WD Black SN750 vs WD Black NVMe Review

In this Western Digital Black SN750 vs WD Black review, we take a look and benchmark the newly updated WD Black SN750, to see how it compares to last year’s WD Black NVMe drive.

While the original WD Black 2018 range is no slouch in speed and performance, with some magical tinkering and optimization of the firmware from the Western Digital’s Sandisk engineers, the new NVMe drives are able output performance than exceeds last years models, especially in its 4KB randoms write speed capabilities.

While Western Digital haven’t  increased their sequential write performance as much as Samsung, with their new 970 EVO Plus drives, there is still an improvement, compered to last years generation of WD Black NVMe drives.

In fact both read and write speeds are becoming so fast, that they are actually very close to reaching the PCIe 3.0 4x speed limits of 3940MB/s (31.52 Gb/s). I predict that there may be one more generation of NVMe drives before Samsung or Western Digital, are forced to move onto the faster PCIe 4.0 generation, especially with the new Ryzen 3000 series supporting PCIe 4.0 on the horizon.

I will be skipping over some of the technical explanations such as the difference between TCL and MCL, as well as TurboWrite, as I have already covered those in my previous Samsung 970 PRO Review. So if you are unfamiliar with and of these terms, make sure to give that a quick read too, to better understand the contents of this review.

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With that said, let’s get on with this WD Black SN750 vs WD Black 2018 review, and see how these two NVMe drives compare in advertised specs and performance.

Both the WD Black NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) drives, follow the same M.2, 2280 (22mm wide x 80mm long) standard.

As stated above, both make use of the PCIe 3.0 4x connection, for an approximately 4GB/s (4000MB/s) of available bandwidth.

The new WD Black SN750 drives from Western Digital/Sandisk, make use of their 64-layer TLC (Triple-Level Cell/3bit) NAND, as well as the same in house Controller and NVMe 1.3 Protocol, which has most likely been tweaked, in order to output the extra performance of the SN750

The same 5 year warranty is in place, as before.

Western Digital acquiring Sandisk in 2016, to get make use of their expertise in the flash storage field. Thanks to this, they have brought some much needed competition to the NVMe flash storage market.

This helps keep monopolies at bay and thus exorbitant prices rearing their heads, which was the case not so long ago, when Samsung charged more than 4 times the amount of what they do now for these drives.

Read my 970 EVO Plus vs WD Black SN750 benchmark review to see how they compare.

Thanks to this, NVMe is accessible to far more people, without having to sell a kidney to get one. So well done on WD for that feat.

Now the WD Black SN750 1TB costs ($110.00) while the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB is priced ($59.99)

In terms of performance, WD have also kept Samsung on their toes, which has forced them to continuously create faster NVMe drive, in order to stay ahead of the game, which would never have happened, should there have been no competition.

Lets take a look a t how the new Western Digital Black SN750 performs against the now older original WD Black NVMe drive.

The WD Black SN750 offers Advertised Sequential Read speeds of 3,470MB/s, being only 70MB/s (2%) faster than the already fast 3,400MB/s, of the original WD Black NVMe.

Unlike Samsung, WD weren’t able to achieve the big increase in advertised sequential write speeds, as their WD SN750 now offers 3,000MB/s sequential write speeds, making it only 200MB/s (7%) faster than the 2,800MB/s, of the original WD Black Nvme from 2018.

As photographers and videographers, Sequential Write speed is what we look for in SD Cards and SSD Drives when using external monitors or recorders, such as the recently announced, Atomos Ninja V. This is because, in general photos and video are large, single files, rather than many small files. We thus use sequential  speeds when working with single large files.

In the 4KB Random Read (QD32) performance specs, we see a 15k IOP/s (3%) lead from the WD Black SN750, with its 515k IOP/s (2,012MB/s) advertised performance over the WD Black 2018’s 500k IOP/s (1,953MB/s) advertised 4KB Random Read (QD32) speeds.

Although, the new SN750 NVMe advertises a 160k IOP/s (40%) increase in 4KB Random Write (QD32) speeds, with is 560k IOP/s (2,188MB/s), over the WD BLack’s 400k IOP/s (1,563MB/s) .

These 4K Random tests show speeds of your day to day use of your computer, which has to copy or load many small files, such as when you load a game or application, or copy a folder with many files in it.

In both sequential and random, the speeds your computer will achieve, will also depend on the speed of the other components of your computer, but an extra 40% is certainly something to take note of.

Make sure to also look at buying some Samsung 860 EVO 1TB ($121.07) drives as well. You can read my 970 EVO plus vs 860 EVO review here to see how they compare.

Crystal Disk Mark 6, put these two NVMe drives to the test in both the above Sequential and 4KB Random tests, seeing what the actual performance is in both Read and Write situations.

Sequential Read Speeds

• In my tests, the WD Black SN750 achieved a Sequential Read speed of 3497MB/s, which is 52MB/s (2%) faster than the 3445MB/s, achieved by the WD Black 2018.

