WD Black SN7100 Review

Introduction

The WD Black SN7100 might just be one of the last drives we see bearing the brand of one of the most fabled names in the storage space.

Pretty soon, Western Digital will cease to exist as a name for SSDs, as the division is being spun off as part of SanDisk, a name more known for flash storage such as USB drives and SD cards.

Nonetheless, the SN7100 looks like quite the capable gaming SSD, with speeds of up to 7250MB/s taking it to the top of the charts for a Gen 4 drive, pitting it up against the Crucial T500 and WD Black SN850M, for instance. The £70/$70 per TB of storage also makes it quite solid from a value standpoint, too.

I’ve been testing the SN7100 for the last couple of weeks to see how well it fares against the competition, and as to whether this makes for one of the best SSDs we’ve tested. Let’s find out.

Specs

• Solid storage options on offer
• No DRAM cache as HMB is used instead
• Decent endurance rating and warranty

If you’ve taken a look at Western Digital’s M.2 2280 SSDs in the past, then the overall look of the SN7100 shouldn’t necessarily come as a shock. This is an all-black drive in a standard size to fit into PCs, complete with a small label showing the model, capacity, and compliance information.

The sample I have is a 1TB option, although it is also possible to get the SN7100 in 500GB and 2TB models if you don’t need as much, or even more storage.

The M.2 key is standard-issue and means this drive will play nicely in both a modern PC and a PS5, too, even if Western Digital makes no mention of Sony’s console on the drive’s minimal packaging. You will need a heatsink for it to work in a PS5, which can be purchased as an aftermarket addition from online retailers for £10/$10 or so – otherwise, it’s fully compatible with the right speeds and such.

With this drive, Western Digital has opted to go for a new in-house controller, namely the Polaris 3 A101-000172-A1. This features a 4-channel design that’s optimal for use without a DRAM cache; intriguingly, WD has designed not to use a DRAM cache with the SN7100 where key rivals do.

In this regard, it makes the SN7100 similar to another recent value hero, the Lexar NM790, as that too goes without a DRAM cache and opts for HMB instead. This isn’t uncommon for more affordable drivers and isn’t a big issue for most use cases, instead using system RAM for caching data as opposed to a dedicated cache on the drive itself.

The SN7100 is a single-sided drive, regardless of capacity, so it contains all of the flash modules on one side – the back of the drive is empty apart from some small writing and a SanDisk logo. This makes it easier to cool when put inside PCs and even small handhelds that support a full-size drive, as there’s only one side to take care of.

The flash in use here is Kioxia’s brand-new BICS8 218-layer 3D TLC, with the SN7100 featuring a single NAND chip. The reliability of the drive is scaled with capacity, so a 500GB model has a 300 TBW endurance rating, with that doubling to 600 TBW for the 1TB model and 1200TBW for the 2TB version.

The rating may not be as spectacular as it is with the Kingston Fury Renegade‘s 2000TBW rating, but it is in line with key rivals. Western Digital is also offering a handy five-year warranty on this drive.

Full Specs

Test Setup

Of course, for testing any quantity of PC components, SSDs included, I needed to make sure I had a solid PC to do so. Hence, I took the decision back in early 2024 to upgrade my ailing HP pre-built to a fully custom rig with a system that benefits from brisk gaming performance and excellent compatibility with modern and future hardware.

The full system specs can be found below:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• Motherboard: NZXT N7 B650E
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 4080 Super Founder’s Edition
• RAM: 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 CL36
• Cooler: Noctua NH-D15
• PSU: 1200W NZXT C1200 80+ Gold ATX 3.0
• Case: NZXT H9 Flow

The long and short of the setup is that the WD SN7100 was placed in a compatible PCIe 4.0 slot to my B650E motherboard, and then a range of real-world and synthetic tests were run. These included the classic CrystalDiskMark 8 with its Sequential speeds at a queue depth of 8 and 1, as well as its Random 4K performance at depths of Q32 and Q1. The Sequential tests are handy in proving the actual raw speed of the drive for fast file copies and access, while the Random 4K tests are more indicative of loading a game up.

For the usefulness of a quantifiable ranking, I’ve also included the Quick System Drive and Data Drive benchmarks from the PCMark 10 suite.

As for real-world testing, I’ve elected to see the transfer rates in moving over a set of test files totalling 120GB (in reality, a set of ripped Blu-Rays of recent Marillion concert film and hi-res audio) using the Windows File Explorer, noting down its average transfer rate, and to see the speeds at which it can move over the 110GB Dirt Rally 2.0 using Steam. As for game loading times, I’ve taken note of how quickly the SN7100 runs the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker standalone benchmark running at 1080p and Maximum settings, as is consistent with our other testing.

Performance

• Fast sequential and random performance
• Brisk file transfer and game loads
• PCMark10 results are a little off

Across the suite of tests put in front of it, the WD Black SN7100 impressed with some fantastic speeds and responsiveness that make it a seriously competitive option against the Crucial T500 and Kingston Fury Renegade.

Sequential speeds in CrystalDiskMark 8 topped out at 7220.65 MB/s for reads and 6941.71 MB/s for writes, virtually meeting WD’s quoted read speeds of up to 7250 MB/s, and also serving up a result that was faster than the T500 and Fury Renegade by a solid margin of 113 MB/s and 219 MB/s respectively. Write speeds on the SN7100 were even stronger, with a result that’s 694 MB/s faster than the T500 and 315 MB/s faster than the Kingston Fury Renegade. That’s especially brisk.

4K performance is also strong with the SN7100 posting results in and around the ballpark of much faster Gen 5 drives, such as the Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 and Seagate FireCuda 540, signalling just how quick this drive is.

The 120GB file transfer took 46.66 seconds, which is also a great result for a drive of its class thanks to an average transfer rate of 2.57GB/s. In addition, the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker benchmark spat out a load time of 7.96 seconds, which is slightly slower than options from both Crucial and Kingston, but still quite quick, all things considered.

This WD drive falls down in the PCMark 10 Data Drive and Quick System Drive tests, with results more in line with the brand’s other value drive effort, the SN580.

Should you buy it?

FAQs