WD_BLACK SN8100 Gen5 SSD on Amazon for $225 for 1TB, up to blistering 14.9GB/sec reads

The new WD_BLACK SN8100 Gen5 SSD isn't quite on the market yet, but it has been listed a little early on Amazon Germany with the 1TB Gen5 SSD variant costing around $225 and up to a blistering 14.9GB/sec read speeds.

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We should expect a full unveiling of WD's new Gen5 SSDs at Computex 2025 in just a few weeks time, with a launch expected on May 30. Inside, Western Digital will use its in-house Gen5 SSD controller which uses BiCS8 218-layer 3D TLC NAND and features up to 8-channel DRAM and 4-channel non-DRAM.

The company says its new Gen5 SSD will have up to 2TB capacity and twice the performance of its Gen4 SSDs, with a 55% efficiency uplift over Gen4 SSDs. The company also showed off its new Gen5 SSDs inside of laptops (mobile workstations) at FMS 2024, with WD's new Gen5 SSDs slowly getting ready for their big reveal, it seems.

WD has its upcoming high-end "Performance" Gen5 SSD that has a power draw of just 7W, pushing an insane 15GB/sec speeds and over 2 million random IOPS. Most Gen5 SSDs use over 10W of power, while WD's upcoming "Mainstream" Gen5 SSD has a DRAM-less design with 4 channels, and speeds of up to 10.7GB/sec with power consumption of under 5W.

We should expect to see WD unveil larger 2TB and 4TB models in the future, and they'll be one of the fastest Gen5 SSDs you can buy.