WD Blue SN580 Review
Average price, average performance
Verdict
Western Digital’s WD Blue SN580 is an M.2 SSD that is frankly somewhat disappointing. At this price point and on the PCIe 4.0 platform, it just doesn’t quite compete with similarly priced competitors from the likes of Crucial, Adata and others. It’s cheap, sure, and offers some impressive value on sequential performance against the dollar, but otherwise leaves a lot to be desired, in real-world performance.
Pros
- Cheap in 1TB configuration
- Average sequential and random 4K
Cons
- No DRAM Cache
- Very poor real-world copy speeds
- Older TLC tech
Key Features
- PCIE 4.0Features 1TB of 112-layer TLC NAND storage.
- M.2-2280 Form FactorIt will fit into any M.2 motherboard that has an M.2 PCIe SSD slot in it, and is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 as well.
Introduction
There’s no denying Western Digital’s WD Blue SN580 is absolutely an entry-level drive. With an RRP of just $75 USD for the 1TB variant, it packs in a lot of storage for not a lot of outlay. With such a low price point, however, it comes with several caveats.
Well known for its old-school 3.5-inch hard drives, Western Digital now also owns Sandisk as well expanding its SSD capabilities. As such, the controller found in most of its current SSDs is Sandisk-based, rather than utilizing a brand like Phison for the control side. Similarly Western Digital are working with Kioxia for TLC NAND supply as well, instead of Micron.
Specs
- No DRAM cache
- Low-density TLC NAND
- Poor endurance rating
The WD Blue SN580 has been built around the PCIe 4.0 standard, complete with an M.2-2280 form factor. Working with SanDisk (now part of Western Digital), the SN580 has a proprietary Sandisk controller. A huge amount of information on exactly what it is or how it operates isn’t provided, other than the fact it has a small amount of cache on the controller itself.
That said, there’s no dedicated DDR DRAM cache on board, low power or otherwise, and the controller’s been paired up with 112-Layer TLC from Kioxia developed in partnership with Western Digital. WD’s touting that it’s using what it calls nCache 4.0 technology, although trying to find details on exactly what that entails online is almost impossible.
That’s all there is to this drive. There’s no heatsink involved, nothing else, just a super-budget 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD with a touch of internal cache, and that’s about it.
Test Setup
As with all the SSDs I test, including the WD Blue SN580, each one of them gets benchmarked fairly aggressively to analyze how well they perform under pressure. A big part of that process is ensuring I have a solid and dependable test bed that eliminates any bottlenecks wherever possible. In an ideal world, the only bottleneck should be the drive itself.
To that end, I’m utilizing a high-end Z790 motherboard, and each drive is tested in the top-most PCIe 5.0 slot on the board itself. In conjunction with that, I’m also taking advantage of an Intel Core i7-14700K to ensure that file transfers are as smooth as they can be.
You can find the full test bed specs below:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-14700K
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero
- GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 16GB Aero OC
- RAM: 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5 @ 7200
- Cooler: Corsair iCUE Link H150i LCD Liquid CPU Cooler
- PSU: 1200W Corsair RMx Shift 80+ Gold PSU
- Case: Hyte Y70 Touch
When it comes to the actual tests, I’m using a mixture of both real-world and synthetic benchmarks to determine the performance here. First and foremost is CrystalDiskMark 8. Its synthetic loads provide a fantastic insight into the sequential and random 4K performance that these drives are capable of. On top of that, I also run the drives through PCMark 10’s Data Drive benchmark and Quick System Drive benchmark to provide a more well-rounded index for us to rely on.
For real-world testing, that falls on the head of Final Fantasy XIV and Red Dead Redemption II. The former has a dedicated game benchmark that you can place directly onto the drive you’re testing. Run that at 4K, and the benchmark will spit out the results showing you how long each scene took to load, and the average overall of those runs. Lastly, with Red Dead Redemption II, we’re using that to test file copy times. Each drive has a stock copy of RDR2 placed on it, and then a copy of that copy is placed on the drive a second time, and that process is then timed.
Lastly, I use a number of indices to see just how well these drives operate from a value proposition. Typically this involves dividing the price in USD by a metric. In our case, I use the maximum sequential speed recorded, the maximum random 4K speed recorded, and gigabytes per dollar as well. Again this is mostly done to level the playing field, after all, of course, a $400 PCIe 5.0 SSD is going to perform well versus a $75 PCIe 4.0 drive, but finding how that tech transcends down the product lines is a crucial metric I need to measure.
Performance
The WD Blue SN580’s overall performance is, if I’m honest, a bit disappointing. Sequentials topped out at 4,132 MB/s and 3,994 MB/s respectively for read and write, and random 4Ks listed at 77 and 264 MB/s. That’s pretty low by today’s standards. The WD Black SN770M, by comparison, features the same TLC, a smaller form factor, and a similar in-house controller, and still manages 5GB/s on the sequentials (although admittedly random 4Ks were about the same between the two).
Those figures translate fairly smoothly into real-world tests too. Final Fantasy’s average load time tapped out at 8.47 seconds total, compared to 9.01 for the WD Black SN770M, and a more reasonable 7.23 seconds for the Crucial T500. One minor win is it did beat out the Adata Legend 960 Max, which achieved a similarly slow 8.72 seconds.
The biggest performance drop however came with the real-world 120GB file copy test (RDR2). The WD Blue SN580 takes a staggering 283.19 seconds to complete the copy. That is incredibly slow, particularly compared to all of the above drives. The SN770M completed that file copy in 57.69 seconds, the Adata Legend 960 Max in 45.58 seconds, and the Crucial T500 in 44.13 seconds. In fact, it was so slow I ran this test five times, with close to identical results across the lot.
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Should you buy it?
If you can’t extend your budget further
WD SN580 Blue is a little slow, but still far faster than any old-school 2.5-inch SSD, and even some of the best PCIe 3.0 drives. If you’re looking for a fairly ok, modestly priced, secondary storage solution for all your games, it’s a good pick.
If you want great PCIe 4.0 performance
As PCIe 5.0 is well under development, and PCIe 4.0 is now incredibly mature, there are several drives out there that are far better picks than the SN580, including Crucial’s T500, or Kingston’s Fury Renegade M.2 SSD.
Final Thoughts
Western Digital’s WD Blue SN580 is, well, a bit of a disappointing drive. Although it presents a good budget option for those looking for something cheap and cheerful, it doesn’t perform that much better than a top-tier PCIe 3.0 drive, and given the fact it launched in 2023, that’s not quite what I’d hope to see, even at this pricing.
Is it the best SSD? No. But if you’re in a pinch, or are just looking for a game drive you can chuck in as secondary storage, it’s an ok enough pick, just don’t expect it to break any speed records as it does so. That said, if you can spare the extra cash, getting something like Crucial’s T500 is a far better bet, and it’ll serve you better in the long run too.
How we test
Each SSD we test utilizes a mix of both synthetic and real-world benchmark tests. On top of that, we also use several price-to-performance metrics, and monitor temperature and power draw to determine the long-term stability and cost-effectiveness of the drive.
Each SSD is installed in our test-PC and benchmarked thoroughly
Temperature and power draw is monitored throughout testing
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FAQs
The WD Blue SN580 isn’t an SSD that requires a heatsink, with the temperature not rising high enough to need additional cooling.
The SN580 does not feature a DRAM cache.
Full specs
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
