The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD is the first Western Digital solid state drive to feature their 64-layer 3D NAND technology that delivers higher storage capacities, performance and endurance, with lower power consumption. Let’s see if the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD delivers on that promise!

 

The WD Blue 3D NAND SSD Family

The WD Blue 3D NAND SSD family consists of four models built upon the same technology. They mainly differ in storage capacities, with some performance characteristics. Here’s a table comparing their key specifications :

Specifications	2 TB WD Blue 3D SSD	1 TB WD Blue 3D SSD	500 GB WD Blue 3D SSD	250 GB WD Blue 3D SSD
Model Number	WDS200T2B0A	WDS100T2B0A	WDS500G2B0A	WDS250G2B0A
Storage Capacity	2048 GB (Total) 2000 GB (Effective)	1024 GB (Total) 1000 GB (Effective)	512 GB (Total) 500 GB (Effective)	256 GB (Total) 250 GB (Effective)
Overprovisioning	48 GB (2.4 %)	24 GB (2.4 %)	12 GB (2.4 %)	6 GB (2.4 %)
SSD Controller	Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2	Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2	Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2	Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
NAND Flash Type	64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)	64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)	64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)	64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)
SDRAM Cache	None	None	512 MB DDR3	256 MB DDR3
Interface	SATA 6 Gb/s	SATA 6 Gb/s	SATA 6 Gb/s	SATA 6 Gb/s
Peak Sequential Read	560 MB/s	560 MB/s	560 MB/s	550 MB/s
Peak Sequential Write	530 MB/s	530 MB/s	530 MB/s	525 MB/s
Random Read I/O	95,000 IOPS	95,000 IOPS	95,000 IOPS	95,000 IOPS
Random Write I/O	84,000 IOPS	84,000 IOPS	84,000 IOPS	81,000 IOPS
Write Endurance	500 TB	400 TB	200 TB	100 TB
Slumber Power	56 mW	56 mW	56 mW	56 mW
DEVSLP Power	5-12 mW	5-12 mW	5-7 mW	5-7 mW
Mean Time To Failure (MTTF)	Up to 1.75 million hours	Up to 1.75 million hours	Up to 1.75 million hours	Up to 1.75 million hours
Ambient Temperature	0°C to 70°C (Operating) -55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)	0°C to 70°C (Operating) -55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)	0°C to 70°C (Operating) -55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)	0°C to 70°C (Operating) -55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
Vibration Range	5.0 gRMS, 10-2,000 Hz (Operating) 4.9 gRMS, 7-800 Hz (Non-Operating)	5.0 gRMS, 10-2,000 Hz (Operating) 4.9 gRMS, 7-800 Hz (Non-Operating)	5.0 gRMS, 10-2,000 Hz (Operating) 4.9 gRMS, 7-800 Hz (Non-Operating)	5.0 gRMS, 10-2,000 Hz (Operating) 4.9 gRMS, 7-800 Hz (Non-Operating)
Shock	1,500 G @ 0.5 ms half sine	1,500 G @ 0.5 ms half sine	1,500 G @ 0.5 ms half sine	1,500 G @ 0.5 ms half sine
Dimensions	100.5 mm x 69.85 mm x 7.0 mm	100.5 mm x 69.85 mm x 7.0 mm	100.5 mm x 69.85 mm x 7.0 mm	100.5 mm x 69.85 mm x 7.0 mm
Weight	57.9 g	37.4 g	37.4 g	37.4 g
Warranty	3 Years	3 Years	3 Years	3 Years

 

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD Up Close!

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) comes in a deceptively light cardboard box. Let’s unbox it and take a closer look!

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is a low-profile 2.5″ drive, with a thickness of only 7 mm. This is thinner than the regular 9.5 mm drives, making it suitable for all 2.5″ drive bays, even in thin laptops.

Next Page > 3D NAND, nCache 2.0 Technology, SSD Controller & SATA Interface

 

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The WD 3D NAND Technology

Western Digital first announced their 64-layer 3D NAND technology, also known as BiCS3, last year. However, it was only slated for commercial volume production in the first half of 2017.

