Specifications & Features

Specifications and features

The series will be TLC (Triple-level cell written) written 64-layer NAND flash memory from Sandisk. This allows them to offer the big storage volume at a lower price point.  In 3D NAND, NAND layers, not chips, are stacked in a single IC. The good news is continued cost reduction, smaller die sizes and more capacity per NAND chip. Also, installed NAND toolsets in the wafer fabs can, for the most part, be reused, thereby extending the useful life of the fab equipment.The NAND ICs are driven by the SanDisk 20-880007011 controller as well as a DRAM cache and a small partition that will be SLC written to keep write performance up-to-snuff. Much like other competitors, this M2 SSD will run on a full PCIe 3.0 x4 link. The series is to be an enthusiast class offering of their NVMe SSDs. Though the numbers vary per model due to available NAND channels to the controller (big SSDs have more chips to work with) these SSDs will rip a hole in your eyes when you see the performance metrics, offering double and even five to six times the speed (depending on how you look at it) of the fastest SATA3 class SSD. Mind you, this product can also be spotted as the SanDisk Extreme PRO Model.

SanDisk 20-880007011 controller

Western Digital a while ago bought, among the strongest names in the business, SanDisk in an effort to get NAND IP and production in-house. This SSD makes use of their NAND and their controller. It is the first time we stumbled into this SanDisk 20-880007011 SKU, basically, it is a controller empowered by three ARM CPU cores fabbed on 28nm. It makes use of the latest NVMe revision 1.2 and 1.3 protocol and as you have been able to notice from the SSD specifications, this controller is very fast 3400 MB/s and 2800 MB/s for read and write operations respectively, over a x4 PCIe Gen 3 lane connection that is.

Western Digital WD Black NVMe M2
Capacity		250 GB	500 GB	1 TB
WD Black Model		WDS250G2X0C	WDS500G2X0C	WDS100T2X0C
Form Factor		M.2 2280 (Single-Sided)
Interface		NVMe PCIe 3 x4
Controller		SanDisk 20-880007011
NAND		SanDisk 64-layer 3D TLC
DRAM		SK Hynix DDR4-2400
Sequential Read		3000 MB/s	3400 MB/s	3400 MB/s
Sequential Write		1600 MB/s	2500 MB/s	2800 MB/s
4KB Random Read		220k IOPS	410k IOPS	500k IOPS
4KB Random Write		170k IOPS	330k IOPS	400k IOPS
Power	Peak (10µs)	9.24 W	9.24 W	9.24 W
	PS3 Idle	70 mW	70 mW	100 mW
	PS4 Idle	2.5 mW	2.5 mW	2.5 mW
Write Endurance		200 TBW	300 TBW	600 TBW
Warranty		5 years

Now the shocker, for 4K random read and write operations, the controller is able to perform up to 500,000 operations per second (IOPS) as it (can) makes use 8 NAND channels. WD will offer the WD BLACK series written as TLC, a write-out SLC buffer and these units receive a proper 5-year warranty.  The 1TB model tested dropped in price significantly over the past months and costs 239 EUR which is 24 cents per GB.