Western Digital Introduces new Black 3D NVMe SSD

Western Digital Introduces new Black 3D NVMe SSD

Western Digital introduces the new Western Digital Black 3D NVMe SSD today. The drive is designed for leading-edge performance, low power consumption, and extended durability for PC gaming.

“The SSD is specifically architected to help maximize performance for NVMe SSDs, with advanced power management, durability and endurance for those handling intense creative and gaming tasks.”

Western Digital WD Black Hardware

The new WD Black 3D NVMe SSD is built from the ground up to be the best it can be. Western Digital’s new vertically integrated SSD platform was created to deliver the best NVMe performance, low latency, and great power efficiency.

WD Black has always been a synonym for performance and it is no different for the new drive. The official performance figures paint a great picture with up to 3200MB/s read and 2800MB/s write performance. Another part that might make your mouth water is the random performance. With up to 500K IOPS when reading and up to 400K IOPS when writing, the drive is a monster and a force to be reckoned with.

The endurance rating isn’t without either as the WD Black 3D NVMe SSD comes with a rating of up to 600TBW and 5-year warranty.

“Today’s gaming applications require increasing capability from their PCs, and this will only continue to advance. With our new architecture and controller, the Western Digital Black SSD integrates our 3D NAND technology with the NVMe interface to enable new levels of performance. Whether it’s a new gaming rig or a video-editing workstation; our innovative NVMe drives will power many existing and future environments that enable data to thrive,” said, Mark Grace, senior vice president, Devices Business Unit, Western Digital.

Capacity Options

The previously mentioned performance figures are for the 1TB version of this new drive. However, that’s not the only version. While we all like to have 1TB or more of this fast-paced storage, it might not be needed. There’s also the matter of costs. Perhaps your budget won’t allow you to get that kind of storage at this point. That’s why Western Digital come with a 500GB and 250GB version too.

A smaller capacity sadly equals slightly lower performance, that’s a given. Still, with 3400MB/s and 3000MB/s read as well as 2500MB/s and 1600MB/s write performance, the two smaller drives perform well. The random performance also drops a little. The 500GB drops to 410K/330K IOPS while the 250GB drops to 220/170K IOPS. Sure, that isn’t the same as for the 1TB version, but they’re still good figures.

Bonus Content

The WD SSD Dashboard will allow you to monitor and control your new drive. Even better, you get a free copy of Acronis True Image WD Edition software as a free download. With it, you can clone drives and back up your operating system, applications, settings, and all of your data.

Pricing and Availability

The new drives will be available by late April 2018. The MSRP comes in at $119.99 USD, $229.99 and $449.99 USD respectively. The EU pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but with a release date shortly, we won’t have to wait long to find out.