WD_Black SN770M 2TB SSD Review

A recent Gartner report stated that the handheld gaming console market is expected to reach 14.8M by 2027. This figure, combined with the growth in AAA (high-budget, high-profile) games means that the demand for storage capacity for handheld gaming PCs is set to soar ever upward.  One company offering a product to try and fill this demand is WD with the latest addition to their high-performance Black product line, the SN770M.

The WD_Black SN770M is an M.2 2230, Gen 4 drive available in three capacities, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB (the drive we are reviewing here). At the heart of the drive is an in-house WD 4-channel PCIe 4.0 controller which looks after a package of 112-layer BiCS5 TLC NAND.

Official Sequential ratings for the 2TB SN770M drive are up to 5,150MB/s for reads with writes at up to 4,850MB/s. When benchmarked with the ATTO benchmark we couldn’t quite hit the official maximums, the drive producing a read figure of 4,830MB/s with writes at 4,520MB/s. However, with CrystalDiskMark 8 we could confirm both figures with best test results of 5,207.77MB/s for reads and 4,904.94MB/s for writes.

When it comes to 4K random performance, WD quotes figures of up to 650,000 IOPS and up to 800,000 IOPS for reads and writes respectively. With our standard 4-threaded tests we saw a best of 591.267 IOPS (QD32) for reads and 564,908 IOPS for writes also at QD32. However, using the Peak Performance profile in CrystalDiskMark 8 we could confirm those official figures with test results of 651,606 IOPS for reads and 827,504 IOPS for writes.

In terms of endurance, the 2TB SN770M is rated at 1200TBW with the 1TB drive at 600TBW and the 500GB drive at 300TBW. WD backs the drive range with a 5-year warranty.

We found the 2TB WD_Black SN770M on WD's website for £179.99 (inc VAT) HERE.

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Pros

• Overall performance.
• 5-year warranty.

Cons

• Couldn’t match the official maximum 4K random write figures in some of our testing.

KitGuru says: The WD_Black SN770M is the company's first crack at the growing M.2 2230 market segment, offering performance and large capacity in a small package.

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