Sandisk WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB SSD Review - Approaching Optane

TweakTown Rating: 100%

Our Verdict

By simultaneously being the fastest, most powerful, and most efficient SSD on the planet, Sandisk's WD_BLACK SN8100 has earned a very rare 100% all-around perfect Editor's Choice rating.

Pros

• Sequential throughput performance
• Real-world performance
• Gaming performance
• Single-sided design

Cons

• None

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Drive Details

As many storage enthusiasts may know, Optane SSDs are legendary as the most powerful, non-volatile solid-state storage devices to ever circulate in the storage space. Most legendary of the now defunct Optane SSDs is the Intel P5800X. This $2.50 per GB, 4-year-old DRAMless 3D XPoint (Phase Change Memory) arrayed SSD is still, to this day, the most powerful SSD to ever be made.

We wanted to go over that bit of SSD history to say this. Sandisk has this very day, delivered a flash-based SSD that is approaching Optane P5800X levels in real-world performance. The new Sandisk WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB is another SMI SM2508 controlled, BiCS 8 arrayed SSD, very much like the Kingston Fury Renegade G5 4TB we just reviewed yesterday. However, the similarities are only skin-deep.

While the SN8100's controller is still technically based on the SM2508 controller, it is different than the rest, because it is modified by Sandisk, running on Sandisk IP with proprietary features such as nCache 4.0 and WD_BLACK Gaming Mode delivering a massive performance advantage over similarly configured competitors. This SSD is like none other; it's at least 20% more powerful than any flash-based SSD we've ever encountered. Approaching Optane.

To date, pretty much all of Sandisk's competitors have released PCIe Gen5 flagship offerings. But Sandisk has waited until today to throw its hat into the ring. As we see it, the WD_BLACK SN8100 is the right SSD at the right time, delivering everything we want, and nothing we don't want. The drive is not only the fastest and most powerful we've ever encountered but also simultaneously the most efficient, consuming no more power than a typical PCIe Gen4 SSD:

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Consuming just 7 watts of power in a typical active state, the SN8100 is so efficient that heat is no longer a concern:

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Even standing at the threshold of 15,000 MB/s, we couldn't force our test subject to get much more than warm, not even with CDM sequentials at 9 iterations x2, which has in the past easily induced throttling and temperatures of 70c plus from many PCIe Gen5 SSDs. And all we used was the motherboard heatsink:

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No giant tower coolers, no active cooling required, just a standard motherboard heatsink. In fact, the world's fastest and most powerful single-sided and cool running M.2 SSD will even be right at home tucked away inside a laptop. Incredible.

Sandisk states the following about its very first PCIe Gen5 offering:

"Setting a new standard for client SSDs, Sandisk today unveiled the powerful WD_BLACK SN8100 NVMe SSD with PCIe Gen 5.0 technology, a cutting-edge internal SSD delivering speeds up to 14,900 MB/s and capacities up to 8TB, for high-performance gaming, content creation and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads."

"With the evolution of gaming graphics, high-quality 4K and 8K content, and AI applications, today's gamers and professionals need solutions to help maximize the performance of their PCs. The Sandisk WD_BLACK SN8100 NVMe PCIe Gen 5.0 SSD is built for hardcore PC gamers looking to add the most advanced combination of speed and reliability to their rig for peak performance and for professionals needing a top-of-the-line PC storage solution for intensive workflows and AI applications. In addition to blistering speeds, the new PCIe Gen 5.0 SSD is also 100% more power efficient than Sandisk's high-performance PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD."

"Whether it's for high-level gaming, professional content creation or AI applications, high-performance users now have a PCIe Gen 5.0 storage solution that matches speed with power efficiency to help them build the ultimate gaming rig or best-in-class workstation, enabling them to play and create with next-level performance and reliability," said Eric Spanneut, vice president of devices for Sandisk. "The WD_BLACK SN8100 NVMe SSD with PCIe Gen 5.0 delivers peak storage performance for the most discerning users."

Okay, now let's dive in and see what Sandisk's WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB SSD can do for you by the numbers.

