Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue 256GB SSD Review

Free Space and Conclusion

Capacity

When it comes to storage capacity, the Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue 256GB SSD has a free capacity of 238GB as shown above.

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The goal of the WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs was to release a product that was in the top 25% of the consumer SSD market in terms of performance. The performance of the drive was what we would consider average for an SSD that is coming to market in the first half of 2010. It easily beats out most hard drives, but other SSDs on the market offer you more performance. The sequential read performance on the drive looked fine, but numerous benchmarks showed a drop in sequential write performance that we were unable to figure out. We contacted WD and showed them our numbers and they confirmed that they were as expected. The performance drop was seen on both the ICH10R chipset and the Marvell 9123 SATA 6Gbps controller. We tried different drivers, cables and test systems and the results were always the same.

Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue SSDs are available through select distributors and resellers starting today. All of the WD SiliconEdge Blue drives come backed by WDs three-year
limited warranty. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) for WD SiliconEdge Blue SSD 64 GB (model SSC-D0064SC-2100) capacity is $279.00, the 128 GB (model SSC-D0128SC-2100) capacity is $529.00 and the 256 GB (SSC-D0256SC-2100) capacity is $999.00 USD.

That breaks down into something like this when it comes to cost per gigabyte.

• 64GB: $279 ($4.69/GB)
• 128GB: $529 ($4.44/GB)
• 256GB: $999 ($4.20/GB)

When it comes to pricing, the 256GB model that we have here today carries
an MSRP of $999. With
a total free capacity of 238GB, that comes out to $4.20 per GB of
storage space. This is expensive and a little out of line compared to other
SSDs on the market today. For example, the Intel X25-M Gen 2 160GB SSD has 149GB of free
space with a street price of $429.99
shipped. This places it at $2.89 per GB. The Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB drive is much faster than the WD SiliconEdge Blue and retails for $799 or $3.36 per GB of storage space. The price of the WD SiliconEdge Blue SSD needs to come down and be more in-line with value series SSDs like the Kingston SSDNow V Series.

Legit Bottom Line: The WD SiliconEdge Blue has solid sequential performance, but the overall performance of the drive and price leaves us wanting more bang for the buck.