Customer Ratings & Reviews

Great!! Installation was a breeze and having no hhd's or ssd's makes cable mgmt easier.

Great SSD upgrade for PS5. Just be sure to buy a heatsink separately!

super fast ssd. best in class when it comes to performance.

Good deal. I bought it for my ps5 and it work like a charm.

Speed kills, boot and everything way faster than with SSD

On the pricier end of storage although the speed makes up for it.

More performance than I will ever need or notice, but great to future-proof a brand new PCIe 4.0 capable build. Paired with MSI B550 Tomahawk and Ryzen 5600X and works great!

Awesome, very fast but make sure your system does support the newer Gen 4 x 4.

I feel like it’s pretty common knowledge at this point, but upgrading the hard drive in your computer is one of the easiest ways to improve performance. When moving from spinning HDDs to 2.5 inch SSDs you would see a marked improvement. Now, when moving from a 2.5 inch SSD to M.2 PCIe 4, there’s an even greater performance boost. If you can swing it (both financially and in terms of the computer you have), putting this Western Digital drive in your computer can offer tangible and noticeable improvements in your computer (especially for PC gaming). The load times for games and even processing video editing is an improvement over my “slower” (and smaller) M.2. INSTALLATION While I imagine most people who are shopping for this drive have replaced their hard drives before, I do want to at least mention the process for those that are new to PC upgrades and are looking to improve their computer’s performance. First, you need to check compatibility. Unfortunately, that’s very much dependent on your computer. Let’s assume this WD drive is compatible with your computer. Next, will you be replacing your existing hard drive or using it as a secondary drive? Assuming your PC has two M.2 slots (mine does) I would make this WD drive your main drive (the one with Windows on it) and use your existing one as a secondary drive. If you have an open M.2 bay, the transfer process is relatively straightforward. But if you don’t, you’ll need some kind of USB device to plug your new WD drive into your computer’s USB port. Either option you choose, you will need to download Western Digital’s Acronis software. It will allow you to mirror your bootable drive. Once it’s mirrored, all you do is put it in the computer and remove the old one. PERFORMANCE You can find more details about benchmarks and other data points about this drive’s performance on other sites. Based on real world performance, all I can say is that you won’t be disappointed. Whether it’s just booting up or loading a game the speeds are truly remarkable. I loaded Halo Master Chief Collection on my Acer Nitro 5 (which to be honest, was no slouch to begin with) and it loaded and I was off playing in no time. I edit family videos for fun, and I am able to render 4K movies in significantly less time than before. I can’t necessarily quantify it, but it’s noticeable, which is what matters to me. Honestly on day-to-day tasks such as drafting Word documents, creating spreadsheets, video calls, surfing the web, I can see the difference in performance. It’s not night and day (from my older M.2) but it’s appreciable. And I’m certain if you were coming from a spinning hard drive or SSD 2.5 inch, it would be night and day (although I’m skeptical if your computer has a spinning HDD if it’s motherboard could support the faster speeds). MISCELLANEOUS One thing I wanted to mention is the WD Black dashboard program. I was unaware of it until I happened to stumble upon it. It wasn’t something that caught my attention in the packaging (assuming it says anything about it). But the WD Black Dashboard is a handy tool to check out the performance and health of your drive. It also monitors the temperature (which can be a big deal, as this drive can supposedly get pretty hot). It’s also where you can update the firmware (I didn’t know there was such a thing for HDDs, but when I first opened the program it said I needed to update the firmware in my brand new drive). It’s also where you can toggle the “gaming mode” on. This supposedly increases performance for gaming loads. It’s not a program you’ll be opening frequently, but it’s nice to periodically check on the status of your drive, namely the firmware, temperature and its health. PS5. As a PS5 owner, I have to mention that this drive is listed as being compatible for the PS5 (as an internal HDD). WITH THE CAVEAT that this model doesn’t have a heat sink. Sony tells you that you should only install a M.2 compatible drive into your PS5 with a heat sink, but you can buy an aftermarket heatsink for like 10 bucks and attach it. Just know that it is cleared to work with your PS5. CONCLUSION As a big fan of new tech, and someone who is pretty knowledgeable about PCs (even there are many more people out there with more expertise than I), the biggest endorsement I can give this drive is that it just works and the performance boost is noticeable. If you game, or any type of video editing or photo editing, things that demand a fast read-write speeds, you will benefit from the new generation of M.2 drives.

The only hardware problem that I have had with this SSD is a noticeable reduction in read/write speeds when this SSD is mounted in a Chipset-controlled slot instead of a CPU-controlled slot. The problem that I have had is when attempting to register this SSD for warranty purposes with Western Digital. The WD chat personnel state that the SN850 is an OEM SSD and therefore any warranty problems must be taken care of by the retailer who sold the SSD to the end user, thereby implying that the SSD retailer is the OEM. I will never buy another WD product unless WD reverses this policy and warrants this SSD directly.

