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  • jjj - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    At least it beats the Intel lol

    Such a pity that SSD makers are messing around with slow options.
    As NAND prices rise, the controller becomes a smaller % of the costs so offering great perf per $ is easy, as long as you have the perf and they don't.

    I do have a bit of an objection to the way you talk about the 960 EVO in your conclusions.
    You haven't tested the 500GB version or at least it's not in the graphs or bench and it's hard to be accurate in estimating its perf due to the SLC cache. A review for it would be nice and maybe the very popular MyDigitalSSD.
  • Gothmoth - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    slow options are not bad if they would give me 2 TB for 200$... :)

    but this is just crappy stuff.
  • jjj - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Slow options with PCIe x4 drives so these things that offer too little over SATA.
    They make sense for OEMs in laptop and SFF, lower mechanical volume but the opportunity to make a buck is bigger with faster drives right now.
  • ImSpartacus - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    Yeah, pcie drives busy doubt make sense for the budget market at the moment.

    It's just an unnecessary cost for a use case that doesn't need the extra benefit. 2.5" sata drives can get too cheap and are too versatile.
  • theuglyman0war - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link

    Whats everyone complaining about? It's a.... OOPs! Read the that 800MB/s as if that was 800GB size for $199..

    LOL! nevermind...
  • Samus - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    I'd as clueless as everyone else as to why non-3D TLC is even a thing, especially in a product not limited by SATA.
  • Bruce427 - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    ** A review for it would be nice [on] the very popular MyDigitalSSD. **

    I agree. I have one of their 480GB BPX models ($187.32) in one of my PCs and I cannot tell much difference between it and the Samsung 512GB 950 Pro.

    The MyDigitals are probably the best performing lower priced NVMe drives. They also have a 5 year warranty and huge endurance (TBW) ratings.
  • ATB - Sunday, April 1, 2018 - link

    huge endurance? Looking at 256GB size (80TBW for the WD Black) in the same price range: Intel's 600P is at 144, Kingston's KC1000 is at 300 ant Plextor's M8Pe is at... 384!!! Which means that the life-span of the black is less than 1/4 of the M8Pe's :(
  • Mathieu Bourgie - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Reading the introduction: 'In the SATA space SanDisk has made very effective use of their planar TLC and the SanDisk X400 and WD Blue are the best in their class. '

    Sure, the Sandisk X400 is a leading TLC drive, but how is the WD Blue the best in its class (and what class is that?).

    From your own review of the WD Blue SSD: 'Unfortunately, the WD Blue is slower than the X400 on most other tests' and it has a 3 years warranty instead of 5 years for the Sandisk X400.
  • highlnder69 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Not sure who would want to Pre-Order such a horrible performing SSD.
  • dgingeri - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    At least they priced it about right. It's more expensive than the Intel 600p, but far less expensive than the 960 EVO and slightly less expensive than the M8Pe. This part of the market is odd. Usually, the fastest performing parts are FAR more expensive for just a small return on performance. In SSDs right now, the differences in price are fairly small, but the differences in performance are huge. I think the 960 EVO is about the best deal for a SSD, and this thing is just a shame to the "Black" label.
  • Guspaz - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    So, the product called "WD Black" is coloured blue, but there is also a "WD Blue" product? Let me guess, that one has a black PCB?
  • Gasaraki88 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Nope, it would have made sense if they spent the money to use a black pcb for the black drive, a blue pcb for the blue drive and the green pcb for the green drive. Nope.

    This drive gives the "Black" label a bad name anyway.
  • MrSpadge - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    They probably thought "our Black HDDs are really slow nowadays, with all those budget SSDs around, so let's call a barely-not-too-slow SSD: BLACK".
  • madspartus - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    WD Black: planar 15 nm TLC NAND