BiCS3 was developed jointly with their technology and manufacturing partner, Toshiba. It not only uses 64-layers, but also 3-bits-per-cell technology to achieve high capacity (256 to 512 gigabits per chip) and performance at a much lower cost.

 

SanDisk nCache 2.0 Technology

SanDisk nCache 2.0 is a proprietary pseudo-SLC caching technology that greatly increases the write performance of the solid state drive. Here is an old infographic (from their Ultra II SSD) that shows how it works :

A small portion (about 4%) of the NAND memory blocks are set to run in the SLC mode, which allows for a much higher write speed. This SLC portion serves as a fast write cache for all writes to the drive, allowing for write speeds of up to 530 MB/s.

The data is later transferred to the TLC portion using the special On Chip Copy feature. This proprietary feature allows the transfer to occur internally on-die without affecting any other transfers.

In a 1TB drive, about 40 GB is reserved for use as the nCache 2.0 write cache. That translates into an effective write cache size of about 13 GB.

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The Marvell 88SS1074 SSD Controller

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) uses the Marvell 88SS1074 SSD controller, which boasts the following key features :

• Supports up to 4 NAND channels, with up to 8 NAND chips per channel
• Features Marvell’s third-generation NANDEdge low-density parity check (LDPC) technology
• Supports SATA 3.2 (6.0 Gbps)
• Toggle 2 and ONFI2 support at up to 400 MT/s
• Integrated DEVSLP (Device Sleep) mode for low power support
• Supports 256-bit AES hardware encryption
• Built on 28 nm CMOS process

The Marvell NANDEdge LDPC technology allows for reliable on-the-fly error correction of the 3-bit TLC flash memory, with minimal impact on latency, performance and power consumption.

However, the Marvell 88SS1074 is likely to fall short in sustained throughput, because it only supports 4 NAND channels. Competing controllers like the Phison S10, for example, boast 8 NAND channels, allowing twice as many NAND chips to be accessed simultaneously.

 

SATA 6 Gb/s Interface

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is a Serial ATA drive, with native support for SATA 6 Gb/s interface. It is backward-compatible, so you will have no problem using it with older SATA 3 Gb/s controllers. However, the faster SATA 6 Gb/s interface is necessary for optimal performance because this SSD is capable of a peak transfer rate of 560 MB/s.

Like all Serial ATA drives, it comes with the standard SATA data (left) and power (right) connectors, and is hot-pluggable. That means you can connect and disconnect this solid state drive while the PC is still running. There is no jumper block, because there’s really nothing for you to set. It’s just plug and play!

Next Page > SSD Endurance & Maintenance

 

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SSD Endurance

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is rated for a lifetime write lifespan of 400 TBW (Terabytes Written). That does not seem like a lot (equal to overwriting the drive just 400 times), but it is considered enterprise-grade endurance. Many consumer-grade SSDs of equivalent capacity are rated at around 75-100 TBW.

Based on a typical consumer DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) of 20 GB per day, this 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) will last at least 54 years.

Please note that this long lifespan is due to the large capacity. The 500 GB and 250 GB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs are rated at 200 TBW and 100 TBW respectively. That corresponds to an estimated lifespan of 27 years and 13.5 years respectively.

Like all other current SSDs, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) comes with certain features to help extend its lifespan :

Wear Levelling

Unlike hard disk drives, flash-based SSDs write and overwrite data in large blocks of 512 KB to 1 MB in size. Even if you only need to write one byte of data, it has to erase and overwrite an entire block. This causes a lot of wear on the memory cells and greatly reduces their lifespan.

To help extend the lifespan of the drive, SSDs perform wear levelling by spreading the writes, so that the flash memory cells have equal wear. The lifespan of the memory cells remain unchanged, but it prevents some of them from failing earlier due to excessive wear.

Write Combine Cache

SSDs also use a write buffer to temporarily store and combine the writes before they are actually written to the flash memory. This reduces the number of block erases required, and consequently, extends the lifespan of the flash memory cells.