Used in PS5 for extra space. Easy to install and performance seems as good as the stick HD.

Got this drive installed and Windows installed and I am now getting close to the speed specs after having to change a couple things. Please read my tips, it may help you and save some frustration and even maybe save you from returning it. To get that max speeds this needs to be installed in a PCIe 4.0 compatible motherboard with a PCIe 4.0 compatible CPU. I am using this in an Asus X570 Tuf Gaming Plus with a Ryzen 3900X. This also needs to be installed in the M.2 slot closest to the CPU which has a direct connection to the CPU, I initially had it in the bottom slot below the PCIe slots and that one is connected to the chipset which is slower, I was getting like half the write speeds at first until I switched it. You also need to download and install the WD SSD Dashboard so you can enable the Gaming Mode, otherwise again, speeds won't be as fast. After those couple things, I am now getting closed to advertised speeds and I am happy. The future of gaming has arrived with the WD_BLACK™ SN850 NVMe™ SSD. Long load times are obsolete with PCIe® Gen4 technology, reaching up to 7,000MB/s read speed and up to 4,100MB/s write speed. Spend more time playing and less time deleting, storing your latest and favorite games with 500GB capacity (not intended for NAS or server environments). This WD_Black internal SSD has a compact form factor and a PCIe Gen4 interface for compatibility with select PCs or laptops. Well, it is really the point that hard drives have become so fast that it is nearly meaningless to compare speeds. Yes, faster is better, I can and did run the speed tests and this WD Black SN850 NVMe SSD is the fastest hard drive I ever had. And I cannot see any differences in real world. No difference in games nor load times of files. However, I am comparing it to the WD Black SN750 NVMe 1TB drive and that is a blazingly fast drive to begin with. So what is the point? If you have a system capable of handling PCIe Gen4 interface SSD, this is the way to go. There are a few things you need to be aware of : - This is a PCIe Gen4 interface. The latest from AMD and, more recently, Intel’s Rocketlake support. For the most part, if your system is older than 8 to 10 months, you will not gain any of the benefits of this drive over PCIe Gen 3. - The drive is only 500GB. For reference, Call of Duty Modern Warfare takes up 231 GB of space. - The version I tested does not have a heatsink, so it is for laptops and PC’s. There is another version that has a heat sink and it can be used with a Sony PS5 console (with a firmware update.) There are two main things that would affect your buying decisions for this drive. First, if your system does not have a PCIe Gen4 interface, the prior generation is nearly half the price. Keep in mind that getting thus drive does future proof you for your next system where you can just add this drive to. The other thing to consider, and more importantly, is the 500 GB size of the drive. It is just too small for today’s PC games. For $100 more, you can double the size of the drive. Putting all the specs aside, you should really look at the company making the hard drive and their warranty. This drive has a 5 year warranty and great company to back it up. I’ve owned all the brands and Western Digital is my go to brand. I have had nothing but good luck with the drives and their Black series performance is off the charts. In conclusion, the WD Black SN850 NVMe SSD 500 GB is a super-fast drive from a great company. You pay a bit more for the new top tier products so wait a bit for the prices to drop. If you have a lot of stored games, upgrade to the 1 TB. Regardless, the WD Black SN850 NVMe SSD is another home run from Western Digital.

This next gen SSD is great, i got it when it was on sale for $99.

Watch out!!!! WD_Black SN850 Gen 4 is coming for throne Samsung! This drive looks nice, it fits well into any gaming rig like any other M.2 drive. Once installed, your computer will recognize it and you do what you please. A true downside for some is the lack of hardware encryption. This should be automatic, I couldn't find any reference to encryption anywhere I researched. The speed is AMAZING!!!! It blows any Gen3 drive I have tested out of the water in both read and write speeds. My write speeds consistently hit close to 4800MB/s and read speeds crushed above 5800MB/s on my AMD Ryzen 7 build. Your mobo must support Gen4 to access these speeds but are backward compatible if you are trying to future-proof your build. You are only able to test speeds on AMD systems… Intel isn't there yet I believe since I could get it to recognize in test software on my Intel build. Unfortunately, with this speed come heat and thermals. It is important to have this in a well-ventilated space. In a laptop, it will run hot and run into throttling with intense use. There is no heatsink option out there yet but one is in the works as it definitely will need one. In my opinion, I cannot recommend this with current pricing. There are lots of Gen 3 drives out there with excellent performance. The price per GB on Gen 4 is too high, but that is what you pay when you are an early adopter. As a result, IMO it is not a good value, but the performance is unmatched. If you have a few bucks to spend or money isn't an object and you just want the best performance… there isn't much better out there in the Gen 4 world.