Sequential Write Speeds

• The Sequential Write speed tests showed just how much faster the write speeds are, at 3020MB/s from the WD Black SN750, making it 192MB/s (7%) faster than the 2828MB/s, achieved by the WD Black 2018.

The increased Sequential Read and Write speeds, clearly show the power of the new WD Black SN750 NVMe drives, which will certainly keep any video editor or photographer more than happy.

Crystal Disk Mark outputs an array of slightly different 4KB Random Read and Write tests, that vary in the Queue Depth (Q) and Threads (T) per test. This gives us a nice, all round summary of the overall performance.

4KB Random Read (Q8T8)

• In the 4KB Random Read (Q8T8) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 1702MB/s which is 1MB (0.06%) Faster than the 1701MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.
• In the 4KB Random Write (Q8T8) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 1894MB/s which is 219MB (13%) Faster than the 1675MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

4KB Random Read (Q32T1)

• In the 4KB Random Read (Q32T1) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 708MB/s which is 9MB (1%) Faster than the 699MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.
• In the 4KB Random Write (Q32T1) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 706MB/s which is 103MB (17%) Faster than the 603MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

4KB Random Read (Q1T1)

• In the 4KB Random Read (Q1T1) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 54MB/s which is 5MB (10%) Slower than the 49MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.
• In the 4KB Random Write (Q1T1) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 226MB/s which is 1MB (15%) Faster than the 225MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

In summary, we see the WD Black SN750 1TB, taking a substantial lead over last years WD Black NVMe in teh 4KB Random Write tests, which is inline with their advertised increase.

AS SSD does similar Sequential and 4KB Random tests, to CrystalDiskMark, but with slightly different algorithms, so lets see what results it gives us for the Read and Write performances of the two NVMe 1TB drives.

Sequential Read Speeds

• In my tests, the WD Black SN750 achieved a Sequential Read speed of 2931MB/s, which is 110MB/s (4%) slower than the 3041MB/s, achieved by the WD Black 2018.

Sequential Write Speeds

• The Sequential Write speed tests showed similar results of 2675MB/s from the WD Black SN750, making it 118MB/s (5%) faster than the 2557MB/s, achieved by the WD Black 2018.

As with the CDM tests, the Sequential Read and Write performances in both the WD Black SN750 and WD Black 2018 NVMe drives, produced similar results.

Let’s take a look at what AS SSD give us in terms of its 4KB Random Read and Write tests

4KB Random Read

• In the 4KB Random Read test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 49MB/s which is 1MB (2%) Faster than the 48MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.
• In the 4KB Random Write test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 185MB/s which is 2MB (1%) Faster than the 183MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

4KB Random Read (64)

• In the 4KB Random Read (64) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 1776MB/s which is 89MB (5%) Slower than the 1687MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.
• In the 4KB Random Write (64) test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 1925MB/s which is 339MB (21%) Faster than the 1586MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

In summary, we again see the WD Black SN750 1TB, taking the lead over last year’s WD Black 2018 NVMe drive in the 4KB random Write tests.

Another interesting test that AS SSD gives us is to simulate the load speeds of an ISO file (single large file such a a video or ISO) to test the sequential speeds. It also has two other tests, where is simulates a Game Copy (lots of small files) to test random speeds. The last test is opening an Application/Program (Photoshop, Chrome, MS Word etc), to test the speeds of these as well.

Naturally the more MB/s, the faster these loads and copy will happen.

ISO Copy Test

• In the ISO copy test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 2028MB/s which is 279MB (16%) Faster than the 1749MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

Application Load Test

• In the Application Load test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 857MB/s which is 5MB (1%) slower than the 862MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

Game Copy Test

• In the Game Copy test, the WD Black SN750 achieved 1889MB/s which is 140MB (8%) Faster than the 1749MB/s, of the WD Black 2018.

Here we see a good 8% to 16% better performance from the WD Black SN750 1TB, compared to the 2018 Western Digital Black NVMe drive. So here you might see better performance in real world situations.

As we discussed in my Samsung 970 PRO Review, it performs at MLC 2bit speeds, while the 970 EVO and EVO Plus, perform slower due to their 3bit TLC.

While the 970 Pro and 970 EVO’s have very similar read and write speeds, the beneficial difference between the two is that the 970 PRO is able to give a true constant speed output, while the 970 EVO, reaches a cache limit cap causing them to slow down.

Samsung achieved these speed with the 970 EVO, by treating some of the TLC on the EVO range as SLC (Single-Level Cell) which is a 1bit and MUCH faster, giving it that burst of speed, which creates a much faster NAND cache speed performance temporarily. 

It cannot however retain that burst forever, and once it reaches the cap, it will slow down to 3bit again. 

Think of it as a sprinter or a cheetah. They can do excessive high speeds, but only for a short amount of time, before they start to eventually slow down.

While the Western Digital Black drives don’t make use of this technology, it it something to take note of as this is what makes the new 970 EVO Plus a much faster drive until it reaches its 42GB limit. So unless you work with files larger than 42GB on a 1TB drive, you might want to consider either the Samsung 970 EVO plus or 970 EVO.