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) uses the aforementioned nCache 2.0 technology instead of a dedicated SDRAM write combine cache. It reserves about 4% of the NAND blocks and uses them in the SLC mode.

The resulting nCache 2.0 write cache may not be as fast as an SDRAM cache, but it is much larger in size. The 1TB WD Blue SSD, for example, boasts a large 1 GB DDR3L memory cache, but that is nothing compared to the 13 GB (or so) SLC cache in the 1TB WD Blue 3D SSD.

TRIM

Current SSDs support the TRIM command, otherwise known as the ATA8-ACS-2 DATA SET MANAGEMENT command. Operating systems that support TRIM (e.g. Microsoft Windows 7) will notify the SSD when data blocks are deleted in the file system. This allows the SSD to perform garbage collection in the background – internally erasing the affected blocks so that they are ready to be written to.

Without the TRIM command, the SSD will not know when a block of data has been deleted by the operating system. When new data is written to the same block of data, it will force the SSD to perform the time-consuming read-erase-modify-write cycle, which not only cripples performance but also increases wear on the affected memory cells.

Multi-Stream

This is a new SSD technology that was introduced in May 2015, as part of the T10 SCSI Standard. Multi-stream greatly improves performance and extends lifespan by reducing or even eliminating garbage collection.

It achieves this by marking data writes that are associated with one another, or have a similar lifetime, with a unique stream ID. This allows the SSD controller to pack all data writes with the same stream ID into the same block.

When the operating system deletes data, it is likely that they are all packed into the same block. If the block has not been written to the SSD, then this eliminates the pending write operation completely. If the block has been written to the SSD, then this would only require that single block to be erased, instead of multiple blocks (which would happen if the data was not all packed into the same block).

 

SSD Maintenance

First of all, you should never, ever defragment solid state drives. Spatial fragmentation of data on the SSD has no effect on its performance. Fragmented data are accessed as quickly as nicely-packed blocks, so it’s pointless to defragment the data blocks. Doing so will only reduce the lifespan of the flash memory cells by putting them under additional wear.

3D NAND flash memory will only last about 1,000 erase/write cycles – about the same as TLC NAND memory. You will want to minimise the number of times each flash memory cell is erased.

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You should also use an operating system that supports the TRIM command. If you are using one of the following operating systems, then you have nothing to worry about :

• Microsoft Windows 7, or better
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, or better
• Linux 2.6.33, or better
• FreeBSD 8.2, or better
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard, or better

If not, you should consider upgrading your operating system. Otherwise, you will need to perform manual garbage collection on a regular basis, either using a manufacturer utility, or newer defragmentation software that specifically supports solid state drives.

Basically, these utilities will retrieve the list of free blocks from the operating system’s file system and pass it to the SSD in the form of TRIM commands, so that it will know which blocks to erase internally. Again, these utilities are not necessary if you are using an operating system that supports TRIM.

Next Page > Over-Provisioning, Capacity, Transfer Rate Profile, WinBench Results & Transfer Rate Range

 

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Testing The SanDisk Ultra 3D NAND SSD

Processors	Intel Core i7-2600K
Motherboard	Intel DP67BG
Memory	Four Kingmax 2 GB DDR3-1333 modules
Graphics Card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
SSD & HDD Drives	8 TB Western Digital Gold 1 TB + 120 GB WD Black² 1 TB WD Blue 3D SSD 1 TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD 1 TB WD Blue SSD 1 TB WD VelociRaptor 256 GB OCZ Vector 240 GB HyperX Savage 240 GB Intel 520 Series 160 GB Intel X25-M G2
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit

Testing Methodology

 

Over-Provisioning & Usable Capacity

This 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) has a maximum storage capacity of 1,024 GB, courtesy of eight 128 GB SanDisk 3D NAND chips. Of that, a mere 24 GB has been set aside for garbage collection, wear levelling and replacement of failing blocks.