I installed this in my Razer Blade 14. I have a S.....g 1tb NVME that is PCIe 3.0 and the read writes speeds are as follows: Read:3558 MBs Write: 2680 Mbs I installed the Western Digital and they increased a little. I think if I had a PCIe 4.0 slot then I would have had better results Read:3829 MBs Write: 3109 Mbs I loaded Fortnite, Forza and Flight Simulator 2020 and the speeds were just a few seconds faster. I really felt more than speed that this drive would be better at 1TB or 2TB in size since the games take up so much space. I also think this drive runs a bit warmer than my previous drive. No real benchmark other than it was much hotter when I removed it. In summary I think that if your getting one of the newer Intel Gen 11 laptops or desktops then this drive is a winner. Just consider spending the extra money on the larger size to hold the games if you like to play more than just a few at a time.

This is an amazingly fast SSD! Being that it is a Western Digital Black series drive, you know it's built to last. Keep in mind that in order to get anything close to the stated speeds of 7000 read/4100 write, you will need to put this into a PCIe 4.0 x 4 motherboard. Otherwise, the speeds will max out at whatever your current board can handle (most likely in the 3500/2800 range). As of now, the number of computers capable of putting this drive to the max are somewhat limited. Most of the ones you will find are newer gaming machines which is exactly what this is designed to perform best with. But even if you are using an older board I would still suggest getting this. It will still be blazing fast and you will have a future proof drive. And let's face it, in the computer world it won't take long before all new computer's will have PCIe 4.0 x 4. My gaming unit that I have this in has probably doubled in speed. As a quick test when I first installed it, I transferred a 20gb file to it to see how long it would take. Is 5 seconds fast enough for you?? It is for me! My only recommendation is to think ahead as to what you will use it for. As a main drive, 500gb is fine. But as a strictly storage drive, go with a higher capacity. If you are thinking about this drive, just stop and go buy it. You will be happy you did.

Looking to take your PC to new heights? Looking to load the games and files faster? The WD Black SN850 comes in with promises of 7,000 MB/s read speeds! For testing purposes I installed this drive into a MSI MEG X570 Ace Gaming MOBO. Paired with a Ryzen 9 3900x. Ensuring placement of the NVME was in correct place to avoid disabling lanes is crucial. Once installed turned on the system and boom was recognized and set it up. I added some games to the drive to see how fast would load and read while playing. Games I tested were Microsoft Flight Simulator, Call of Duty , Witcher 3 and GTA5 single Player. campaign. First off GTA5 loaded up from click to open world in 32.1 seconds versus almost 1 minute on the tradition HDD. Witcher 3 came in at 8.4 seconds. COD came in at 12.4 seconds and Microsoft Flight Simulator came in at 19.7 seconds. These numbers speak for themselves as they truly changed how much time used to be wasted on traditional old tech. I would highly recommend this drive for any gamer or individual who is looking to get more out of their pc! Regarding PS5 this drive does work in the PS5 as it meets all criteria, just ensure you get the drive the the heat sink.

The SN850 delivers decidedly in speed using the NVMe architecture with amazing 7000MB/s read speed and 5300MB/s write speed if utilized in a PCle 4.0 x 4 motherboard. An upgrade from the SN750 and ready to compete against Samsung among the PCle 4.0 SSDs. Other brands are in for a challenge given the SN850 has a bigger and faster SLC cache than most. This particular model does not have built-in heatsink, but not an issue if your motherboard has heatsink built-in. RGB lighting is also an added feature if one opts for the built-in heatsink model. Utilize the WD_Black Dashboard to customize, monitor and optimize performance using gaming mode. WD has clearly designed the SN850 to be a top contender as it provides premier speed in a compact form factor. This is an awesome addition to my existing 500GB, but alone I’d opt for at least the 1TB model to cover all needs given the WD guarantee of a 5 year warranty and 3D NAND reliability and efficiency.

M.2 SSD storage is becoming the gold standard for SSDs. In the last few years the speeds of these drives have continued to rise. Specifically, with the launch of PCI-4 the speeds of these drives are crazy fast. The WD Black drive in my testing was not running quite as fast as it is capable of. I was seeing speeds up to 3000 mbps. However, I believe these speeds are plenty fast. Currently I am using this drive as a secondary drive in my gaming PC to run games off of. I believe 512gb is on the smaller side of drives but it is plenty to either run as your main drive with OS on it or as a secondary drive. This drive is also on the list of compatible drives for PS5 but currently the software is locked and will not allow an extra drive. I am running Warzone off of this drive and it allows it to run buttery smooth with the fast speeds. The fast speeds also allow for extremely fast data transfer. I would highly recommend this drive for PC gaming.

My laptop is a one year old Nitro 5 so this new WD N850 PCI Hard drive caused me a bit of a hiccup at the beginning. I had to restart twice for this beast to adapt to older hardware. It does not come with a heat sink to dissipate excess heat when full load but my laptop came with one so no issues there. It is as advertised fast and games load up with ease. So far no negative things to speak of. This is a nice upgrade to my older PCI HD. I would check PCI version prior to installation.