DWPD
4TB Model ZP4000GM3A013 WDS400T2X0E
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 5100TB 2400TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,800,000 1,750,000
DWPD 0.7DWPD 0.3DWPD
Note – Seagate Firecuda 530 includes 3yrs Data Recovery

This is pretty much a solid victory for the Seagate Firecuda 530 over the WD Black SN850X SSD. That higher quality NAND and higher quantity NAND distribution of modules on the PCB (and perhaps the running temperature too, but that is unconfirmed) with everything running for longer on the Seagate drive, as well as the inclusive data recovery services being thrown in too (either as a safety net or a guarantee of the quality – whose to say) means that the Seagate Firecuda 530, despite it’s slightly higher price point in most eShops, definitely being the more durable drive of the two.

WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 – Conclusion

There is a good reason why the WD Black SN850X and Seagate Firecuda 850X still continue to be two of the most popular PCIe4 M.2 SSDs in the market – they are both such outstanding drives! So comparing them was never going to be easy. The WD Black SN850X is the better drive for mixed-use, PC gamers and post-production, thanks to it’s higher IOPS rating and excellent sustained performance ratings (though keep an eye on the heat in laptop usage). The Seagate Firecuda is the better choice for professional esports gamers, PS5 and use in large-scale databases, where an element of 24×7 use and high data recycle rates come into play. Both are excellent drives and deserve their places at the top of the food chain of consumer SSDs in 2022 and whichever one you choose, you will have an insanely capable SSD in your system for years to come!

Brand/Series Seagate Firecuda 530

WD Black SN850X

Best Performance ✓
Best Endurance/Durability ✓  
Best Price for TB   ✓
Best Extras ✓  
Best Value ✓  
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      173 thoughts on “WD Black SN850X vs Seagate Firecuda 530 SSD Comparison”

      1. I have both Drives at 2tb. im trying to figure out which one out of the two would be best for a system Bootdrive to house Windows Operating system and the other to store my Games and Game launcher softwear
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      2. I have to agree with this except I would add that these M.2 SN850X likes to operate in a temperature envelope of 0c to 70c or 32F to 158F
        At least according to the spec sheet.
        The M.2 SN850X also records every evil thing you do and reports it to your mom even when you perform an unsafe shut down and shall punish you for it.
        I suggest idle temp of 35c to 45c and not a drop over 120F
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      3. Hi, I have a question i just purchase wd sn850x, 2TB and i have inserted this nvme in pcie gen 4 slot in the motherboard, my motherboard is gigabyte auros pro B550M, on cristal diskmark software i am getting 7300 read 6300 write speed, but when i actully coping any file in this nvme i am getting 530 to 550mbps why?
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      4. This drive sucks. Every single game crashes

        The game mode is so stupid I can’t even believe it if game mode is off game stutter if game mode is on games crash

        Rtx4090 i9 14900ks

        Rog Maximus Apex motherboard

        I have a 980 pro Samsung and every time I suffer from crashing problems on the WD black

