WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD Linux Benchmarks
([Storage] 54 Minutes Ago
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- Reference: 0001550192
- News link: https://www.phoronix.com/review/wd-black-sn8100-linux
- Source link:
[1]
Sandisk earlier this month announced the WD_BLACK SN8100 as what they claim is the current world's fastest PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD for consumers. Given how well the WD_BLACK SN850X performs under Linux as a PCIe Gen 4.0 drive, I decided to buy a WD_BLACK SN8100 for some Linux testing at Phoronix to compare to various other drives in the lab. Here is a preliminary look at the WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB performance under Ubuntu Linux.
[2]
The WD_BLACK SN8100 Gen 5x4 NVMe SSD is promoted as being able to deliver sequential reads up to 14,900 MB/s and sequential writes up to 14,000 MB/s. Or over 2.3 million IOPS of random performance. It's quite an upgrade over the PCIe Gen4x4-based WD_BLACK SN850X that has worked out quite well for Linux users.
[3]
The WD_BLACK SN8100 series currently consists of a 1TB model with starting price of $179 USD, the 2TB model for $279 USD, and the 4TB model for $549 USD. I bought the WD_BLACK SN8100 retail on [4]Amazon.com (affiliate link) for $279 USD for being able to deliver these Linux performance benchmarks.
[5]
The WD_BLACK SN8100 is rated for 7 Watt average power consumption. As with most all PCIe Gen5 SSDs, you will want to be using some sort of heatsink to properly cool the drive to avoid thermal throttling. With the WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB retail unit no heatsink is included but there is a model that does include a passive heatsink. For my testing I was using the Thermalright HR10 2280 PRO SSD Cooler that features four heatpipes and a 30mm fan.
Using an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D desktop running Ubuntu 25.04 with the Linux 6.14 kernel, I carried out some fresh storage benchmarks with a variety of spare consumer NVMe SSDs in the lab. These SSDs freshly re-tested on Ubuntu 25.04 with Linux 6.14 + EXT4 file-systems were the WD_BLACK SN850 1TB, Crucial T705 2TB, Corsair MP700 PRO 2TB, Inland PCIe Gen5 2TB, WD_BLACK SN850X 2TB, Samsung 980 PRO 2TB, Samsung 990 PRO 1TB, and WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB. With not too often receiving NVMe SSD review samples, the selection is limited but enough to get an initial idea for the WD_BLACK SN8100 performance characteristics under Linux on this AMD Zen 5 desktop.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_1_lrg
[2] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_2_lrg
[3] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_3_lrg
[4] https://amzn.to/3HgMmHc
[5] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_4_lrg
Sandisk earlier this month announced the WD_BLACK SN8100 as what they claim is the current world's fastest PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD for consumers. Given how well the WD_BLACK SN850X performs under Linux as a PCIe Gen 4.0 drive, I decided to buy a WD_BLACK SN8100 for some Linux testing at Phoronix to compare to various other drives in the lab. Here is a preliminary look at the WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB performance under Ubuntu Linux.
[2]
The WD_BLACK SN8100 Gen 5x4 NVMe SSD is promoted as being able to deliver sequential reads up to 14,900 MB/s and sequential writes up to 14,000 MB/s. Or over 2.3 million IOPS of random performance. It's quite an upgrade over the PCIe Gen4x4-based WD_BLACK SN850X that has worked out quite well for Linux users.
[3]
The WD_BLACK SN8100 series currently consists of a 1TB model with starting price of $179 USD, the 2TB model for $279 USD, and the 4TB model for $549 USD. I bought the WD_BLACK SN8100 retail on [4]Amazon.com (affiliate link) for $279 USD for being able to deliver these Linux performance benchmarks.
[5]
The WD_BLACK SN8100 is rated for 7 Watt average power consumption. As with most all PCIe Gen5 SSDs, you will want to be using some sort of heatsink to properly cool the drive to avoid thermal throttling. With the WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB retail unit no heatsink is included but there is a model that does include a passive heatsink. For my testing I was using the Thermalright HR10 2280 PRO SSD Cooler that features four heatpipes and a 30mm fan.
Using an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D desktop running Ubuntu 25.04 with the Linux 6.14 kernel, I carried out some fresh storage benchmarks with a variety of spare consumer NVMe SSDs in the lab. These SSDs freshly re-tested on Ubuntu 25.04 with Linux 6.14 + EXT4 file-systems were the WD_BLACK SN850 1TB, Crucial T705 2TB, Corsair MP700 PRO 2TB, Inland PCIe Gen5 2TB, WD_BLACK SN850X 2TB, Samsung 980 PRO 2TB, Samsung 990 PRO 1TB, and WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB. With not too often receiving NVMe SSD review samples, the selection is limited but enough to get an initial idea for the WD_BLACK SN8100 performance characteristics under Linux on this AMD Zen 5 desktop.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_1_lrg
[2] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_2_lrg
[3] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_3_lrg
[4] https://amzn.to/3HgMmHc
[5] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=wd-black-sn8100-linux&image=wd_black_sn8100_4_lrg