The lifespan or endurance of an NVMe SSD storage device is measured in TeraBytes Written TBW.

Basically a drive has a warranty of only being able to copy so many TeraBytes before it will stop working.

The TeraBytes Written is different depending on which capacity drive you buy. Both the WD Black SN750 1TB ($110.00) and WB Black (2018) 1TB ($150.00), offer 600TBW.

As with all purchasing, the answer to which is going to be the best NVMe drive to buy depends on two factors

Your Needs and your Budget.

The new Western Digital Black SN750 is ahead in terms of performance, but how does it match up in terms of price?

As of 22 February 2019, here is the cost per GB breakdown

• WD Black SN750 250GB = $0.30/GB
• WD Black SN750 500GB = $0.24/GB
• WD Black SN750 1TB = $0.24/GB
• WD Black SN750 2TB = Price NA yet

Making the 1TB version the best value for money and the 250GB the worst.

• WD Black 250GB = $0.32/GB
• WD Black 500GB = $0.26/GB
• WD Black 1TB = $0.25/GB

Again, the 1TB is best value per GB. It is also a good choice to buy, in order to optimize your storage capacity, due to the limited NVMe ports per motherboard.

I’d recommend the 1TB over the 500GB for that reason.

I would however buy the new SN750 instead, as its not only cheaper but a better performer. Not sure why WD would make their older drive more expensive, if anything it should be cheaper.

Again the 250GB version is by far the worst value. I wouldn’t waste the money buying that.

The Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB ($59.99) at $0.25/GB, is the best NVMe currently on the market, matching the WD Black SN750 1TB ($110.00) in price, but offering better performance.

This will give you the fastest speed and performance currently available, even beating that of the Samsung 970 PRO 1TB ($459.99).

Both these new NVME SSD drives are equally priced, compared to last years models, while offering better performance, so Id rather buy the new versions..

1TB is the best choice for those wanting to store their games or work for the fastest access times, together with a respectable amount of storage capacity per limited NVMe slots.

If you are looking for a 500GB NVMe, then the WD Black SN750 500GB ($67.90) is the best price per GB at $0.24/GB, as its the same price as the original 970 EVO, but with better performance.

Although, for the extra $0.02/GB (8%), the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB ($44.31) offers much better Sequential Write performance at 3200MB/s vs the 2600MB/s of the SN750 500GB, as well as much better 4KB Random Write performance.

Based on this, my personal preference would be with Samsung again.

500GB is best used as a boot drive, although can naturally also be used as storage or as an extra cache drive for editing programs such as Adobe Premiere or Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 15 ($295.00)

Looking at the smallest capacity NVMe drives, the WD Black SN750 250GB ($79.89) is 17% cheaper at $0.30/GB, compared to the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB ($34.99) at $0.35/GB and even the 970 EVO at $0.30/GB.

Here again the advertised sequential and random write speeds of the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, does beat the WD Black. Here you will just need to decide if that sacrifice is worth saving $13?

While I wouldn’t recommend going as low as a 250GB drive, you can again naturally use it as a boot, storage or cache drive, but wont be able to store much else on it. I just wouldn’t go this small as you are wasting a precious NVMe slot on your motherboard, which are in short supply to begin with. Best to go 500GB or more.

The price per GB on these small drives is also much higher (34%) compared to the 500GB and 1TB  NVMe versions, so you are in fact paying more in the long run as well. Better to invest that money into one of the larger options.

Well hope you enjoyed this Western Digital SN750 NVMe vs WD Black Benchmark review.

The new drives made what was the perfect drive last year, even better. No reason not to buy one of these beauties to help speed up an old machine or with a new build.

While these trail slightly in the benchmarks, but they are certainly no slouch and I would definitely pick one up if they are on a discounted price, making the small difference in performance justified, otherwise Samsung still lead the race. They are perfect to help speed up an old machine or with a new build.

I commend Western Digital for keeping them on their toes and making this amazing storage technology far more affordable than what it was less than two years ago.

Until next time, cheers.

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All drives except the upcoming 970 EVO 2TB version are available on Amazon

Samsung 970 EVO Plus

• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB ($34.99) on Amazon
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB ($44.31) on Amazon
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB ($59.99) on Amazon

Western Digital Black SN750

• WD Black SN750 250GB ($79.89) on Amazon
• WD Black SN750 500GB ($67.90) on Amazon
• WD Black SN750 1TB ($110.00) on Amazon
• WD Black SN750 2TB ($211.12) on Amazon

Prices are looking very tempting, especially considering the increase in performance, compared to last years models

Samsung 970 EVO (2018)

• Samsung 970 EVO 250GB ($82.00) on Amazon
• Samsung 970 EVO 500GB ($67.99) on Amazon
• Samsung 970 EVO 1TB ($118.00) on Amazon
• Samsung 970 EVO 2TB ($198.00) on Amazon

Western Digital Black (2018)

• WB Black (2018) 250GB ($59.00) on Amazon
• WB Black (2018) 500GB (Price not available) on Amazon
• WB Black (2018) 1TB ($150.00) on Amazon