If you want the highest sequential read speeds currently available in the consumer SSD market, the WD_BLACK SN8100 is the answer.

Just like Kingston with the FURY Renegade G5, WD “waited” for the second wave of PCIe 5.0 to gain certain advantages, resulting in the SN8100. Previously, the first wave of PCIe 5.0 SSDs based on the Phison E26 controller had many limitations in terms of temperature and power consumption, but in the new generation with the Silicon Motion controller, everything has been resolved satisfactorily. The SN8100 is not only faster but also cooler, easier to use, meeting the needs of gamers, content creators and AI systems.

Design and component composition

Similar to previous WD_BLACK SSD versions, the SN8100 model's case is similar. Still with the main black color and SSD image, however with the SN8100, the highest sequential read speed is up to 14,900 MBps. The Migovi test version has a capacity of 1 TB, manufactured in Malaysia.

The heart of the WD_BLACK SN8100 is the Silicon Motion SM2508 controller, manufactured on TSMC's advanced 6nm process. This controller is exceptionally energy efficient, reducing power consumption by up to 30% compared to the 12nm process on the first generation Phison E26 controller. The SM2508 consists of 5 cores, including 4 Arm Cortex-R8 cores clocked at 1.25 GHz for high-performance tasks and 1 Cortex-M0 core for auxiliary operations. The Silicon Motion SM2508 supports 8 NAND channels with communication speeds of up to 3600 MT/s, allowing for maximum exploitation of the bandwidth of the BiCS8 memory chip and very close to the maximum threshold of the PCIe 5.0 x4 interface.

The controller on the SN8100 is branded SanDisk A101-250800-AC, suggesting that this may be a specially-modified version by Western Digital. This would explain the performance difference compared to other SSD models that also use the SM2508.

Paired with the SM2508 is the 218-layer Kioxia BiCS8 memory chip. These memory chips feature Charge Trap Flash (CTF) and CMOS Bonded Array (CBA) technology. CTF uses an insulating layer to trap electrons instead of the traditional floating gate, which helps reduce electron leakage, increases durability and allows memory cells to be placed closer together. Meanwhile, CBA is a wafer-on-wafer stacking technique that allows peripheral control circuitry to be placed below the memory cell array, increasing storage density and improving energy efficiency.

Each BiCS8 NAND die has a four-plane structure, allowing the controller to perform parallel read or write operations on multiple regions of the same memory die, thereby doubling the bandwidth. With an interface speed of up to 3600 MT/s, these memory chips take full advantage of the SM2508 controller's capabilities, resulting in very fast transfer speeds for the SN8100.

To optimize performance, the 1 TB version of the SN8100 is equipped with 1 GB of DDR4 cache (Nanya NT5AD512M16C4-HR memory chip). In addition to DRAM, the SN8100 is also equipped with nCache 4.0 technology, which works by temporarily using a portion of the drive's free space in SLC mode, which has a much faster write speed and higher durability than TLC mode. When the user performs a write operation, the data will be written to this high-speed SLC buffer first. Then, during idle time, the controller will automatically move the data from the SLC area to the main TLC area for long-term storage. nCache 4.0 is a dynamic SLC cache, which is not fixed in size but will shrink as the SSD's capacity increases. By intelligently managing write operations, nCache 4.0 helps minimize wear on memory cells, thereby extending the overall life of the SSD.

The WD_BLACK SN8100 has the highest sequential read and write speeds according to the manufacturer at 14,900 MBps and 11,000 MBps, respectively. The random read and write performance of the SN8100 is up to 1,600,000 IOPS and 2,400,000 IOPS. The WD_BLACK SN8100 has a 5-year warranty, 600 TBW of write endurance and capacity options of 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB, all sharing the same sequential read speed of 14,900 MBps; meanwhile, the 2 TB and 4 TB versions have higher sequential write speeds of up to 14,000 MBps.

Test configuration

• CPU: Intel Core i7-14700K
• Mainboard: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 DARK HERO
• RAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR TITANIUM DDR5-6000 32 GB x 2
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360 ATMOS
• SSD: WD_BLACK SN8100 1TB
• VGA: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• PSU: CORSAIR RM1200x SHIFT
• Case: Lian Li O11 DYNAMIC EVO XL Black
• OS: Windows 10 Pro x64

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D
• Mainboard: ASRock X870E Nova WiFi
• RAM: Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5-7200 16 GB x 2
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360 ATMOS
• SSD: WD_BLACK SN8100 1TB
• VGA: integrated
• PSU: CORSAIR RM1200x SHIFT
• Case: Lian Li O11 DYNAMIC EVO XL Black
• OS: Windows 10 Pro x64

Test results

To take advantage of and properly evaluate the capabilities of Gen 5 SSD models, you must have systems using new platforms, such as Intel 600 Series or higher or AMD 600 Series or higher. Locating and installing the Gen 5 slot correctly is also an important point. In addition, a cooling solution for Gen 5 SSDs is necessary, although with modern generations, manufacturers have improved a lot in operating temperatures. In the absence of adequate cooling measures, when exceeding the threshold of 70 degrees, the performance of the SSD will decrease sharply to ensure safety as well as the life of the memory chip.

If you want high sequential read and write speeds, the AMD AM5 platform is definitely the place to go. On the other hand, if you need good 4K random read performance, the Intel LGA 1700 platform or higher will be suitable. With the Intel configuration, the WD_BLACK SN8100 achieved sequential read and write results of 14,294.85 MBPs and 11,899.45 MBps, while the 4K random read and write performance was 127.82 MBps and 424.16 MBps, respectively.

The AMD configuration maximized the sequential read and write speeds of the WD_BLACK SN8100, reaching 14,930.27 MBps and 11,899.37 MBps, respectively. In 4K random read and write performance, the SN8100 SSD delivered results of 105.91 MBps and 271.26 MBps, respectively. With the AMD platform, the WD_BLACK SN8100 achieved sequential performance similar to the manufacturer's description and even exceeded it.

Continuous write test with large files to find the capacity of pseudo-SLC cache, the result shows that pSLC cache is around 300 GB. After running out of SLC cache, the write speed of WD_BLACK SN8100 is around 2000 MBps, maintained until the write task is finished.

A key highlight of the SN8100 is its ability to maintain high performance without overheating. Thanks to its energy-efficient 6nm controller, the SN8100 runs very cool. During continuous writes, the SN8100's temperature only peaked at around 54°C to 56°C when using the motherboard's heatsink. This is in stark contrast to the first generation Gen5 SSDs, which could easily reach overheating thresholds and degrade performance without a dedicated heatsink.

Conclude

Compared to the Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2 TB model that Migovi tested not long ago, the WD_BLACK SN8100 1 TB approaches the Gen 5 SSD market in a different way. The SN8100 is optimized for peak performance in synthetic tests and random read priority tasks. In contrast, the FURY Renegade G5 offers 66.7% higher overall endurance (1000 TBW vs 600 TBW), for balanced performance. This also shows how manufacturers fine-tune and optimize firmware, although both are equipped with the Silicon Motion SM2508 controller, in addition to the pSLC cache management, algorithms, etc.

WD_BLACK SN8100 1 TB is a high-speed SSD option thanks to PCIe 5.0 x4, not only that, it also solves the electrical and thermal challenges of the first generation. The investment cost for the 1 TB SN8100 model in the Vietnamese market is about more than 6 million VND. If you are a customer who wants to experience the highest speed of SSD Gen 5 at this time, WD_BLACK SN8100 is the right choice.

Migovi review