WD Black SN850 vs WD Black SN770 SSD – Which Should You Buy?

Last updated on 25 Mar 2022 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Which One Should You Buy?
2 The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Price and What is Included?
3 The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Design
4 The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Official Performance Stats
5 The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Testing
5.1 Temperature During Tests
5.2 CrystalDisk Benchmark 1GB Test File
5.3 CrystalDisk Benchmark 4GB Test File
5.4 CrystalDisk Benchmark 16GB Test File
5.5 ATTO Disk Benchmark 256MB Test File, Sequential Read & Write
5.6 ATTO Disk Benchmark 256MB Test File, I/O Testing
5.7 ATTO Disk Benchmark 1GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write
5.8 ATTO Disk Benchmark 1GB Test File, I/O Testing
5.9 ATTO Disk Benchmark 4GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write
5.10 ATTO Disk Benchmark 4GB Test File, I/O Testing
5.11 AS SSD 1GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write
5.12 AS SSD 3GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write
5.13 AS SSD 5GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write
6 The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Conclusion & Verdict
7 Full Review of the WD Black SN850 and the WD Black SN770 SSD
8 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Which One Should You Buy?

Should you buy the WD Black SN850 from 2020 or the WD Black SN770 from 2022? Two drives from the same brand, in the same product series and build on the same interface and protocol – yet remarkably different in price, performance and abilities. Remember when choosing a hard drive or SSD was so fantastically simple? Back when practically all drive media was SATA, the differences between one drive or another were thin and it was more about durability and responsiveness than it was about speed and IOPS. However, ever since m.2 NVMe SSDs arrived on the scene (with a protocol that is built on PCIe architecture), the differences between two near-identical SSDs can be somewhat vast. Currently, the highest-performing commercially available tier of NVMe SSD storage arrives in PCIe Gen 4 x4 architecture and that has allowed SSDs to make jumps from a little over 3,000MB/s performance up to an insane 7,000MB/s+. WD was one of the first brands out there to release a commercially available SSD to provide users access to these performance thresholds back in late 2020 with the release of their WD Black SN850 SSD. When it launched, it did so with little or no competition (the Samsung 980 Pro SSD would not arrive for a month or so) and in 18+ months since its original release, despite many, MANY other 7K throughput ready SSDs arriving on the market from their rivals, this early market release has allowed them to spread hugely across the market, as well as allow more flexible pricing at most retailers and be a regular appearance at seasonal sales (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Prime Day, etc). Fast forward to 2022 and Western Digital has released another entry into this popular series of SSDs, the WD Black SN770, that although is not being presented as a replacement for the SN850, it IS being presented as a more power-efficient and affordable alternative to the 2020 released SSD. So, which one should you buy, which one is better at different tasks and is it better to save/spend your money on either of these WD Black SSDs? Let’s begin the comparison.

The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Price and What is Included?

The presentation of the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 SSD, despite the 18 months or so difference in their initial release dates, is largely identical. As mentioned, pricing on both of these SSDs is going to be a factor for different reasons. The WD Black SN850 is certainly the more expensive of the two, but is also regularly on sale at different eShops, so you will almost never be expected to commit to the original 2020 RRP of this SSD. The WD Black SN770 on the other hand is designed and produced on the idea of being more affordable/better-value and so arrives (on all of the capacity tiers) a noticeable degree lower in price and looking at Amazon currently, the WD Black SN770 is around 40% lower in price than the WD Black SN850. Even if you find a Sale/Deal on the WD Black SN850 that knocks a few more % off, that is still a huge price difference.

Price
  WD Black SN770

WD Black SN850

500GB Model WDS500G3X0E WDS500G1X0E
Price in $ and $ $69 / £79 $119 / £99
1TB Model WDS100T3X0E WDS100T1X0E
Price in $ and $ $119 / £135 $249 / £169
2TB Model WDS200T3X0E WDS200T1X0E
Price in $ and $ $239 / £269 $399 / £339

The presentation at retail of each of these SSDs is largely identical, with both the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 arriving in the gamer focus packaging, as well as highlighting their rated benchmarks for Sequential Read/Write performance. It’s a cool design and you can clearly see where the branding design money was spent.