Ordinarily, the limited 2.4% over-provisioning may impact long-term performance and lifespan. However, Western Digital mitigated that using a large 13 GB pseudo-SLC write cache they call nCache 2.0.

After it is formatted in NTFS, the actual formatted capacity is 1,000,202,039,296 bytes. This is slightly (202 MB) more than the official formatted capacity of 1,000 GB.

With about 124 MB of space allocated to the NTFS file system, the actual usable capacity is just above 1,000 GB.

 

Transfer Rate Profile

We compared the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) to the 1TB WD Blue SSD. As you can see, it has a sustained throughput of about 378 MB/s, which makes it almost twice as fast as the 1TB WD Blue SSD, which uses TLC NAND memory.

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Business Disk WinBench 99

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) did very well in this test, beating its brother, the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) by 17%!

Drive Model	Capacity	Business Disk WinMark 99	Difference	Useful Links
Intel 520 Series	240 GB	77.7 MB/s	+ 7.2%	Review	Lowest $
WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB	72.5 MB/s	Baseline	–	Lowest $
Western Digital Black²	120 GB	63.1 MB/s	– 14.9%	Review	Lowest $
OCZ Vector	256 GB	62.1 MB/s	– 16.7%	Review	Lowest $
SanDisk Ultra 3D	1 TB	62.0 MB/s	– 16.9%	Review	Lowest $
WD Blue SSD	1 TB	62.0 MB/s	– 16.9%	Review	Lowest $
HyperX Savage	240 GB	61.9 MB/s	– 17.1%	Review	Lowest $
Intel X25-M G2	160 GB	50.4 MB/s	– 43.8%	Review	Lowest $
WD VelociRaptor	1 TB	29.8 MB/s	– 143.3%	Review	Lowest $
WD Gold	8 TB	23.3 MB/s	– 211.2%	Review	Lowest $

 

High-End Disk WinBench 99

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) did very well in the High-End test, beating virtually all other competitors, except for the 240 GB HyperX Savage and the 240 GB Intel 520 Series SSDs.

Drive Model	Capacity	High-End Disk WinMark 99	Difference	Useful Links
Intel 520 Series	240 GB	Beyond limit	NA	Review	Lowest $
OCZ Vector	256 GB	Beyond limit	NA	Review	Lowest $
WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB	283 MB/s	Baseline	–	Lowest $
SanDisk Ultra 3D	1 TB	277 MB/s	– 2.2%	Review	Lowest $
HyperX Savage	240 GB	262 MB/s	– 8.0%	Review	Lowest $
Western Digital Black²	120 GB	246 MB/s	– 15.0%	Review	Lowest $
WD Blue SSD	1 TB	220 MB/s	– 28.6%	Review	Lowest $
Intel X25-M G2	160 GB	215 MB/s	– 131.6%	Review	Lowest $
WD VelociRaptor	1 TB	172 MB/s	– 164.5%	Review	Lowest $
WD Gold	8 TB	23.3 MB/s	– 212.8%	Review	Lowest $

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Transfer Rate Range

This chart shows you the range of memory cell-to-controller transfer rates for SSDs, or the range of platter-to-buffer transfer rates from the innermost track to the outermost track in HDDs.

Despite boasting an official peak read speed of 560 MB/s, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) could only hit 386 MB/s. That is impressive in its own right, but puts it below the 256 GB OCZ Vector and the 240 GB HyperX Savage SSDs.

Next Page > IO Meter Benchmark Results

 

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IO Meter

We compared the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) against the 1TB WD Blue SSD. If you wish to see how the SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD compares to other solid state drives, take a look at our Solid State Drive Performance Comparison Guide, which we will be updating shortly.

 

Throughput (Random Access)

Test	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
512 KB Read	371.71 MB/s	239.84 MB/s	+ 55.0%
512 KB Write	488.55 MB/s	257.09 MB/s	+ 90.0%
4 KB Read	32.48 MB/s	24.93 MB/s	+ 30.3%
4 KB Write	75.94 MB/s	53.31 MB/s	+ 42.4%

The small random reads and writes are the most important tests for applications that make a lot of random accesses, so these would be key performance indicators for SSDs that are often used as boot drives.