        I transferred the game over to the 980 and it works and doesn’t crash

        I’m sending the stupid drive back to Newegg

        Piece of garbage do not buy

        Tried tested and true okay maybe I have a faulty drive

        But my Samsung drive wasn’t faulty I’m had it with this stupid WD black 8 50x garbage
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      9. So which is best? WB is great for this but the Firecuda is good for that.
        Its tit for tat.
        How often are you really going to write and rewrite if youre gaming? That is unless you have over 50 games average. If you are just going to download games and have less than 50 games the WD is best bang for your buck
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      11. i have ben saving for a pc good gaming pc for the past 6 years now and yea the wd black sn850x 4TB ssd is something i will have as my C drive. whenni first found out about the drive it was a bit too expensive but now the prices has dropped to acceptable levels which is a relief as my budget is at around 4k$ which means yes i will have a RTX 4k series GPU but also get the benefits of high read and write speeds with that ssd. which is required as not only do i do a lot of modded gaming.. but i also do 3d modeling in blender and coding and such things and yea that ssd together with a RTX 4080 16GB will be a huge upgrade from the 10+ year old setup i currently am working with. not to mention that the new pc will have a much better cpu (a Ryzen 9 7950x 4.5 GHz 81 MB so even better then the one used in the benchmark testing of that ssd) then my current one.. as my current one do not have AVX support.. which has become a big problems when i wanna play games like subnautica BZ and slime rancher 2 as now game devs assume that all computers that ppl are using has that as standard.. but nope.. my current pc do not.. nor do my current motherboard support a newer cpu either due to how old everything is.. so yea i am looking forward to finally getting a new modern gaming pc
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      15. Regarding WD Black SN850X vs. Crucial P5 Plus, I’m a little confused regarding the random read speeds.
        In the 1st random read test, the SN850X is 3 times faster than the P5 Plus.
        In the 2nd random read test, the SN850X is 3 times slower than the P5 Plus.
        So which one is more likely to be faster overall?
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      16. No way i am putting my trust on WD devices bcoz of their crap quality and failure rate.. i am going with any other brand except Samsung / WD for their failure rate… Recently their Portable SSDS failed widespread with many ppl due to their designing flaws and they didnt even care to acknowledge and get it resolved or gove data recovery service..all precious data lost due to this stupid Western Digital… theyr 5 year warranty is just crap whe they dont produce quality items..i am going with seagate
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      27. For me, same as some who comment below, it gets down to quality control ( sn850 wins due to get lower third party company involved and an alliance with sony ) , and for what purpose your gonna use it, seems like firecuda is designed tougher for going to limits and performance such as edition, heavy long work, more designed towards pc rather than ps5… and the sn850 its recommended and officially licensed by Sony, making that to apparently work perfectly… although I saw in another video, comparing speed, firecuda vs sn850 on ps5, firecuda wins for speed and efficiency, the sn850 tends to get slow in some areas, like drop frames, very weird, im confused now :

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0QiCugf74Y seems like firecuda wins for ps5
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      31. hey friend. can you next time when you write specs of each, keep it side by side, same font size and the smae specs youre comparing. its not easy to follow when you write small text on top of the messy background you have. you need to use a lav mic. no excuses to not have good audio. you have 104k subs. thats awesome. you need to level these things up. thanks.
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      34. I just sent my 530 back because my Elitebook 865 G9 was overheating. The fan was so loud I had to turn it off and open the cover to put it in front of a fan. I took the drive out and it was even to hot to hold.????
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      37. this is confusing: https://youtu.be/tsHMpxOoDik?t=1110

        You said the 2TB model has 4x1TB modules – 2 on each side. Do you mean 4x512gb modules, or does the drive actually come with 4TB but seagate as some kind of a redundancy thing? +NASCompares
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      39. I have the 4TB version and can only get 3475 MB/s on CrystalDiskMark. I have a Dell Latitude 5591 laptop with an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8850H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2592 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s), and 32 GB of RAM. Is something wrong, or is this a reasonable speed?
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      40. What do you recommend for my gen 3 PCIe M.2 supporting pc? both of these over the top and speeds capped by the gen 3, but prices today reasonable for both £62 for 850x and £79 for the seagate one! Or is it better to stick for something like the 1TB SN770?
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      45. Hi! I have a quick question: would this WD Black SN850X with the heatsink fit in my laptop Predator Helios 300 (2022 version) or should I buy the model without heatsink? Your reviews are always so helpful, thanks! 🙂
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      51. What about for data storage? Are these units worth the price vs a Crucial S3 plus ($250) in an environment where I’m not doing a ton of read/write but when I do I want it to be fast?
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      53. Fantastic video, thank you. Which one do you think would be best for 4K editing as a scratch disk for Adobe premiere Pro please, I’m torn between the two , you help would be very much appreciated ???? ????
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      54. Good review thank you Heat likely killed mine..had a heat sink. Installed as a drive to house simple data for VST libraries used in audio software. Installed retail box version on Nov 28, 2022. Dead March 6, 2023. BIOS no longer sees any drive in the allocated M. 2 slot on a Z390 Gigabyte MOBO. Original Intel 2TB M2 and Samsung Ssd SATA from Dec 2019 still there no issues. This is shameful. Some Amazon users rated this drive as 1 star listing failure after failure. In IT for 30 years, this is a first in this short of timeframe. Avoid.
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      57. You are still my No.1 YouTuber when I have questions about a new ssd for my PS5.
        Thank you for all the work you put in to give us all the technical information we need to make a proper decision. ????????
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      59. Stuck it into a PCIe 3.0 with half the max speed, and still faster than high quality fastest PCIe 3.0 drive with similar max speeds. Due to bigger faster DRAM on WD drive, random read writes are faster.
        Always buy WD, quality and reliability not found in any other. Not Samsung, not Kingston, not Seagate.
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      60. Hey Nas!
        I just bought this m2 but i am unable to install windows.

