WD BLACK SN850

A staggeringly fast PCI-E Gen4 drive that’s the obvious choice for the most demanding users.

★★★★★ 1TB, $229 | westerndigital.com

It’s been around for quite a while now, but the WD Black SN850 runs at the current PCI-E Gen4 speeds, so it can still put in a shift. And it’s better value now than it was at launch thanks to a price drop or two. We’ve reviewed the 1TB model, although there are 500GB and 2TB versions available. All are available with and without heatsinks, with WD recommending heatsinks for use in PCs and the PS5 .

The last time we reviewed this drive, the heatsink version was hugely more expensive. Fortunately, times have changed, and the heatsink version is now excellent value: $229 for such a fast 1TB drive really is excellent value.

As the basis of a new PC, there’s still a lot going for this drive. In our benchmarks, we measured the drive at 6,005MB/sec read and 5,429MB/sec write speeds. Only the Seagate FireCuda drives do better in this test.

It’s the same story in our random tests. At 2,772MB/sec read speeds and 2,580MB/ sec writes, the WD Black SN850 is only marginally outclassed by the two Seagate drives in this test.

In the PCMark 10 test, the WD Black SN850 is also a capable performer. Scoring 3,508 in the System Disk benchmark and 5,048 in the Data

Disk benchmark, this drive pretty much tops the table. It’s outclassed only by the newer WD Black SN770.

On balance, the SN850 is still the overall best drive available, across all the benchmarks, with the WD SN770 falling behind in sequential and random tests. The SN770 also falls short of the requirements for PS5 use, whereas the SN850 is compatible.

Endurance for this drive is rated at 600TBW for the 1TB edition, which is just about what we’d expect. The simple fact is that this drive will more than outlast your needs when used in a regular computer.

While the WD Black SN770 is a great new entry, if you want the overall best that the PCI-E Gen 4.0 interface can offer, with the fastest recorded transfer rates, then this is the model to buy.

"On balance, the SN850 is still the overall best drive available, across all the benchmarks, with the WD SN770 falling behind in sequential and random tests."