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) did incredibly well in this test, solidly beating the 1TB WD Blue SSD. Thanks to its built-in nCache 2.0 technology, it delivered almost twice the large random write performance of the 1TB WD Blue SSD!

 

Random Access Time

Test	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
512 KB Read	1.41 ms	2.19 ms	– 35.5%
512 KB Write	1.07 ms	2.04 ms	– 47.4%
4 KB Read	0.13 ms	0.17 ms	– 25.1%
4 KB Write	0.05 ms	0.08 ms	– 29.8%

The random write performance of the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) was truly stellar, in comparison to the 1TB WD Blue SSD.

 

Random CPU Utilization

Test	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
512 KB Read	29.50 %	7.16 %	+ 312.0%
512 KB Write	30.12 %	7.31 %	+ 312.3%
4 KB Read	32.53 %	9.94 %	+ 227.2%
4 KB Write	35.72 %	11.91 %	+ 199.9%

The only downside – the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) uses up a lot more CPU performance than the 1TB WD Blue SSD. About 3X more CPU performance, on average!

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IO Meter (Sequential Accesses)

We compared the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) against the 1TB WD Blue SSD. If you wish to see how the SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD compares to other solid state drives, take a look at our Solid State Drive Performance Comparison Guide, which we will be updating shortly.

 

Sequential Throughput

Test	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
512 KB Read	510.62 MB/s	250.14 MB/s	+ 104.1%
512 KB Write	494.55 MB/s	255.54 MB/s	+ 93.5%
4 KB Read	84.74 MB/s	63.35 MB/s	+ 33.8%
4 KB Write	75.98 MB/s	59.15 MB/s	+ 28.5%

The sequential read and write performance indicators determine how fast you can copy and move files. This is also important in determining how fast you can launch an application or game.

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) did marvellously in this test, coming in twice as fast as the 1TB WD Blue SSD in large, sequential reads and writes.  It also had a large boost in small sequential read and write performance.

 

Sequential Access Time

Test	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
512 KB Read	1.03 ms	2.10 ms	– 51.2%
512 KB Write	1.06 ms	2.05 ms	– 48.3%
4 KB Read	0.05 ms	0.07 ms	– 26.7%
4 KB Write	0.05 ms	0.07 ms	– 22.4%

 

Sequential CPU Utilization

Test	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
512 KB Read	29.61 %	8.69 %	+ 240.7%
512 KB Write	29.11 %	5.76 %	+ 405.4%
4 KB Read	36.38 %	15.93 %	+ 128.4%
4 KB Write	35.69 %	15.42 %	+ 131.5%

Again, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) took up a significant amount of CPU processing power.

Next Page > IOPS Scaling Results

 

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IOPS Scaling (Random)

In these tests, we tested the drive’s ability to tackle multiple input/output operations. We compared the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) against the 1TB WD Blue SSD. For more performance comparisons, please take a look at the Solid State Drive Performance Comparison Guide.

Even though the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is rated for enterprise-class endurance, its Marvell 88SS1074 controller is just not capable of handling too many simultaneous operations. It appears to handle up to 8 simultaneous transactions.

Its nCache 2.0 technology appears to have compensated for its limited NAND channels, allowing it greatly supersede the performance of the 1TB WD Blue SSD, even though they both use the same SDD controller.

 

4 KB Random Read

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	7,928 IOPS	6,086 IOPS	+ 30.3%
8	46,297 IOPS	38,444 IOPS	+ 20.4%
32	64,051 IOPS	36,145 IOPS	+ 77.2%

 

4 KB Random Write

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	18,539 IOPS	13,015 IOPS	+ 42.5%
8	49,559 IOPS	39,066 IOPS	+ 26.9%
32	51,495 IOPS	39,115 IOPS	+ 31.6%

 

512 KB Random Read

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	709 IOPS	457 IOPS	+ 55.0%
8	1,075 IOPS	537 IOPS	+ 100.4%
32	1,077 IOPS	544 IOPS	+ 97.9%

 

512 KB Random Write

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	932 IOPS	490 IOPS	+ 90.0%
8	946 IOPS	522 IOPS	+ 81.4%
32	961 IOPS	522 IOPS	+ 84.3%

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IOPS Scaling (Sequential)

In these tests, we tested the drive’s ability to tackle multiple input/output operations. We compared the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) against the 1TB WD Blue SSD. For more performance comparisons, please take a look at the Solid State Drive Performance Comparison Guide.