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

Opening up the retail kit for each SSD shows a fairly small quantity of contents. The retail kits for both the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 are made up of the SSD itself and first-time setup/warranty information. That is all you get. Now, most m.2 NVMe SSD are always provided either bare chips or with a heatsink and that is about it, but I am surprised that this isn’t any thermal pads or an m.2 screw included. Still, this is hardly unusual. The plastic shell for each is pretty robust and although this is all fairly blah in presentation inside the box, you can at least see that the SSD is moderately well protected.

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

It becomes clear that the price difference and value between the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 SSD is much more about what is on the drive in its entirety than any kind of hidden extras. Let’s talk about the design of these SSDs and how they differ.

The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Design

The first thing I should mention early on in this comparison between the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 is that the SN850 also can be purchased with a first-party heatsink, something the SN770 does not provide. The heatsink equipped version is around 10-15% more expensive than the bare version, but it is quite a premium quality heatsink and fully surrounds the SN850 in a sealed enclosure that dissipates heat considerably well. Both the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 run a little hot at peak use, so if you have the budget for it and were already considering the SN850 anyway, I would certainly pay a pinch more for the heatsink version.

One of the main arguments that supports buying the first-party heatsink with your SSD is that many arrive pre-applied at the factory level, meaning greater precision on the thermal dissipation placement (directly on the controller and other key chips, not just covering everything inefficiently). Additionally, it will be applied in a dust controller environment and (certainly in the case of the WD Black SN850) be installed expertly and in a closed casing. Here is how the WD Black SN850 looks when you remove its proprietary heatsink.

Heading back to the barebones retail purchase of the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 SSD, lining them up side by side shows that they are similar, but the placement of the logo and chips is notable different. A bit part of how these drives differ in price and performance is precisely down the hardware that each is composed of.

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

Each SSD is similar in provisional architecture (both PCIe Gen 4, both using NVMe revision 1.4 and both using 3D TLC NAND), however after even a quick look at the accompanying components (as well as the quality of the ones that are similar) immediately highlights how each of the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 are geared differently.

Brand/Series WD Black SN770

WD Black SN850

PCIe Generation PCIe Gen 4 PCIe Gen 4
NVMe Rev NVMe 1.4 NVMe 1.4
NAND Sandisk/Kioxia BiCS4 112L 3D TLD NAND Sandisk/Kioxia BiCS4 96L 3D TLC NAND
Max Capacity 2TB 2TB
Controller Sandisk NVMe Controller WD_BLACK G2
Warranty 5yr 5yr

So, the first thing to discuss is that controller. The controller of an SSD is INCREDIBLY important. The build and architecture of any SSD is actually surprisingly similar to a regular PC. The controller is the ‘CPU’, making all the decisions and managing the exchanges of data. In the case of each of the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 SSD, both use an in-house controller (i.e no 3rd party supplier involved) and they are provided by Sandisk (a WD subsidiary). The controller of the WD Black SN850 is arguably the better of the two and despite it being an older controller, still manages to provide higher performance and software options such as encryption that the SN770 does not. The WD Black SN770 SSD controller, although more modern, has to manage another whole area of data processes thanks to the SN770 arriving without DRAM. Why is this important and how does it affect the performance?

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

The DRAM on an SSD is comparable to the memory that you would find on a normal PC and is using as a buffer area for the controller to plot, index and coordinate processes on the fly. Memory/RAM is integrated into the smooth running of a system and the WD Black, instead of onboard memory, using a smaller portion of client system hardware memory in order to conduct these buffering processes. This means the WD Black SN770 SSD is lower in price due to the fewer components AND also means it is using less power internally. The WD Black SN850 on the other hand arrives with 1/2GB of DDR4 memory on board. So s this process of the SSD borrowing memory from the host hardware client good to bad?

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

In lighter use and less heavily sustained activities, the SSD uses some of the core system available memory (known as HMB, host Memory Buffer) and it allows the drive to use memory that was otherwise being unusual but still powered to do its indexing, tabling and calculations on the fly. That said, the WD Black SN770 only uses a very small amount of memory (much, MUCH less than the onboard quantity of the WD Black SN850 features) and that can become a problem if 1) your client system is already using all/most of the memory on currently software processes (eg graphical processes, which are noticeably hungrier), 2) you are running sustained SSD operations that exceed the available memory/hardware of the controller, which would severely bottleneck the drive immediately, or 3) you are using a less generic hardware architecture (such as a PS5 with its closed architecture) that does not adequately support host memory buffer protocol – this would result in a similar quickly emerging bottleneck.

