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Western Digital Unveils Affordable WD Blue SN570 NVMe SSDs
Western Digital has introduced its new WD Blue SN570 NVMe family of solid-state drives, aimed at content creators who don't want to spend huge sums on their hardware. The DRAM-less SSDs come in an M.2-2280 form-factor and feature a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface.
Like the WD Blue SN550 before it, the WD Blue SN570 NVMe family includes 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities at launch. The manufacturer does not disclose which controller and what 3D NAND it uses for its inexpensive SSDs, but it is highly likely that the drives are powered by an NVMe 1.4-compliant controller designed in house, as well as the latest generation BiCS 5 112-layer 3D TLC NAND memory.
From a performance point of view, Western Digital's WD Blue SN570 NVMe 1TB drive is rated for up to 3500 MB/s sequential read speed as well as 3000 MB/s sequential write speed, which is in line with the performance of other SSDs featuring a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. As is often the case, lower-capacity WD Blue SN570 NVMe SSDs offer considerably lower sequential write speed.
Western Digital's WD Blue SN570 NVMe SSDs
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Row 0 - Cell 0
250GB
500GB
1TB
Form-factor, interface
M.2-2280, PCIe 3.0 x4
M.2-2280, PCIe 3.0 x4
M.2-2280, PCIe 3.0 x4
Controller
Proprietary (?)
Proprietary (?)
Proprietary (?)
Memory
BiCS 5 3D TLC NAND
BiCS 5 3D TLC NAND
BiCS 5 3D TLC NAND
Sequential Read
3300 MB/s
3500 MB/s
3500 MB/s
Sequential Write
1200 MB/s
2300 MB/s
3000 MB/s
Write Endurance
150 TBW, 0.3 DWPD
300 TBW, 0.3 DWPD
600 TBW, 0.3 DWPD
Warranty
5 Years
5 Years
5 Years
The drives come with a five-year limited warranty and are rated for up to 0.3 drive writes per day (DWPD), which is the default endurance rating for consumer-grade SSDs these days. But since Western Digital positions the family for content creators, it is somewhat odd for it not to offer endurance that's somewhat better than the norm.
While the performance of Western Digital's WD Blue SN570 NVMe SSDs is not as high as that of expensive drives with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, these drives are very affordable. WD sells the 250GB model directly for $53.99, while the 1TB SKU is priced at $109.99.
To make the WD Blue SN570 NVMe drives more appealing for the target audience, they come with a one-month membership to Adobe Creative Cloud, though it is unclear which package is included. We'll have to wait for testing to find out if this drive, like its SN550 predecessor, earns a spot on our list of the best ssds.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
It's almost 2022, isn't it about time 256GB drives go the way of 128 and 64? Especially in this case when the 256GB is $50 and 512GB is $70, that price difference is so small as to be nonexistant.
