Western Digital were late to the NVMe SSD game, but it appears they’ve spent their time getting things right the first time around. The Black SN750 models have proven to be excellent in the enthusiast scene and now with their budget Blue SN500 options, we’re once again very impressed.
At the time of writing, the 250GB and 500GB Blue SN500 NVMe drives are cheaper than their equal capacity M.2 Blue SATA solutions, which makes no sense to us due to the massive difference in speed of around 550MB/s versus 1700MB/s. However, it does show that the market is gearing up to drop SATA and move over to NVMe which we can’t welcome in fast enough.
Performance, as is evident from our graphs, is certainly not class-leading within the NVMe sector, but Western Digital were open and upfront about setting expectations from the outset. Having said that, the drive is limited to a PCI-E 3.0 x2 interface, so speeds would never exceed 2GB/s anyway, and it compares with drives like the Corsair MP300 and Crucial P1; this is exactly where we’d expect it to be.
As we explained earlier in the review, the SN500 is limited to a single NAND chip and uses a DRAM-less design. This single NAND chip ultimately limits the capacity of the drive to 500GB which for some users won’t be enough, though on the other hand, for the target audience that we feel this drive is aimed at, it should present a decent upgrade in both performance and capacity, letting you rely on traditional spinning storage less. You can install a healthy bunch of application and two or three large AAA gaming titles onto the drive before it begins to fill up.
When it comes down to it, performance statistics like 3500MB/s sequential read speeds and 600,000 read IOPS are all well and good, but in real-world scenarios, they generally offer very little benefit. The Blue SN500 should offer most of the performance of a flagship drive at a significantly lower cost.
There is one question we must ask though, at £50/$54 for the 250GB and £70/$76 for the 500GB. Why would anyone buy the 250GB?
Ultimately, the inherent value offered by the drive far outshines any of its forthcomings in outright speed. If you wish to experience the boosts available with the NVMe protocol, this is an excellent option.
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At the time of writing, the 250GB and 500GB Blue SN500 NVMe drives are cheaper than their equal capacity M.2 Blue SATA solutions, which makes no sense to us due to the massive difference in speed of around 550MB/s versus 1700MB/s. However, it does show that the market is gearing up to drop SATA and move over to NVMe which we can’t welcome in fast enough.
Performance, as is evident from our graphs, is certainly not class-leading within the NVMe sector, but Western Digital were open and upfront about setting expectations from the outset. Having said that, the drive is limited to a PCI-E 3.0 x2 interface, so speeds would never exceed 2GB/s anyway, and it compares with drives like the Corsair MP300 and Crucial P1; this is exactly where we’d expect it to be.
As we explained earlier in the review, the SN500 is limited to a single NAND chip and uses a DRAM-less design. This single NAND chip ultimately limits the capacity of the drive to 500GB which for some users won’t be enough, though on the other hand, for the target audience that we feel this drive is aimed at, it should present a decent upgrade in both performance and capacity, letting you rely on traditional spinning storage less. You can install a healthy bunch of application and two or three large AAA gaming titles onto the drive before it begins to fill up.
When it comes down to it, performance statistics like 3500MB/s sequential read speeds and 600,000 read IOPS are all well and good, but in real-world scenarios, they generally offer very little benefit. The Blue SN500 should offer most of the performance of a flagship drive at a significantly lower cost.
There is one question we must ask though, at £50/$54 for the 250GB and £70/$76 for the 500GB. Why would anyone buy the 250GB?
Ultimately, the inherent value offered by the drive far outshines any of its forthcomings in outright speed. If you wish to experience the boosts available with the NVMe protocol, this is an excellent option.
Pros
+ Great performance for a value drive
+ Good price
+ Cheaper than their SATA M.2 alternatives
+ No wires
Neutral
+- Faster drives are available
Cons
- 500GB maximum capacity
+ Great performance for a value drive
+ Good price
+ Cheaper than their SATA M.2 alternatives
+ No wires
Neutral
+- Faster drives are available
Cons
- 500GB maximum capacity
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
Stay connected with the Vortez Social Media pages:
Join in with the discussions on Discord