That is not the only main difference between these SSDs and this bring sus onto NAND. NAND are the chips onboard the SSD where your data actually lives (think of NAND in our ‘PC’ simile as the actual data storage drive media). Now, they are different (in the example of a 1TB SSD) in two key areas. Both use 3D TLC NAND, which is the industry recommended middle ground between performance, durability and price point. However, the WD Black SN850 from late 2020 arrives with 96L NAND and the SN770 arrives with 112L NAND. It is a small difference, but does allow slightly higher performance and durability leveraging. However, this is immediately countered by the WD Black SN850 spreading its 1TB across two 512GB NAND modules, whereas the WD Black SN770 has a single block of 1024GB SanDisk memory. More often than not, the larger the number of NAND modules on an SSD’s PCB board results in higher performance (as it means typically multiple NAND are being read/written from at once when access to the SSD is in progress). The SN770 has clearly opted for this for reasons of efficiency and power use, but also as the SSD has no DRAM, it needs to keep things a little simpler.

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

Regardless, the rear of each of the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 1TB SSDs is largely identical, with each drive being a single-sided (SR / 1R) design. Likewise, both SSDs are 2280 in length, so pretty much any hardware environment that can support one physically, will support the other – just don’t forget that HMB is going to be a problem if your hardware does not fully support it.

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

And when it comes to systems that are less supportive of host memory buffer, one hugely popular one is the PS5 console and although the WD Black SN850 SSD is one of the most recommended SSDs for upgrading that system (recommended in fact by PS5 designer and engineer Mark Cerney), the WD Black is not compatible with PS5 expansion upgrades (testing to demonstrate this coming soon). The WD Black SN850 still continues to be one of the most popular PS5 SSD upgrades out there and here is a video below from our NASCompares Youtube testing series:

So, now you know how these two SSDs compare in hardware architecture. Let’s dig into how that translates into the performance of the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 SSD. We will first look at the officially reported performance stats and then compare those against the testing we performed on both in-house.

The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Official Performance Stats

Unsurprisingly, the more expensive WD Black SN850 is the higher-performing SSD when compared with the SN770. This difference in performance also extends vitally towards sustained use and users who are weighing up the pros and cons of each will crucially need to think about the potential performance and workload of their current system. The reported performance and durability below represent maximums and although the highest points of sequential throughput and 4K random IOPS on the SN850 SSD are only achievable of particularly powerful systems, the high points of the SN770 are actually more achievable on mid-range systems.

Brand/Series WD Black SN770

WD Black SN850

Durability & Workload
500GB Model WDS500G3X0E WDS500G1X0E
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 300TB 300TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,750,000 1,750,000
DWPD 0.3DWPD 0.3DWPD
1TB Model WDS100T3X0E WDS100T1X0E
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 600TB 600TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,750,000 1,750,000
DWPD 0.3DWPD 0.3DWPD
2TB Model WDS200T3X0E WDS200T1X0E
Total Terabytes Written (TBW) 1200TB 1200TB
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) 1,750,000 1,750,000
DWPD 0.3DWPD 0.3DWPD
Sequential Throughput
500GB Model WDS500G3X0E WDS500G1X0E
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 5000MB 7000MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 4000MB 4100MB
1TB Model WDS100T3X0E WDS100T1X0E
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 5150MB 7000MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 4900MB 5300MB
2TB Model WDS200T3X0E WDS200T1X0E
Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 5150MB 7000MB
Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB 4850MB 5100MB
4K Random IOPS
500GB Model WDS500G3X0E WDS500G1X0E
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 460,000 1,000,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 800,000 680,000
1TB Model WDS100T3X0E WDS100T1X0E
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 740,000 1,000,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 800,000 720,000
2TB Model WDS200T3X0E WDS200T1X0E
Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 650,000 1,000,000
Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 800,000 710,000

The big takeaway here is that if the system you intend to install the WD Black SSD into is NOT prosumer grade, then the maximum read/write that you will see in either the WD black SN850 or SN770 is going to be a lot closer than you might think and any additional price, power use and heat that the WD Black SN850 generates might be to little benefit. Additionally, the durability on the WD Black SN770 SSD is largely the same as the SN850, despite its lower performance, so you won’t be seeking out any additional workload out of the more efficient drive. Let’s get the SN770 SSD into the test machine and see how it performs.

