WD_BLACK SN850 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD Review

SPECworkstation 3 Benchmark

The SPECworkstation 3 was introduced in 2018 and features 30 workloads containing nearly 140 tests. The developer updated the storage workloads that are based on traces of nearly two-dozen applications. We ran the storage workload (WPCstorge) and are using the results from just three of the tests to show the performance difference between the SSDs that we are testing. Individual scores are generated for each test and a composite score for each category is calculated based on a reference machine, yielding a “bigger is better” result. We are using the actual ‘raw score’ result in three tests that we want to show actual transfer rates rather than a composite score.

The first workload that we will be showing is a trace that uses Microsoft Visual Studio to compile a build of Mozilla Firefox browser. The WD_Black SN850 2TB SSD finished this workload with a read speed of 1662.3 MB/s and that puts it in the middle of the pack.

The next trace involves a Handbrake transcode and the SN850 2TB SSD finished at 857.9 MB/s on the read speed and 323.7 MB/s on the write side.

In the 7zip workload the WD_Black SN850 2TB PCIe Gen4 SSD finished with 5954.9 MB/s read and 251.2 MB/s write speeds. This is the highest score that we’ve ever seen on the 7zip subtest!