WD_Black SN770M 2TB SSD Review

Rating: 8.0.

As the handheld gaming PC market grows, there is an ever-increasing demand for storage solutions to cope with the growing size of games. Enter WD with a new addition to their performance Black product line, the WD_Black SN770M, an M.2 2230 Gen 4 NVMe SSD – could this be the perfect upgrade for your Steam Deck?

At launch, the WD_Black SN770M product line consists of three models, a 500GB entry drive, 1TB and the flagship 2TB model that WD kindly sent us to review. The drive uses a combination of an in-house WD 4-channel PCIe 4.0 controller and 112-layer BiCS5 TLC NAND. The SN770M is a DRAMless design using HMB (Host Memory Buffer) technology instead.

Sequential performance figures quoted by WD are up to 5,150MB/s and 4,850MB/s for read/writes respectively for the 2TB drive. The 1TB drive has the same read figure but with writes slightly faster at up to 4,900MB/s. The 500GB gets read/write ratings of up to 5,000MB/s and 4,000MB/s for read and writes respectively.

Random performance for the 2TB model is quoted as up to 650,000 IOPS for reads and up to 800,000 IOPS for writes. The 1TB and 500GB drives have the same write rating as the 2TB drive with the 500GB drive rated as up to 460,000 IOPS for random reads and the 1TB model, the fastest of the range, at up to 740,000 IOPS.

WD rates the endurance of the 2TB SN770M as 1,200TBW. The 1TB drive is rated at 600TBW and the 500GB, 300TBW. WD back the range with a 5-year warranty.

Physical Specifications:

• Usable Capacities: 2TB.
• NAND Components: 112-layer BiCS5 TLC NAND.
• NAND Controller: WD 4-channel.
• Cache: none, (HMB/host memory buffer).
• Interface: PCIe Gen 4 x4.
• Form Factor: M.2 2230.
• Dimensions: 30 x 22 x 2.38mm.
• Drive Weight: 2.8g.

Firmware Version: 731100WD.

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