        I installed the harddrive, and using the windows on my SSD it’s possible to see it in diskmanagement and as storage in “computer”
        However, i am unable to see it in my windows installation (USB bootable)

        I have tried just about everything and i searched google thin without hope, even asked on a forum but no luck..

        Please be my saviour <3
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      62. Ive Just got this ssd for christmas and have now bought an orico M.2 ssd enclosure with nvme m.2 ssd compatibility, however im unable to initialise the drive and it only appears in disk manager as one that cant be initialised and it appears in device manager but other than that it doesnt work even though its brand new adn it working on some pc’s ive tried but not my own. The conclusion ive come to is either theres something wrong with the drive or my pc having had its operating system upgraded to windows 11 rather than a full clean install and so is having issues detecting it properly, Ive made sure the BIOS is updated and any outstanding updates for my os is installed as windows has a tendancy to disable certain functionality based on if youve updated it or not but low and behold it doesnt work still does anyone know how to fix it?
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      63. Just picked this drive up, installed it in a new build with: i9-13900k slightly OC, 32GB DDR5-6000 and a 3090 OC. I didn’t think I would see much of a difference between my old off brand M.2 and my new SN850x but I’m here to say it was well worth the $199 I picked it up for. Pcie gen 5 is on the horizon so there are some great deals out there for the top drives. 100% would recommend.
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      66. Thank you!
        Can you please expand on why you don’t feel this is a great drive for PS5 application?
        4TB currently $450. Every Amazon review is CONSISTENTLY showing PS5 read speeds of just over 6,500 MB/s; highest I’ve seen registered for PS5 application (i.e., Firecuda PS5 read speeds ranging 5,200 – 6,500 MB/s)
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      70. @NASCopares May you or anyone else could please tell me if you have seen SN850X 4TB in your hand that, is 4TB single sided or it is double sided SSD? I am seeing conflicting comments, some says it is single sided and some saying it is double sided! Even in official data sheet they have mentioned exactly same thickness of SN850X regardless the capacity, that means according to data sheet 1TB and 4TB has same thickness, my laptop cannot accept double sided NVMe that’s why I want to be sure if 4TB is one sided (I know 1 or 2TB are one sided)
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      71. So which one is better for PC gamer what is the benefit of the higher IOPS on sn850x, he says its for “higher frequency database” and the seagate has “big blocky chunky performance” I want game data to load fast, I also have multiple mp3s playing, youtube streams going, what is better for this?
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      82. What a difference 2 or 3 months make. In the video the WD Black 1TB SN850X w/o heatsink is selling at $159.99. I just picked up, in a Black Friday special, the 2TB SN850X for $154.99.
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      83. The 4TB version is sold only without a heatsink for a reason: the chips on top are very different in height, so you have to use relatively thick thermal pads to make the heatsink sit properly flat on top. To make it worse: on the bottom, chips are on one half only, which makes it even harder to fit double-sided heatsinks easily, because you can’t use even pressure to make the top side a snug fit.
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      87. good in debt video, thx..
        a bit of a shame that your system isnt powerfull so it can give the true maximum performance ..
        – that is a thing Id like to see, since I do have a 5950X, with a SN750 1TB + SN850 1TB, – and Iam considering upgrading the SN750 to a SN850X 2TB..
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      94. WD Black SN850X utter trash ! Tried to install this in 2 x difference PC and both would not let me format in Disk management ! BAD DRIVERS ! Purchased Samsung 980 PRO and installed right away no issues at all,.
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      102. I don’t really trust these endurance ratings by Seagate. Micron under Crucial brand themselves uses their 176 layer NAND and their warranty extends to just 1200TBW on 2TB P5 Plus. Hard to believe somehow Seagate outdid Micron when Seagate also uses the same 176 layer Micron NAND. I think Seagate and couple other brands simply exaggerate their endurance ratings so you’d buy their product instead of just buying it from these vertically integrated companies. I’d buy WD SN850X over FireCuda 530 any day. Inhouse designs tend to just last better than mix and match off the shelf 3rd party drives from my experience. In the US the drive to get is SK Hynix P41, too bad its not available in Europe. Samsung 990 Pro sounds promising, but we will see.
