Each SQL Server VM is configured with two vDisks: 100GB volume for boot and a 500GB volume for the database and log files. From a system resource perspective, we configured each VM with 16 vCPUs, 64GB of DRAM and leveraged the LSI Logic SAS SCSI controller. While our Sysbench workloads tested previously saturated the platform in both storage I/O and capacity, the SQL test is looking for latency performance. WD's NAND technology still lags behind its competitors, with its 112-Layer BiCS5 flash competing against 176-Layer flash from Micron and SK hynix. However, this has advantages, as WD's mature flash can be carefully and reliably binned. BiCS5 also has 1Tb dies available for higher-capacity SSDs. 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.

DirectStorage sure sounds as that there will be some improvement, albeit assuming you aren't running GPU at full load already, as DirectStorage apparently works mainly at the premise of taking some workload from the CPU and giving it to the GPU, such as to decompress files that get loaded in when walking to a new area in an open-world game. And for current-gen gaming, even slower NVMe SSDs sure are plenty fast. Starting with SQL average latency, the SN850X posted 3ms, which placed it in the upper part of the consumer NVMe SSD leaderboard. Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch. The 1TB model is quoted with slightly lower numbers in sequential writes with 6.3GB/s, while random reads are a bit lower as well with 800,000 IOPS. The endurance rating is 600 TBW (total bytes written) for the 1TB, 1,200 TBW (2TB) and 2,400 TBW (4TB) with an MTTF rating of 1.75 million hours. The SN850X had weak random write performance, though it did display an improvement over its predecessor with a peak of 187K IOPS at a latency of 678.7µs (vs. 173K IOPS and 733.9µs for the SN850).

WD BLACK SN850X Design and Build

The latest version of Game Mode serves up even more PC performance-boosting features like load prediction to ready game assets for fast in-game loading. WD improved performance in sequential read workloads, with a maximum of 7.3GBps from 7.0GBps, and sequential writes improved from up to 5.3GBps to 6.6GBps. Performance in random workloads has also improved significantly, up from a maximum of 1M / 720,000 read and write, respectively, to 1.2M / 1.1M. Insane speeds up to 7,300 MB/s deliver top-tier performance with ridiculously short load times for the elite gaming experience you’ve been waiting for. This is a fairly noticeable increase compared to the 2020 SN850 model’s 7GB/s read and 5.3GB/s write in sequential and 1 million IOPS in 4K random performance. The SN850 also only offers up to 2TB in capacity, so the 4TB model is a nice addition to match the ever-growing game installation sizes. A new suite of features comes with the SN850X including Predictive Loading, Overhead Balancing and Adaptive Thermal Management 5.

Today’s A-list titles can take up 200GB or more of storage. A range of capacities from 1TB to 4TB means you get to keep more games at the ready and get into the action fast. WD also implemented new updates to improve thermal consistency and energy efficiency via smoothing out the thermal throttling step function. WD Management DashboardWhen it comes to benchmarking storage devices, application testing is best, and synthetic testing comes in second place. While not a perfect representation of actual workloads, synthetic tests do help to baseline storage devices with a repeatability factor that makes it easy to do apples-to-apples comparison between competing solutions. These workloads offer a range of different testing profiles ranging from “four corners” tests, common database transfer size tests, to trace captures from different VDI environments. 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: Game Mode 2.0 also features an advanced “read look ahead” algorithm, which predicts and pre-emptively caches what is next in the game. WD indicates that this is done by allowing the SN850X’s controller to detect incoming low queue depth, sequential workloads, claiming that it will help speed up in-game loading of scenes, levels and other areas. While we didn’t play around with the Game Mode app too much, these results indicate that results may vary depending on the application. Conclusion Output approaching the limits of the PCIe® Gen4 interface helps you get ultra-fast performance out of your storage and system components.

Game Mode 2.0 serves up even more PC performance-boosting features like load prediction to ready game assets for fast in-game loading. This test uses SQL Server 2014 running on Windows Server 2012 R2 guest VMs and is stressed by Quest’s Benchmark Factory for Databases. StorageReview’s Microsoft SQL Server OLTP testing protocol employs the current draft of the Transaction Processing Performance Council’s Benchmark C (TPC-C), an online transaction-processing benchmark that simulates the activities found in complex application environments. While SSD tuning software such as this often doesn’t show any noticeable real-world gains, it does allow users to perform firmware upgrades via the application (among other things), which is more functionality than many other companies provide. You can also see (at a glance) the drive’s overall health, interface speed, temperatures and capacity information. Overall the software is nice to have but won’t deliver “felt” performance to the end user. Warranty and Pricing Insane speeds up to 7,300 MB/s 1 deliver top-tier performance with ridiculously short load times for the elite gaming experience you’ve been waiting for. 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 in fact the same as running the actual game, just without the inconsistencies inherent to application testing.To those that doubt the veracity of our assertion that BiCS 4 performs better than Micron B47R or Samsung V-NAND, we can and have demonstrated this on multiple occasions. Whenever everything is equivalent except the flash (same controller, same DRAM), good ole 96 Layer BiCS 4 arrayed SSDs easily outperform 176 Layer B47R arrayed SSDs. A good example is the M10P vs. S70 Blade or FX900 Pro. B47R is more prolific but has never outperformed BiCS, period - end of story. Half the layers, older and still the better performer; that's just how superior BiCS architecture has proven to be. And we don't even need to get into how much better BiCS 4 is than V-NAND because even B47R arrayed SSDs easily outperform Samsung's V-NAND arrayed 980 Pro. Moving onto sequential read 64K, the SN850X performed very well with 5.93GB/s (or 94,512 IOPS) with 337µs latency for second place. Again, this was an improvement over its predecessor, which posted a peak of 5.57GB/s (891K IOPS) at 354 µs. The 1TB and 2TB drives have an optional version with RGB lighting plus heatsink to help maintain peak performance through the most intense gaming sessions. (Please choose the heatsink model for this) Extremely low latency loads graphics fast with minimal stutter and lagging for an incredibly smooth, satisfying gaming experience.