Western Digital WD Black SN7100 2TB SSD Review - A Powerful Bargain

TweakTown's Rating: 91%

The Bottom Line

Elite performance and exceptional pricing make the WD Black SN7100 2TB a must have.

Pros

• Pricing
• Single-sided design
• Powerful performance

Cons

• None

Should you buy it?

AvoidConsiderShortlistBuy

Buy at Amazon for $149.99 USD

Buy at Newegg for $149.99 USD

Buy at Amazon for $274.08 CAD

Buy at Newegg for $214.97 CAD

Buy at Amazon for £125.06

Introduction & Drive Details

Western Digital has launched its newest WD Black SSD, the SN7100. The SN7100 is designed to meld the perfect combination of value and performance over the PCIe Gen4 interface. The value side of the equation is the drive is another inexpensive 4-channel DRAMless offering. The performance side of the equation, and what distinguishes it from its predecessors, is its next-gen BiCS 8 flash array.

At first glance, the SN7100 2TB SSD, being a DRAMless value-oriented offering, wouldn't give much indication that it is, in fact, Western Digital's fastest and most powerful consumer SSD currently in circulation. But that's exactly what our test subject has revealed for us today, becoming only the second DRAMless SSD to be certified 15K TweakTown Elite on our Z890 Intel Core Ultra platform.

WD states that its new SN7100 Series can deliver up to 35% better performance than its predecessor, the SN770, but what they don't state is the fact that the SN7100 also significantly outperforms its current flagship performance SN850X Series equipped with an 8-channel controller and onboard DRAM. All these performance improvements are directly attributable to WD's next-generation BiCS 8 flash.

The SN7100 is ultra-efficient as well, offering up to 100% better power efficiency over its predecessor, the SN770, making it an ideal choice for upgrading your laptop or handheld gaming device. Complimenting its newest SSD is, of course, Western Digital's fantastic WD Black Dashboard, which enables drive maintenance, updates, and even a special gaming mode if you are looking for a little bit of additional performance.

Okay, now let's dive in and see what WD's SN7100 2TB SSD can do for you by the numbers.

Drive Details

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Current price points and endurance are excellent across all capacities, as is its 5-year limited warranty.

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When you buy a Western Digital SSD, you get the value-added bonus of free Acronis True Image software, making system migration over to your new WD SSD simple and free. Click HERE to download it.

Additionally, Western Digital offers the WD Dashboard SSD toolbox for free with its SSDs. The software helps check on Western Digital drives in Windows. Tools for checking health, firmware versions, and updates are included. For WD Black SSDs, there is also an available gaming mode offered as well. Click HERE to download it.

Jon's Test System Specifications

Intel Test System

AMD Test System

Because we at TweakTown like to be first at everything whenever we can, we will present our storage performance results for the test subject on both Intel Core Ultra 200 Series and 9000 Series AMD platforms going forward for the foreseeable future. Because Intel still delivers the best real-world storage performance, our running chart will continue to be Intel-based until AMD can deliver better real-world storage performance than its rival.

Please note that we have completely retested all the 50 SSDs that comprise our comparison products using our new Intel Ultra Core 9 285K test platform. Results going forward cannot be compared with our previous 14th Gen Intel results or previous AMD results, as we've updated there as well. We believe it is important to keep our platforms current in terms of the latest hardware and operating system versions. We have also updated our OS to Windows 11 Pro 24H2. Overall, the pecking order has remained the same just at roughly 5% lower real-world performance than before.

Best Deals: Western Digital WD Black SN7100 2TB SSD

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$149.99 USD	-	-	Buy
	$149.99 USD	$164.63 USD	-	Buy
	$274.08 CAD	-	-	Buy
	$214.97 CAD	$214.97 CAD	-	Buy
	£125.06	-	-	Buy
	$149.99 USD	-	-	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 3/19/2025 at 11:43 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.

Sony PlayStation 5 - M.2 Storage Expansion

PS5 Read Performance

With Sony's wildly popular PlayStation 5 console now enabled for M.2 NVMe SSDs to be used as fast storage expansion, we include results for PS5-compatible SSDs we test as a part of our reviews going forward.

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For SSDs that don't have an adequately sized PS5 compatible heatsink or other SSDs where the heatsink provided doesn't fit right and can be removed, we both use and recommend Sabrent's unparalleled PS5 heatsink available HERE.

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We only chart SSDs that can deliver a minimum of 5,500 MB/s read, which is Sony's original recommendation.

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Although not advertised for PS5 storage expansion, the super power-efficient SN7100 2TB is, in fact, an ideal choice for this role.

