Western Digital's M.2 NVMe TLC SSDs For NAS Systems Start at $65

WD Red SN700
WD Red SN700 (Image credit: Western Digital)

Update 9/30/21 2pm PT: Western Digital confirmed to Tom's Hardware that the WD Red SN700 family utilizes TLC NAND and comes with DRAM. However, the company refused to disclose any additional details about the SSD.

Original article:

Western Digital just expanded its Red series of NAS-oriented products with the introduction of the WD Red SN700 M.2 NVMe SSDs. The drives may not compete with the best SSDs on the market, but they'll make any NAS owner happy.

Many modern NAS systems now arrive with NVMe bays for consumers to slap a nice M.2 SSD inside them as a caching drive. There are already NAS-specific M.2 drives on the market, such as Seagate's IronWolf 510 or Synology's SNV3000 SSDs, so Western Digital does have some strong competition in the segment.

The WD Red SN700 comes in a standard M.2-2280 form factor with a double-sided design for the 4TB model and single-sided design for the other capacities. The SSD features the NVMe 1.3 protocol and resides on a standard PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. Information on the WD Red SN700 is still short, but we suspect that the SSD leverages a SanDisk SSD controller and 3D TLC NAND chips. We've reached out to Western Digital for more details. There's probably onboard DRAM as well, although we're waiting for confirmation.

The performance figures for the WD Red SN700 fall in line with what you expect for a PCIe 3.0 drive. In fact, the WD Red SN700's performance is very close to the WD Black SN750, at least on paper.

WD Red SN700 Specifications

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Model NumberCapacitySequential Read (MBps)Sequential Write (MBps)Random Read (IOPS)Random Write (IOPS)Endurance (TBW)WarrantyPricing
WDS400T1R0C4TB3,4003,100550,000520,0005,1005 Years$650
WDS200T1R0C2TB3,4002,900480,000540,0002,5005 Years$290
WDS100T1R0C1TB3,4303,000515,000560,0002,0005 Years$145
WDS500G1R0C500GB3,4302,600420,000380,0001,0005 Years$80
WDS250G1R0C250GB3,1001,600220,000180,0005005 Years$65

The WD Red SN700 delivers sequential read and write speeds up to 3,430 MBps and 3,100 MBps, respectively. Western Digital rates the WD Red SN700's random performance for up to 550,000 IOPS reads and 560,000 IOPS writes. Obviously, the performance on the WD Red SN700 is dependant on the capacity that you choose.

Western Digital backs the WD Red SN700 with a limited five-year warranty across all capacities. The SSD is optimized for 24/7 NAS workloads and always-on applications. The 4TB model has the highest endurance out of the lot with a rating of 5,100 TBW. The 2TB and 1TB variants are good for 2,500 TBW and 2,000 TBW, respectively. The lower capacity 500GB and 250GB models end up with 1,000 TBW and 500 TBW, respectively.

Being a high-endurance drive, the WD Red SN700 is pricey. The 250GB, 500TB and 1TB models cost $65, $80 and $145, respectively. The 2TB and 4TB models, on the other hand, will set you back $290 and $650, respectively.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Double the endurance of a 980 Pro...Either there's a lot of overprovisioning going on, or that's an MLC drive.
    Reply
  • Meicol
    I would like them to do a lab test like elsewhere, I have seen they take a lot of "supposedly" resistant discs and have them write a lot of data to really see how much their supposed resistance is.
    Reply
  • Jake Hall
    I could really use a 4tb SSD of some sort, with dram, but I don't want QLC. Of course those options cost way too much
    Reply
  • alceryes
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Double the endurance of a 980 Pro...Either there's a lot of overprovisioning going on, or that's an MLC drive.
    Some sites are saying TLC but it could just be a "we really don't know," copy-paste from another drive description. We'll have to wait and see.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Double the endurance of a 980 Pro...Either there's a lot of overprovisioning going on, or that's an MLC drive.

    The non linear scaling for endurance vs capacity would seem to indicate over provisioning which is reduced at the 2 highest capacities.
    Reply
  • escksu
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Double the endurance of a 980 Pro...Either there's a lot of overprovisioning going on, or that's an MLC drive.

    No, its definitely noy MLC drive, not at such prices.
    Reply