The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) did much better than the 1TB WD Blue SSD, even though they both use the same SDD controller.

 

4 KB Sequential Read

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	20,688 IOPS	15,466 IOPS	+ 33.8%
8	66,011 IOPS	41,425 IOPS	+ 59.4%
32	65,146 IOPS	37,963 IOPS	+ 71.6%

 

4 KB Sequential Write

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	18,550 IOPS	14,440 IOPS	+ 28.5%
8	49,505 IOPS	38,840 IOPS	+ 27.5%
32	54,477 IOPS	39,188 IOPS	+ 39.0%

 

512 KB Sequential Read

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	974 IOPS	477 IOPS	+ 104.1%
8	1,079 IOPS	544 IOPS	+ 98.3%
32	1,065 IOPS	540 IOPS	+ 97.2%

 

512 KB Sequential Write

Outstanding I/Os	1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	1 TB WD Blue SSD	Difference
1	943 IOPS	487 IOPS	+ 93.5%
8	1,025 IOPS	521 IOPS	+ 96.5%
32	1,026 IOPS	521 IOPS	+ 96.8%

Next Page > AS SSD Benchmark Results

 

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AS SSD Benchmark

AS SSD Benchmark is a simple and easy-to-use SSD benchmark by Alex Intelligent Software. It not only tests the drive’s sequential transfer rates and access times, but also its performance at both single-threaded and multi-threaded 4K IOPS.

 

Sequential Transfers

Drive Model	Read + Write Average	Difference	Quick Links
HyperX Savage	516.0 MB/s	+ 1.9%	Price, Review
WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	506.6 MB/s	Baseline	Price
OCZ Vector	500.3 MB/s	– 1.2%	Price, Review
SanDisk Ultra 3D	493.5 MB/s	– 2.6%	Price, Review
Intel 520 Series	293.9 MB/s	– 42.0%	Price, Review
Western Digital Black²	280.6 MB/s	– 44.6%	Price, Review
WD Blue SSD	260.2 MB/s	– 48.6%	Price, Review
Intel X25-M G2	179.0 MB/s	– 64.7%	Price, Review

 

Single-Threaded 4K IOPS Performance

Drive Model	Read + Write Average	Difference	Quick Links
WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	48.2 MB/s	Baseline	Price
SanDisk Ultra 3D	48.1 MB/s	– 0.2%	Price, Review
Intel 520 Series	45.7 MB/s	– 5.1%	Price, Review
HyperX Savage	40.2 MB/s	– 16.5%	Price, Review
OCZ Vector	38.6 MB/s	– 19.9%	Price, Review
Western Digital Black²	35.0 MB/s	– 27.4%	Price, Review
WD Blue SSD	31.7 MB/s	– 34.2%	Price, Review
Intel X25-M G2	30.7 MB/s	– 36.3%	Price, Review

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Multi-Threaded 4K IOPS Performance

Drive Model	Read + Write Average	Difference	Quick Links
SanDisk Ultra 3D	347.3 MB/s	+ 1.5%	Price, Review
WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	342.3 MB/s	Baseline	Price
OCZ Vector	338.6 MB/s	– 1.1%	Price, Review
HyperX Savage	257.8 MB/s	– 24.7%	Price, Review
WD Blue SSD	193.6 MB/s	– 43.5%	Price, Review
Intel 520 Series	177.5 MB/s	– 48.2%	Price, Review
Western Digital Black²	164.9 MB/s	– 51.8%	Price, Review
Intel X25-M G2	125.2 MB/s	– 63.4%	Price, Review