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, Max IOPS, ATTO

CrystalDiskMark

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We employ CDM as our standard measurement for both sequential throughput and Q1T1 random read. In terms of sequential throughput, the drive delivers exactly as advertised, even in our more demanding user state. Additionally, and worth noting, the SN7100 2TB is delivering a new lab record for 4K Q1T1. Impressive.

Max IOPS

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The SN7100 2TB is factory spec'd for up to 1,000k random read IOPS and up to 1,400k random write IOPS. Looking great on the read side, which is all we really care about anyway. We are coming up way short on the write side, but we couldn't care less about that. Good enough.

ATTO

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ATTO gives us a clear picture of what transfer sizes a particular SSD favors in terms of QD4 sequential throughput. We chart 128K transfers. At a queue depth of four, our WD Black SN7100 2TB favors sequential transfers of 512KB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128KB or larger when programming (writing) data.

Real-World Testing: Transfers, 3DMark SSD Gaming Test, PCM10 Storage

Transfer Rates

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Our 100GB data transfer test is not your ordinary 100GB of data; ours is a crushing mix composed of more than 62K files. Write performance, random or sequential, is an infrequent operation, and as such, we do not consider it to be an important performance metric in the consumer space. An example being how many times is a game installed vs. how many times it's played. Here our test subject comes in at an above average rate for a PCIe Gen4 DRAMless SSD.

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Unlike programming (writing) data, serving data to the host (reading) is typically an important performance metric as it relates to the consumer space. Here we find our test subject delivering as good as we've seen to date from any PCIe Gen4 DRAMless SSD. Impressive.

3DMark SSD Gaming Test

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. We consider it superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs on the actual game itself. This test is the same as running the actual game, just without the inconsistencies inherent to application testing. In short, we believe that this is the world's best way to test an SSDs gaming prowess and accurately compare it against competing SSDs. The 3DMark SSD Gaming Test measures and scores the following:

• Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Call of Duty Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Overwatch from launch to the main menu.
• Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
• Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
• Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
• Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.

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Gaming is a performance metric that matters to most DIY consumers, especially for the enthusiast crowd that TweakTown caters to. Now, we've reached the point where results start to matter, as they are a direct reflection of user experience.

Here we find our little DRAMless juggernaut delivering the 4th best performance for any DRAMless SSD we've encountered to date. Excellent.

PCM10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 Storage Test is the most advanced and most accurate real-world consumer storage test ever made. There are four different tests you can choose from; we run two of them. The Full System Drive Benchmark and the Quick System Drive Benchmark. The Full System Drive Benchmark writes 204 GB of data over the duration of the test. These tests directly correlate with mainstream user experience.

PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark

This test writes 204GB of data and covers a broad range of common consumer tasks, including booting Windows 10, file transfers, Adobe and Office applications, and startup times for games such as Battlefield V, COD Black Ops 4, and Overwatch. Unlike synthetic numbers, this is comprehensive real-world data, which is why we use it to rank SSDs in terms of user experience.

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Massive performance here. Our test subject, in fact, delivers the most we've ever extracted from any PCIe Gen4 DRAMless SSD, even soundly defeating WD's own SN850X. The most performance where it matters the most. We love that.

PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark

The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23 GB of data over the duration of the test.

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Of all the benchmarks we run, it can be argued that this one offers the best reflection of a typical consumer use case scenario. Again, our test subject delivers massively, recording the second-best DRAMless score we've ever recorded with our Z890 platform. Again, it's showing itself to be much more powerful than the vast majority of PCIe Gen4 enthusiast-class offerings. Outstanding.

Final Thoughts

We are of the considered opinion that Western Digital's WD Black SN7100 2TB is easily among the top 5 performing PCIe Gen4 SSDs ever made. This is a massive accomplishment, especially for a DRAMless value-priced SSD. As we see things, you really can't do much better than the SN7100 2TB, no matter where you are looking for a storage upgrade. PC, MAC, PS5, handheld, it doesn't matter, this SSD will deliver the goods massively.

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We rank SSDs in terms of overall user experience (performance where it matters most) as expressed by PCMark 10 storage and 3DMark gaming storage tests. Currently, we consider a user experience score of 15K or more to verify an SSD as a TweakTown Elite performer. With a user experience score of 15,088, the Western Digital WD Black SN7100 2TB is certified TT elite and finishes our testing as only the second PCIe Gen4 DRAMless SSD to accomplish this feat via our Z890 platform.

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It's powerful, efficient, cost effective and endurant. Western Digital's WD Black SN7100 2TB is an absolute must-have.