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      103. I want to personally thank you. I’ve been looking at getting a 2TB heatsink SSD for my PS5 and I’ve watched most of your videos. I was between both of these drives and ultimately went with the seagate. I think durability and endurance is what sold me. Both drive are actually $249 USD from a major retailer in the USA so this video made it easy to choose. Thank you again for the content!
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      104. Actually the pricing isn’t that different at the most they are only maybe $5-10 difference. Right now on Amazon both 2TB drives with Heat Sink are the same price at $249. I assume when Gen 5 arrives later this year with new AMD CPU’s they’ll drop even more and may be able to go full M.2 and only use 4tb ssd/HDD external drive for backup.
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      108. i want to order a 2tb. I have hard time to decided between Kingston KC3000 and this WD SN850X. Today i see they are the exact same price . Both 5 years warranty and similar performance. KC3000 has more TBW at 1.6PBW and 1.2PBW for the SN850X. 36% price drop on SN850X today
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      111. WD’s dashboard app is absolute dogshit. Never use it except for updates or maintenance, other than that uninstall it when you don’t need it. It absolutely destroys your pc’s performance. It maxes out your cpu usage no matter your settings or how good your cpu is. I contacted their customer support and they installed the app on their pc and were shocked at how much it destroyed their cpu usage also. They even had another rep that had a way more powerful pc try it too and same thing. They had no idea what to do about it. Such a weird pathetic issue. Even if you turned off the background process settings for it and didn’t have the program open there was still processes it was doing destroying your usage. You had to uninstall it completely to get your perf back. It’s been a year now so I’m hoping they maybe fixed it? Idk the whole thing seemed so negligent, careless, and ignorant.
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      112. Hi, thanks for the informative videos. Have you checked if the 850x comes with the latest firmware since it impacts performance when using enclosures like orico? I have the 4TB version, I tried to check firmware on pc using dashboard but couldn’t get the software to install properly, blank window, I’ll contact WD for that. I got 2450/2700 with the shipped firmware, on mac mini thunderbolt 3, APFS format. Thanks
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      119. Thanks for the in depth description of terminology in laymans terms and for testing using normal spec computers (would like to see using the i7 chips as most serious gamers/content producers use this). For the average person doing some gaming, video editing, streaming; .3 dwpd should last many many years of usage. For instance .3 dwpd on a 2 TB means 700gb per day. If average consumer (non-enterprise) does 50gb per day, the drive should last the life of the computer. You probably will be replacing the computer before the drive wears out; and by then we will be dealing with a whole new tech and looking back at our dinosaur. Go for pricing, though the rescue data recovery is a nice throw in by Seagate.
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      123. Thank you for explaining all these things so clearly! You are amazing. I came across this account, and i loved it from the moment i watched! I was researcheing about a Qnap TS-h886 and thanks to your topic about this NAS i decided to but one! Is there a possibility to ask you a question about something in my network i can’t get figured out? Kind regards and keep up the amazing work, Martijn from Holland!
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      124. I’m sticking with the 980 Pro. All around its the best and consistently finishes at the top in overall speeds in direct comparison with the others. Theoretical numbers aren’t the end all be all.
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      128. ❤Only for fans over 18 year⤵️ Alles sehr schön. Aber zuerst zusammen die Nummern 10 und 1. Eine verwohn.online Brünette und eine andere Blondine. Es wäre unfair, wennw ich 4 wählen würde
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      130. Looking at the fingers, not even it has hit the magical 7000 finger

        I am positive cpu and ram and motherboard have influence in final speeds ,

        ???? even my gigabyte nvme has better stats than your wd .
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      132. WD Black SN850X (2022) over the SN850 we’ll only see an improvement in write output, but otherwise it’s the same. So whatever is at a better price is worth it.
        Firmware – WD Black SN850 – 1TB
        611100WD – 01.2021
        612100WD – 03.2021
        613200WD – 07.2021
        614300WD – 09.2021
        614600WD – 11.2021
        614900WD – 02.2022