 

Access Time

Drive Model	Read + Write Average	Difference	Quick Links
HyperX Savage	0.065 ms	– 13.4%	Price, Review
OCZ Vector	0.067 ms	– 10.1%	Price, Review
WD Blue 3D NAND SSD	0.075 ms	Baseline	Price
SanDisk Ultra 3D	0.076 ms	+ 1.3%	Price, Review
WD Blue SSD	0.078 ms	+ 4.7%	Price, Review
Intel X25-M G2	0.089 ms	+ 18.8%	Price, Review
Western Digital Black²	0.119 ms	+ 59.1%	Price, Review
Intel 520 Series	0.162 ms	+ 116.8%	Price, Review

Next Page > ATTO Disk Benchmark Results, Verdict, Award & Prices

 

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ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmark is a free benchmark that allows you to compare the performance of solid state drives using a variety of transfer sizes. It also allows us to determine if the SSD performs data compression to improve performance, and extend lifespan.

 

I/O Comparison

Results	Compressible Data		Non-Compressible Data
	Minimum	Maximum	Minimum	Maximum
Read Speed	6.5 MB/s	145.1 MB/s	5.8 MB/s	143.6 MB/s
Write Speed	5.6 MB/s	137.2 MB/s	6.1 MB/s	134.2 MB/s

The Marvell 88SS1074 controller does not perform any data compression, which is why the performance results are the same for both compressible and non-compressible data. The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 1 MB.

 

Multiple I/O Comparison

Results	Compressible Data		Non-Compressible Data
	Minimum	Maximum	Minimum	Maximum
Read Speed	8.8 MB/s	147 2 MB/s	10.2 MB/s	147.5 MB/s
Write Speed	8.3 MB/s	139.6 MB/s	9.0 MB/s	136.5 MB/s

With just 8 simultaneous transactions, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 128 KB.

 

Our Verdict & Award

The first 1 terabyte solid state drive we tested was the 1TB WD Blue (WDS100T1B0A) SSD. While it had a large storage capacity, high endurance and a affordable price point, it was not particularly fast.

That changed with the introduction of the 64-layer 3D NAND technology, which not only increases storage capacity and performance, but also reduces cost and power consumption. Now we can have our cake and eat it too.

The 1TB WD Blue 3D SSD (Price Check) is the first Western Digital solid state drive to make use of the 64-layer 3D NAND technology and it sure impressed us with its performance.

Despite using the same SSD controller as the 1TB WD Blue, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) was twice as fast in large reads and writes. It accomplished this without using any SDRAM cache, thanks to nCache 2.0 technology.

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The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) will work well as a boot drive, thanks to its excellent small random performance. It will be particularly attractive as an upgrade option for laptops still running on hard disk drives, or smaller SSDs.

Just note that its high performance requires a significant amount of CPU performance. So make sure you pair it with a fast processor.

We like its combination of great performance, large storage capacity and lower cost so much, we think it deserves our Editor’s Choice Award. Great work, Western Digital!

 

WD Blue 3D NAND SSD Prices & Warranty

The WD Blue 3D SSDs are available in storage capacities from 250 GB to 2 TB in the 2.5-inch / 7mm cased drive form factor, at the following price points :

• 2TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $520.97 | RM 3,800
• 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $259.99 | RM 1,596 (MSRP : RM 2,000)
• 500GB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $134.99 | RM 777 (MSRP : RM 1,100)
• 250GB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $83.19 | RM 458 (MSRP : RM 620)

The WD Blue 3D SSD is also available in the single-sided M.2 2280 form factor.

• 2TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $551.65 | RM 3,950
• 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $289.99 | RM 1,845.88 (MSRP : RM 2,100)
• 500GB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $139.99 | RM 788 (MSRP : RM 1,150)
• 250GB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD : $92.91 | RM 467 (MSRP : RM 640)

All WD Blue 3D NAND SSDs come with a three-year limited warranty.

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