Drive Details

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In addition to the bare drive version, Sandisk is offering an optional version with a heatsink. The heatsink version features a new integrated, low-profile passive cooling design engineered with anodized aluminum with no extra power or noisy fans required. Plus, it comes with a customizable RGB LED for those who want to match their lighting style and build needs. It is also PlayStation 5-friendly.

When you buy a Sandisk SSD, you get the value-added bonus of free Acronis True Image software, making system migration over to your new Sandisk SSD simple and free. Additionally, Sandisk offers for free with its SSDs the Sandisk Dashboard SSD toolbox. The software helps maintain peak performance and optimization for Sandisk SSDs in Windows. Tools for checking health, firmware versions, and updates are included. For WD_BLACK SSDs, a gaming mode is also available. Click HERE to download both.

Note: We always recommend enabling Gaming Mode whenever it is available. We have enabled the feature for this review.

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: Sandisk WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB SSD

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	$389.97 CAD	$389.97 CAD	-	Buy
	£229.98	£229.98	-	Buy
	$279.99 USD	$279.99 USD	-	Buy
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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 are including 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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At 6,550 MB/s the SN8100 2TB makes for excellent PS5 storage expansion, should you choose to repurpose it for such.

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's factory spec'd up to sequential throughput is given at up to 14,900/14,000 MB/s, which is more or less what we are achieving between our Intel and AMD platforms.

Focusing on 4K Q1T1 random read, which is where we care most to see the highest performance, we have a new lab record. This is what we love most about BiCS 8 flash. The top three in throughput here are BiCS 8 arrayed SSDs, and as we've explained many times, Q1T1 random read is most often the best synthetic indicator of real-world performance. Impressive.

Max IOPS

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Max 4K random performance for the WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB SSD is factory specified for up to 2.3 million IOPS for random read. Here we are right on the money with both platforms. Random writes are specified at up to 2.4 million IOPS, here we fall a bit short, but our results are plenty good enough for our liking especially considering our far more demanding user state of OS disk vs. empty secondary device. Another lab record falls to the SN8100.

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, the WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB favors sequential transfers of 128KB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128KB or larger when programming (writing) data. Here our contender delivers another lab record. This is incredible small file sequential read performance, by far the best we've ever seen. Amazing.

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 such, we do not consider it to be an important performance metric in the consumer space. An example being how many times a game is installed vs. how many times it's played. Excellent transfer rate - 9th best overall.

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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. Again, our test subject cranks out another significant lab record breaking performance. Outstanding.

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.

This is real world validation of what we saw synthetically indicated with CDM. Just yesterday, a score of 7,000 here was a new milestone achievement, only ever attained by one flash-based SSD. Today we are looking at performance approaching that of Optane. Mind blowing.

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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Again, just yesterday, a score of 7,000 here stood as a milestone achievement that only two flash-based SSDs had ever been able to attain. Now the bar is set at over 8,100. Again, approaching legendary Optane P5800X levels of performance. Incredible.

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. This time, our contender not only eviscerates all flash-based SSDs ever made, but it also does, in fact, achieve performance parody with Optane. The most performance where it matters most is what separates the SN8100 2TB SSD from all other flash-based SSDs that have come before it. This is, without a doubt, the single most impressive result we've ever seen from any SSD at any time.

Final Thoughts

We aren't sure how Sandisk can pull off what they have done with the WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB. It almost defies logic that it can deliver so much more performance where it matters most than its contemporary flagship competition, and all within the same generation. We didn't see anything of this magnitude even going from PCIe Gen3 to Gen4. To achieve this within the same generation, with the very same hardware as some of its competitors, is a true testament that the originator of solid-state storage hasn't skipped a beat.

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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 26,625, Sandisk's WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB clearly demonstrates it is incredibly 20% more powerful than any flash-based SSD we've ever encountered. Approaching Optane. With this new level of performance exhibited by Sandisk's first PCIe Gen5 SSD, we will be upping our elite performer status from 15K to 17K going forward.

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By simultaneously being the fastest, most powerful, and most efficient SSD on the planet, Sandisk's WD_BLACK SN8100 has earned a very rare 100% perfect Editor's Choice.