The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Testing

So, for testing the WD Black SN850 and WD Black SN770 SSDs, these tests were run a mid-range PC architecture and featured benchmarks from CrystalDisk Benchmark, ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS SSD and AJA Speed Testing. The details on the tech machine were as follow:

Test Machine:

  • Windows 10 Pro 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 4×4 M.2 Slot

All tests for the separate SSDs were conducted in separate sessions, with a 1-minute cooldown between each (to allow the SSD a reasonable amount fo time to flush the cache and also cool down its components. The full details of the testing and comparing these SSDs is covered in my review of each of these SSDs, but also highlighted in the video below from the NASCompares YouTube channel:

So, let’s go through how each of these 1TB SSDs compared in their benchmarks. I fully anticipate the WD Black SN850 SSD to be the higher performer overall (as you might expect from the hardware architecture and already brand reported figures) but just how much higher will it be and will it justify the higher price point? Let’s take a look.

Temperature During Tests

Before we even get to the results and compare them, it is worth highlighting that in the testing I used the WD Black SN850 SSD with the proprietary SSD heatsink and the WD Black SN770 with a 3rd party generic $10 m.2 heatsink. Both SSDs ran a little hotter than most that I have tested (not unusual, as the bulk of the others use the same Phison E18 or Innogrit IG5236 controller in 2022), but the WD Black SN770 certainly ran hotter. Part of this was the less efficient heatsink (only marginally) but more because of how it is less suitable for sustained usage – which is pretty much what 80-90% of SSD benchmarking is!

WD Black SN850 (1st Party H/S) WD Black SN770 ($10 H/S)

The first round of performance testing was using CrystalDiskMark Benchmarking with 3 different file scales at 1GB, 4GB and 16GB. Unsurprisingly the WD Black SN850 was ahead by a mile in the Read performance by around 1,800MB/s, however, in write performance, it was much narrower with 300-400MB/s difference. The WD Black SN850 also displayed a similar level of Read/Write difference in terms of random 4K IOPS. All these figures are comparable to those issued by the brand, but I will add that the WD SN770 was using fewer system hardware resources in my PC in order to hit those numbers comparatively.

CrystalDisk Benchmark 1GB Test File

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

CrystalDisk Benchmark 4GB Test File

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

CrystalDisk Benchmark 16GB Test File

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

The next test was with ATTO and once again, from traditional Throughput in Read/Write to the IOPS, I saw a similar BIG difference in read activities, but noticeably smaller in write. If you Are a gamer, you will almost certainly be 95% focused on that read benchmark, however, if you are going to use this as an IS drive and are going to be creating long-running content or streaming for hours at a  time, then this write figure is more important. Regardless, the WD black was still a good distance again on all counts.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 256MB Test File, Sequential Read & Write

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

ATTO Disk Benchmark 256MB Test File, I/O Testing

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

ATTO Disk Benchmark 1GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

ATTO Disk Benchmark 1GB Test File, I/O Testing

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

ATTO Disk Benchmark 4GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

ATTO Disk Benchmark 4GB Test File, I/O Testing

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

The next test was AS SSD in NVMe mode and although it is a little more stringent in its measurements compared with more artificial test scenarios found in CrystalDiskMark, it is still a great tool for mixed SSDs in general. The WD Black SN850 was consistently 1,000-1,500MB/s higher in performance in all tests in read or write traditional throughput, with the larger the file type that was being tested (1GB, 3GB and 5GB here) consistently raising the overall score in favour of the WD Black SN850. Another solid (and arguably quite predictable) win.

AS SSD 1GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

AS SSD 3GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

AS SSD 5GB Test File, Sequential Read & Write

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770

Let’s summarize everything and conclude this comparison of the WD Black SN770 and WD Black SN770 below.

The WD Black SN850 or SN770 SSD – Conclusion & Verdict

It was always going to be the WD Black SN850 SSD that won all the performance benchmarks (official or my own) and this comparison was never about deciding if the WD Black SN770 could outperform its bigger and older brother, it was about deciding how much bigger/better it is and whether that can justify the bigger price tag. The WD Black SN770 SSD is a great SSD for more power-efficient systems or those that are not going to be running high-end gaming processes. Likewise, the SN770s steading and consistent write performance in smaller/shorter processes make it still very suitable for content creators that need a scratch disk or want a local drive to edit on that needs a good level of performance, but not one that you are going to be aware of power use over on portable laptop batteries. It IS a good SSD that I wish WD had released much sooner, rather than ONLY releasing a premium SSD for 18 months whilst their rivals in Seagate, Samsung and Sabrent released PCIe 4 SSDs in 7K and 5K versions more than a year ago. Not all buyers have systems that are actually capable of hitting 7,000MB/s or higher and for those buyers, the WD Black SN770 SSD makes sense. However, you cannot ignore the fact that if you are PC/PS5 gamer that needs games storage (as AAA titles are starting to land in the 100s of GBs now), someone working on 4K media in post-production or are running databases of high frequency but low volume databases are ALL going to be significantly better off with the WD Black SN850 in the long run and its hardware justifies the price difference even a year and a half since its original release.