        Firmware – WD Black SN850X – 1TB
        620241WD – 06.2022
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      133. Re: specs on the flash modules – I’ve been researching drives for a new build for multiple hours now. I’m in the US, where KIOXIA doesn’t sell their consumer grade stuff, but after looking into it, I’m like 90% sure that this is, essentially, almost a rebrand of the KIOXIA exceria pro. The specs are almost identical, and WD’s flash is made by Toshiba’s (kioxia’s) chip fab. In the rest of the civilized world, you can just buy the kioxia drive if you want the speed, but I think in the US, for … marketing reasons (?), you are expected to settle on the WD Black.
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      135. Great video, i also saw some odd heatsinks on Amazon, the new ineo heatsink w/cover, Graugear heatsink w/cover too, they look…well you’d need to see them, temp test with one of those and this ssd would be something on the Ps5.
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      136. Still be nice in my PS5. I only just got a 2Tb 850 on prime day, but I’ll be looking at the 850X in November. I can offload my 850 to the mrs, mates rates so be both win.
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      144. I have always wondered why is the 4TB the same speed as the 2TB, but the 2TB is faster than the 1TB? The 4TB has more DRAM package on the back so you would think it would also increase speed.
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      148. i personally have never found appealing the value of WD’s ssds. always 10-15% pricier where i live than samsung/crucial/kingston counterparts.
        i like the hdds though
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      149. Hello; thank you for your vidéo and thank you for all of them. What you do is very interesting to compare and chooose the ssd we want for your bugdet.
        And your vidéos about the heat on SSD are very interesting for learning.
        Have a good week and see you soon.
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      151. its cool and all, but the thing is, unless they make the ssd door see through, you won’t even see it. which is the whole point. and for a little more money you can get a 2 tb
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      154. The fact that you’d pay extra money for something that is going to be largely unseen is moronic.

        IF it was going to be visible and maybe had some LEDs, then MAYBE it might be worth some extra cash.

        Otherwise, totally foolishness.
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      156. Its not a complete review with out “I hate seagulls”

        I had a feeling you’d not be able to help yourself and would have to use it. IE not keep it out for eye candy.

        Your new drive looks great. Happy for ya and to see you excited.

        Random thought. I only got really high 6200s on my 4tb 530. I only checked it once though. Wish it would have gotten 6500
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      164. I got the 2tb 530 without heat sink and used the elecgear. And wow the elecgear really does work! the heat sink was warm but when I checked the ssd it was cool to the touch but I returned it because I think I got a dud, it only read at 5106 mbps even after multiple reformats, most people are getting 6500.
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      165. Hey boss I recently got a Adata S70 Blade and It sometimes disconnects from the PS5, sometimes itll allow me to launch games and it will go to a static screen, power down the PS5, and force a rebuild data base and says I disconnected the drive?
        Would you happen to know anything about this if its a issue with the drive or m.2 drives? I bought the Adata S70 on your recommendation.
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      170. *Happy Saturday everyone!* Sorry about the slightly different recording quality/picture in today’s video. I am slowly moving my setup to a new configuration of camera, mic and lighting. I was mid-way through this when this insane SSD landed and could not wait till it was all finished to make this. Thanks, for watching and I hope you all enjoy it!
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      171. Several Youtubers I follow have a “Thank you” option on their channel. It’s basically a donation feature to their favorite youtube. Robbie Andrews, you are my favorite youtuber. Please add the “Thank you” feature on your youtube channel. I’d like to contribute.
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      172. So they stick a logo on and increase the price by $20-$30 on a product that has the same function as the base standard. Kinda like all those Nintendo on those Scxh memory card or what ever it is call.
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      173. Own a Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB M.2 SSD and still haven’t install it on my PS5 as am waiting for my dbrand Darkplate 2.0 to arrive, but now seeing Seagate is doing a collaboration with Disney’s Star Wars Mandalorian (in name), this has me intrigue and may be just buy another Firecuda 530 with this collab as am a fan of Mandalorian series. Thank you for the find and review!
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