WD Blue SN580 PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 SSD (Western Digital storage review)

The WD Blue SN580 PCIe 4.0 SSD is a relatively low-cost but speedy PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD. It comes in 250, 500GB, 1 and 2 TB with read/write speeds around 4000MBps (1 and 2TB).

It is a single-sided design suitable for laptops and best described as a mid-range DRAM-less SSD with PCIe 4.0 x4 performance. Its closest competitors are Kingston NV2, WD Black SN770, and WD Black SN580.

It has almost double the performance of PCIe 3.0 SSDs.

What is DRAM-less

More expensive SSDs have a large physical cache of DRAM to act as a buffer. It helps maximise and sustain read and write speeds of the 112-layer TLC (BiCS5) flash memory.

DRAM-less is typically for lighter loads, and read-write performance decreases markedly with large file transfers. WD has a new marketing term – – nCache 4.0 with a hybrid Host Memory Buffer (HMB) of 200MB. That means it uses the SSD as virtual RAM and works very well in this case.

For example, the SSD can sustain close to 4000MBps sequential read and write (an internal synthetic benchmark) until about 350GB of data, then slows to 500MBps. This means that typical users will never see a slowdown. Videographers would not entertain a DRAM-less SSD.

Performance WD Blue SN580 PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 SSD

Test Rig

Intel NUC 12 Enthusiast i7-12700H, ARC A770M/16GDDR6 graphics, 2 x Thunderbolt 4 and much more. It’s a damned shame that Intel won’t be continuing the NUC range, instead working with PC makers to produce a range of small form factor NUCs.

Crystal Disk Mark shows excellent maximum sequential read/write speeds of 4067.47/4126.10MBps. It is sustainable for larger files to 100GB.

CPDT shows sustained sequential and random read/write speeds. It can maintain 2860/1500MBps with a top range of 3190/1990MBps.

ATTO uses a 256MB file and maintains >3600/3700MBps. We repeated the test with a 32GB file, and the results were similar.

Warranty

It has a 5-year limited warranty or Terabytes written 150/300/600/900 – whichever comes first. MTTF is 1,500,000.

Power use

It uses a max of 4W and typically 1W, so it is suitable for laptops.

Software

WD SSD Dashboard – only for monitoring and firmware updates (if any). Acronis True Image for Western Digital is free to clone bootable drives or make backups.

Price

Website

250/512GB and 1/2TB $95/99/225/489

CyberShack’s view – WD Blue SN580 solid PCIe 4.0 performance on a budget

Curiously, WD says this is for Creators and Professionals, and yes, if their file sizes are not too large, it will do a sterling job. But the world has moved on, and some SSDs have over 6000MBps read/write and large DRAM cache buffers at a higher cost. Pro users are looking at PCIe 5.0 Thunderbolt external SSD instead.

This replacement won’t break the bank and is among the fastest DRAM-less SSDs for everyone else.

Ratings

• Features: 85- PCIe 4.0 x4 and DRAMLess
• Value: 95 – excellent price per GB, and you can get excellent deals shopping around
• Performance: 90 – best in DRAM-less class
• Erase of Use: 90 – Free Acronis for cloning
• Design: 90 – single sided suits laptops and PCs