WD Black SN850

WD Black SN770

PROs of the WD Black SN850 CONs of the WD Black SN850 PROs of the WD Black SN770 CONs of the WD Black SN770
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

 An affordable alternative to the popular WD Black SN850

Lower Power Use

Good range of capacities available (250GB to 2TB)

One of the best examples of an HMB technology SSD

All in-house components

Surprisingly High Writes in throughput and 4K IOPS

 No Heatsink Equipped Version

Not built for sustained use

No onboard Encryption

 

Full Review of the WD Black SN850 and the WD Black SN770 SSD

Wna to learn more about the WD Black SN770 SSD or the WD Black SN850 SSD? I have reviewed and benchmarked both in lots of detail (as well as extensively tested the WD Black SN850 across around 35 games on the PS5 over on YouTube HERE). So if you want to learn more about these SSDs, you can use the links below to the video are written reviews for both of these WD Black SSDs. Thanks for reading!

WD Black SN850 WD Black SN770
Video Review

Video Review

Written Review

Written Review

 

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      200 thoughts on “WD Black SN850 vs WD Black SN770 SSD – Which Should You Buy?”

      1. In october 21 I bought a PC that came with the WD Black SN750 500gb and now I’m looking into black friday but today just saw some discounted SN770 1TB… but maybe I’ll need to drop big money into 2TB. Just 1 of my games with mods came about 500gb after a couple of weeks of “updating” my mods lol.
        Tough choice.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      3. Hi I just purchased this ssd to replace my failed Samsung pm981a 1tb that came in my acer predator helios 300 was it a good idea or should I exchange it for a better one
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      5. Yeah but will it really hurt anything putting this in my PS5? My girlfriend bought me this for my birthday and I’d really like to use it. The only side effect I’m hearing is that games don’t load as fast but they still play? So what’s the big deal?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      6. Is it good for gaming? I used b650m pro rs and its alrdy has a heatsink there. Is it good only for gaming? Cause sn850x still expensive on my country
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      17. Hi is it good enough to put in laptop for a second m.2 and is it good enough to use for my iTunes music and movie and TV shows and audiobooks and podcasts my stuff is 1.2tb
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      20. Lower down the range, I recently bought a DRAM-LESS WD Blue SN570 2TB. What a disappointment! Using my Beelink Mini S Windows 11 PC, with the drive in two different USB enclosures, it will NOT work! The drives appears and disappears. However, it seems to work on Windows 10. Is this some weird compatibility issue? Is the SSD faulty? Is it HMB? Although new to SSDs, I’ve built PCs for decades, but it’s got me beat? All my other SATA SSDs work fine!

        Incidentally, the SSD cost £81.48, and was fully refunded by eBay, and I got to keep the SSD (although I’m unsure as to whether it’s faulty or incompatible?).

