Sandisk WD_Black SN8100 2TB Gen 5 SSD Review

1. Introduction2. WD_Black SN8100 2TB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. 128KB Sequential Performance8. 4K Random Read v QD Performance9. 4K Random Write v QD Performance10. 4K 70/30 Mixed Performance11. 4K Random Performance QD1-QD812. Throughput13. PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark14. 3DMark Storage Benchmark 15. Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark16. Temperatures17. Real Life File Testing18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

Another of the big guns to finally release a PCIe 5.0 SSD is Sandisk, whose WD_Black SN8100 drive is the company's latest flagship drive. Designed for workstations, high-end desktops and notebooks, the drive has official sequential read/write figures of up to 14,900MB/s and 14,000MB/s, respectively.

The new drive lineup consists of three capacities at launch: 1TB, 2TB and 4TB, with an 8TB model expected later in 2025. The WD_Black SN8100 is also available in two versions, plain or with a heatsink.

The WD_Black SN8100 uses a SiliconMotion SM2508 eight-channel controller, but with Sandisk firmly in control of the controller's feature set and firmware, it is unlike any other SM2508 currently available. For the SN8100, it has been combined with BiCS8 218-layer TLC 3D, with, in the case of the 2TB drive, a 2GB DRAM cache IC.

All three launch drives have the same up to 14,900MB/s Sequential read rating, with the 4TB and 2TB drives rated as up to 14,000MB/s for Sequential writes. The 1TB drive makes do with an up to 11,000MB/s rating. When it comes to 4K random performance, all three drives have the same 4K random write rating of up to 2,400,000 IOPS, and while the 2TB and 4TB have the same up to 2,300,000 IOPS speed rating for random reads, while the 1TB drive is rated as up to 1,600,000 IOPS.

When tested with the ATTO benchmark, the drive came up short of the official sequential maximums with test results of 13,940MB/s for reads and 13,150MB/s for writes but even so they are the fastest figures (joint fastest read performance with the 2TB Biwin Black Opal X570) we've seen to date for a Gen 5 consumer drive using this benchmark.

Switching over to the CrystalDiskMark 8 default benchmark, we could confirm the official maximum figures with test results of 14,937MB/s for reads and 14,103MB/s for writes. Again, the read result is the fastest we've seen to date, with the write figure being the second fastest, behind Kingston's Fury Renegade G5.

When it came to 4K random performance, we couldn't get anywhere close to the official figures of 2.3M IOPS (reads) and 2.4M IOPS (writes) using our 4-threaded testing. The best we saw from testing was 593,319 IOPS (QD32) for reads and 545,055 IOPS (QD16) for writes. The best performance figures we saw from the drive came from using the default Peak Performance profile in CrystalDiskMark 8 with reads at 2,227,994 IOPS (the first drive we've tested to crack the 2M IOPS mark in this test) and writes at 1,537,681 IOPS.

There were, however, some odd inconsistencies in the random performance when we were testing the drive. In our four-threaded random read test, the drive is the fastest we've seen at QD1, but at QD2 the performance fell off a cliff as the drive ended up as the slowest drive by quite a considerable margin. But at QD4, the drive was back to being the fastest we've seen. The same thing happened in the QD1-QD8 test. Instead of the usual smooth performance curve from QD1 to 8, there was a levelling off of performance at QD2, accompanied by a large spike in the latency results, but from QD4 onwards, the drive accelerated away as normal.

The official power consumption figures for the 2TB WD_Black SN8100 are 7W for active writes and 6.5W for active reads, thanks to its 6nm process controller. We tested the plain drive (though a heatsink-equipped version is also available) sitting under the heatsink of the Gigabyte AORUS X670E Xtreme motherboard we used for testing. The hottest the drive got was when running the CrystalDiskMark 8 default Write and Sequential Write QD1-32 T1 tests at 47° C, which is a good way off the official 85° C maximum operating temperature of the drive.

We found the 2TB WD_Black SN8100 (without heatsink) on Sandisk's site for £226.99 (inc VAT) HERE.

Pros

• Overall performance.
• Thermal design.
• Endurance.
• 5-year warranty.

Cons

• Tested 4K performance couldn’t match the official maximum figures.

KitGuru says: As we said for the first Gen 5 drives from Samsung and Kingston, it's been a long wait to see a Gen 5 drive carrying WD branding, but safe to say it's been worth it. The WD_Black SN8100 is a very fast SSD which, thanks to the choice of controller it uses, doesn't get stupidly hot while producing table-topping performance.

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