    I'll be sure to remember that WD doesn't give a shit about the quality and performance of their products and branding. Way to dilute the brand, hope the short term gains are worth it.
  • shabby - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    The branding is fine, the wd green ssd will be a qlc nand drive.
  • bug77 - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    True, black has always been the performance line, it shouldn't go on any TLC parts. Not even on 3D TLC.
  • romrunning - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    On your Storage Bench - Light (Latency) graph, you show the Intel 750 and Patriot Hellfire on top despite the Samsung drives beating them both in "Full" condition. So if they tie on the empty drive score, the Samsungs should be on top due to their full drive latency.
  • Gasaraki88 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    How come you didn't test any drives that use the Phison E7 controllers? Patriot Hellfire, MyDigitalSSD BPX, and Corsair Force?
  • BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    This certainly isn't an impressive product.
  • Gothmoth - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    why would anyone buy this?

    if you want M.2 you want performance.. this is just crap.
  • GoMoeJoe - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Price according to mediocre performance.

    Glad to see WD entering the space though.
  • WinterCharm - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Horrible price to performance ratio... if you're going to gimp reads this much on an M.2 SSD, then at least give us 1TB for $200.
  • herbc - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Noticed top end SATA 2.5 inch SSD's jumped in price considerably lately. Samsung 850 Pro 256 GB went from $129.00 to around $150.00 in a week.
  • Magichands8 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    Pretty much none of these SSDs are worth buying until the prices get down to around $0.12/GB and even then with a proper form factor. I suppose if you're particularly desperate or require them for some special niche use-case they will serve a purpose, ignorance not withstanding, but otherwise I just don't see the point.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    At 39c/GB, most people are already seeing that SSDs are far superior to HDDs for a majority of use cases.
  • Jad77 - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    It's Blue, not Black.
  • Makaveli - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    I don't get WD they may performance competitive drives in the spinning HD space. Yet when is comes to SSD's and M.2, NVMe drives they are happy with being bottom feeders!

    I guess its probably "a day late a dollor short" meaning it took them so long to enter the market everyone else was already so far ahead.
  • creed3020 - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    That has been WD's slogan and approach to SSD based storage for years. We've been saying for years that HDD's relevancy will continue to shrink and if these giants want to survive into tomorrow then they need to innovate, which this product is clearly not an example of. Its barely an also ran.
  • CoreLogicCom - Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - link

    They just don't want to cannibalize the last remnants of their consumer hard drive business by producing SSDs that are faster than their hard drives...?
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    I hope they're not foolish enough to think that producing bottom feeder SSDs will slow the decline of their hard drive business. They're certainly aware of the fact that there are other companies that will land sales that shrink their hard drive business even if they never produce their own solid state storage solutions. It's genuinely perplexing why WD isn't pushing SanDisk to develop a more competitive product line. Maybe they are and this is just a stopgap measure, but I do wonder what's happening.
  • timbotim - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    I simply don't get this SSD for desktops. If you're going to be in the slow SSD market don't you just need to be the cheapest? If you're not, what's the point? Do you hope there's sufficient clueless/confused users out there who will buy on availability?

    I'm pretty sure real user-facing usability is all about QD1 sequential R & W performance (and I'd guess R >> W), and then it's about price. So that's the 960 Pro on performance and the MX300 on price. Everything in between is the best QD1 sequential for the buck (probably why the best sellers are the 850EVOs and SSD PLUSs).

    For laptops, replace MX300 with 600p I guess.
  • Jedi2155 - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link

    It would be nice if you could delineate the NVMe interfaced SSDs versus the SATA models. That way its easier to tell the performance between the two.
  • Qostaarg - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link

    No samsung no party. performance like a potato.
  • Gonemad - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link

    For me it looks like a great alternative to my ageing rusty spinners for a boot drive on my 8 year old clunker.

    I won't even have to provision SATA or power cables for it, improving a little bit the cable clutter on my planned upgrade. Faster drives are on the too expensive side, cheaper drives are on the too slow side of the scale, so it becomes a good budget compromise by accident.

    This guy has a weird place on the market, and I have a weird upgrade case to do from mechanical clatters, er, platters, so it fits.

    Of course I will keep researching into options until the last minute.
  • jonathan1683 - Wednesday, March 15, 2017 - link

    I feel bad when companies make bad decisions like this. I often wonder who made these decisions or if they tried as hard as they could and just fell short. I really like WD as a company, but I see their future may be grim. Hopefully they get it together.

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