        EDIT: Why price in dollars, when you’re based in the UK?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      21. i was really afraid that my system wont be able to cope with the SSD because my system doesnt support HMB. But at the same time, it also only supports PCI Gen 3. I am certainly not getting the absolute most out of the SSD but for my basic workloads (mostly involving browsing the internet and playing a game or two) this SSD is perfect. Now it dropped in price to about 40€ for a Terrabyte here in germany and it was a no brainer. I always had inconsistancy inssues with cheap small SSD’s in the past because i always cheaped out to some absolutely unknown brand. For me, now i finally know what an SSD is suppose to feel like, and that for 40€ so i aint complaining
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      25. A year later they are 071823 WD has the 2 TB WD Black SN850X without heatsink & 2 TB SN770 SSD on sale both for $99. Will the SN85X fit in my ASUS GL702 VSK Gaming laptop. I edit with Davinci Resolve don’t game.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      31. I just wish you would have used HWInfo for monitoring the Temperature. There is a Sensor called “Temperature 2” for the SSD which is much higher compared to the Temperature you considered in the Test.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      33. i have it on my ASRock Z370 Extreme4 it not seen on the bios
        the samsung 980 and PNY 500 GB XLR8 CM3031 re working in the bios can you help
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      47. RAM isn’t fingers in your term, RAM is capacitor, temporary storage, thing that smooths the flow. In CPU RAM is also used to offload the internal pockets (registers), aka execution stack!
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      58. Thank you for a genuinely good deep dive reviews. Short reviews have their place, but this is thorough analysis and review that was GENUINELY useful for me. I actually watched it twice.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      59. 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.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      60. The SN770 is great for people who only have gen 3 PCI express as it allows them to completely max out the interface with it’s backwards compatibility. Most drives designed for gen 3 do not exceed 2000MB/s and are highly inconsistent when doing mass transfers, some of which drop down to 50MB/s. The only other drive that comes close is the Samsung 980 and even that doesn’t max out. She gets pretty hot on sensor 2 though, so you’ll want a heatsink.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      63. 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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      64. 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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      65. I hate dram-less ssd but this review is flawed. Showing only crystal disk info is not a real life performance showcase. It doesn’t even show random 4k r/w only access time. More then 90% of users never gonna get a use of 7gb/s…maybe a 4k video editors.
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      67. 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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      70. Maybe you could help me so confused i am about ssd pcie3 and pcie4 ssd ? I have watched many pro reviews like yours wich , i have to say , is very good at what you are talking about ( first point ) .
        Maybe its gonna be incredible for you , but iam running actually on a
        8400 intel core duo 2
        gigabyte EP35 DS4 ( rev2.1)
        Gigabyte 1070GTX
        8 gigabytes ddr2 memory
        Crucial MX500 2.5 1 and 2 tera ssd.
        Windows 10 .
        Yeah i know its very old …i took this configuration for i am a musician and the Gigabyte ep35 ds4 had 2 firewire 1394 a . port at the back panel wich was perfect for my sound card wich is a RME fireface 400 . I decided to move on a last gen system now wich is
        z690 Aorus Gigabyte LGA 1700 / ddr5 pcie5 DDR5
        Intel i9-1200k LGA 1700
        Corsair Vengeance DDR5 64 GO 5200 MHz wich is gonna handle everything i need nowadays to follow on recording music and editing videos.
        So here are my main questions . From what i understood you dont need to put a PCIE4 last gen ssd as a main system disk , even a pcie3 one , these would be better run for libraries .So what 1Tera ssd should i install as the Main SYSTEM one to not lose $ and to save the others better pcie4 for librairies .
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      74. You really should have talked about ps5 as most of the time it would be reading only which is perfectly fine for ps5 as the 770 is much 30c+ cooler than 850
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      79. 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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      80. Just got a 770, about to put it in the same system as an sn850 and the god-king of nvme the firecuda 530 , all 1 tb. Hopefully the x570 steel legend with a 5900x will allow me the lanes to run all this stuff at max speeds.
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      82. 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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      84. @NASCompares So you say the SN770 suffers a drop in sustained writes after a while. Are you saying the SN850 does not (as with all DRAM SSDs)? I put it to you that the Host Memory Buffer has nothing/little to do with the large drop in sequential write speed. It’s when the cache is used up.
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      85. 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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      87. 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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      89. All the mixed results and reviews on the SN770 scares me. I decided to cancel my order and get the SN850 for peace of mind. Sure, it’s $35 USD more, but it’s worth it in the long run I think.
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      93. 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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      94. I have both drives, the 850 on a very high end pc and the 770 on a extreme sff build. Both are working great and cannot tell the difference in speeds.
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      95. 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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      97. Thanks lot of help.So NVMe = no on board memory buffer for this SSD. also
        want to use it in a Asus Maximus Hero VII as a os drive for win 10 21H2. Intel i5 6600K
        @ 4.1ghz to 4.5ghz with 32gb DDR 4 memory. I do play WOW not daily. Can i allocate an amount of my DDR4 to it? any comments on this would help.
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      98. Thanks for your great videos! What strikes me is when you touched on the apparent greater efficiency and cooler operation. My usage scenario is as a light-moderate computing/OS drive in what is basically a thin Ultrabook (Samsung Book Pro 360). No gaming. So I’m considering battery draw and cooler running in addition to performance. This is one concern I have regarding the SN850 or Samsung 980Pro. Do you think I need to worry about this? Otherwise the difference in price is such that I’d just grab the SN850.
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      100. Very good review which helped me change my purchase from the newer WD SN770 –> SN850 older version with more performance for my use case.
        Thank you from across the pond. Good luck to your home country’s EV manufacturer Arrival redefining assembly line technology.
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      101. 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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      103. ABSOLUTELY NAS MAKES THE BEST STORAGE COMPARISON AND INFO VIDEOS ABOUT LIKE DEVICES ON YOU TUBE. NOT EVEN CLOSE. I APPRECIATE THE HARD WORK AND WANT TO TELL YOU THAT IT DOESNT GO UNNOTICED. THANK YOU. BASED ON YOUR PAST TESTS , IF YOU WERE LOOKING TO GRAB A SSD FOR THE PS5 WOULD YOU 100% WITHOUT A DOUBT GO WITH A SSD THEN ADD A SPECIFIC DEDICATED HEATSINK THAT REPLACES THE PS5 SSD COVER THAT CREATES THE NEGATIVE COOLING??? THE SN850 2TB IS AROUND $250 IN US RIGHT NOW. I WAS SET ON THE FIRECUDA 530 BUT SEEMS THE PRICE ISNT GOING TO DROP MUCH ANYTIME SOON.
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      104. Hello , I bought a wd_black 1TB ssd with heatsink, but you know is not the best choice for cooling and I get the sabrent heatsink from Amazon.
        I know that you tested this ssd with the sabrent heatsink, and my question is how easy is to disassemble the original heatsink from the wd_black sn850 ?
        Thank you for your videos, they are very useful.
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      106. Thanks for the review.
        Would the sn770 250gb be a good C drive (windows + applications). Atm I have the 850 for games storage and unfortunately the sn850 only has 500gb. For the C drive I don’t need so much storage and 250gb is well enough. Or is it best to have both drives at the same speed (~7000mb/s).
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      107. Another amazing video! Thanks so much!

        Personally, after your reviews, I bought the SN850 with the factory heatsink and, despite my Asus Q370 is pcie 3.0, the computer speed improved a lot! The best ssd i ever purchased!
        Personally i would suggest the SN850 with heatsink for everyone, and the SN770 only for laptop users (the sn850 w/o heatsink runs quite hot and the heatsink version probably doesn’t fit inside a laptop) and for basic computer users (web browsing, simple text writing, light gaming) with a low budget.
        The lack of dram is a huge disanvantage, especially during sustained writes.
        My philosopy is quite simple: don’t be impatient, wait, save money and buy always the best you can get. We have to remember that we get what we pay for.
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      109. 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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      112. Thank you for the review. The lack of DRAM is always something to considered in the back of your mind. SN770 only just available in Australian market, the price is very high, the 1TB SN850 is only less than AUD $10 more expensive in one retailer, so a no-brainer to choose the SN850 over the SN770. I am interested in your upcoming comparison with the Seagate Firecuda 520 because that’s the new SSD I just bought.
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      119. 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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      121. 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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      122. 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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      123. 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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      125. Just bought one of these for ps5.. you mentioned about updating the firmware?… how do I do this for ps5 or is it necessary? Great information as always.. thank you.
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      126. While I appreciate the test, I think this would have been better verified with games like Borderlands 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider which have extremely long load times on previous Gen consoles. Still thanks for sharing.
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      130. 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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      131. 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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      132. 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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      133. 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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      137. 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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      146. 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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      147. 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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      149. 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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      154. 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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      156. 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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      159. 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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      160. 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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      161. 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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      165. 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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      166. 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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      168. 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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      177. 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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      179. 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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      180. 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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      186. What do you think would be better for gaming sequential read speed or random read speed? I’ve noticed the sn850 one beats a few others in random read speed.
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      189. Hiya, I have a question I hope someone can help with:
        Why does my sn850 have a load of barcodes on it when all the one I see have a nice black label?

        Really hope someone can help!
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      191. In a different video you said the 980 pro ssd not really appropriate for the ps5 why is this ? Sorry to ask here but I did ask in the other video but no reply and fitting mine today ?
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      196. Whats going on guys is this a channel for nvme or Nas storage….
        Where is all the new nas products, or is the end of Nascompares…
        By the way i love the Chanel…

        Keep the good work up..
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