With the SN580, Western Digital has brought a new “standard SSD” onto the market. This should be suitable both as a system SSD and as a storage/game SSD.
Compared to the old SN570, the SN580 primarily supports the PCIe 4.0 standard and correspondingly slightly higher speed.
However, the emphasis here is on “something”, because with up to 4150 MB/s the SN580 is not a slow SSD, but it is certainly not an overly fast one either.
Let’s take a look at this in the test. Can the SN850 convince here?
Die WD Blue SN580 im Test
Here’s a big criticism of WD. It doesn’t really matter what an SSD looks like, but if you advertise a chic design and “quality” sticker on the SSD box and in all product images, then you should deliver it.
You may be a little surprised by the SN580, because the SSD looks very different from the various product images. So it has a very small sticker and looks very “minimalist”.
So there are only three chips in the core of the SSD, the controller, an IC and a NAND chip. Yes, even the 2TB version has only one NAND component. Accordingly, the SN580 does without a DRAM cache.
This is the same setup as the SN570! Only the SN580 uses a black PCB where the SN570 does not use a blue one.
The technique
Let’s take a look at the technology of the SN580 compared to the SN570.
SN570
SN580
Interface
PCIe 3.0
PCIe 4.0
reading
3500 MB/s
4150 MB/s
writing
3500 MB/s
4150 MB/s
TBW
900 TB
900 TB
On paper, the two SSDs are very similar. The SN580 only uses the PCIe 4.0 interface, which allows a slightly higher performance here. With 4150 MB/s, however, the data rates are absolutely at the lower end of the possibility of a PCIe 4.0 connection.
On the NAND side, both SSDs rely on BiCS5, and the NAND on both SSDs is labeled “SanDisk 001187 2T00”.
PCIe 4.0 through a firmware update?
Interestingly both SSD, the SN570 and the SN580 apparently use the same controller.
The controller of both SSDs is labeled “SanDisk 20-82-10082-A1”. This indicates to me that the SN580 may only have been made PCIe 4.0-capable through FW adjustments.
This would also explain why the SN580 only offers such a small leap in performance.
The NAND of both SSDs is also identical.
The test system
The following test system is used for the following benchmarks
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
ASUS ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WIFI
16GB RAM
Windows 11 Pro 22H2
Theoretical tests
We start the test with the classic memory benchmark, CrystalDiskMark 8. First of all, let’s look at the data rates, starting with the reading values.
There are no big surprises here. The old SN570 is slowed down by the PCIe 3.0 interface and offers 3732 MB/s reading, which was the best result of a PCIe 3.0 SSD in the test so far.
The SN580, on the other hand, can leave the PCIe 3.0 limit behind with 4246 MB/s, at least just barely. Like the SN570 was the fastest PCIe 3.0 SSD, the SN580 is the slowest PCIe 4.0 SSD.
Writing we have almost the same picture. The SN580 outperforms the SN570 thanks to the PCIe 4.0 connection, but remains a rather slow SSD in the PCIe 4.0 ecosystem.
In terms of IOPS and access times, the SN580 is a touch better than the SN570. Here it is obvious that both SSDs basically have the same characteristics, only the SN580 leaves the PCIe 3.0 limit behind.
A similar result is also shown by AS SSD and Anvil’s Storage Utilities. Here, too, the SN580 is slightly ahead of the SN570, but is clearly one of the weakest PCIe 4.0 SSDs.
PC Mark
PC-Mark is benchmark software that tries to simulate everyday applications such as office applications and games to measure the performance of an SSD.
There are two memory performance tests: the “quick” and the “full” version. The “full” version uses larger file sizes, causing SSDs with slower write speeds or aggressive write caching to perform worse here.
In PC Mark, the new SN580 sits between the SN570 and the Corsair MP600 Pro. Compared to the pure data rate benchmarks, this is an increase for both WD SSDs. So these have arrived in the middle field and can even leave one or the other PCIe 4.0 SSD behind.
3D Mark SSD Test
Let’s also take a look at the 3D Mark SSD test. In contrast to other tests, this one doesn’t just simply measure the data rates, etc., it also simulates the loading of real games (with their game data, etc.).
The 3D Mark SSD test tests the following:
Loading Battlefield™ V from launch to the main menu.
Loading Call of Duty®: Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
Loading Overwatch® from launch to the main menu.
Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch®.
Installing The Outer Worlds® from the Epic Games Launcher.
Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds®.
Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike®: Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.
This makes the 3D Mark SSD even more practical than many other tests.
In 3D Mark, the SN580 makes a small jump in the breaking rankings, ahead of the Seagate FireCuda 520. Interestingly, however, it lags behind the SK Hynix Gold P31, which is a PCIe 3.0 SSD.
WinRAR Test
Finally, let’s copy two large archives to the SSD, which we then unpack from it.
File Pack A – Installing Tiny Tina’s Wonderland Approx. 52GB File Pack B – Installing Tiny Tina’s Wonderland, Total War Warhammer 3 and GW2 Approx. 231 GB
The two SSDs perform practically identically here and place themselves in the midfield of the previously tested SSDs.
SLC Cache
Almost all current SSDs have an SLC cache. Most current SSDs rely on TLC or QLC NAND, which can store 3 or 4 bits per cell.
The more bits you want to store per cell, the more complex the writing process becomes. As a result, TLC and especially QLC SSDs write data quite slowly. But then how can SSDs like the SN580 achieve 4000+ MB/s write rates?
The manufacturers use an SLC cache. In this case, parts of the memory are only written with 1 bit per cell, which massively reduces the complexity of the writing process and thus speeds up the writing process.
Logically, however, the entire SSD cannot only be written with one bit per cell, since otherwise we could only use ⅓ or ¼ of the capacity in the best case.
We therefore only achieve the full data rate of modern SSDs (writing) for a short time. If you copy too much data to the SSD at once, then calculate the data rates.
How much depends on the NAND used and the size of the cache. To test this I use H2TestW.
This simply fills the SSDs with random data. Not with the full speed, but in a direct comparison we can see a write cache very clearly and see how high the write speed is after the cache.
This is a point that interests me very much about the Western Digital WD Blue SN580! So the SN570 had a very large cache, but was very slow after the cache, for a TLC SSD.
Has anything changed here?
No, the SN580 behaves exactly like the SN570 here.
With the 2TB version we have a ca. 700 GB cache, which is very large!
If this cache is full, the data rate drops to around 340 MB/s, which is very slow! While this is still faster than QLC SSDs, it is noticeably low for a TLC SSD.
However, in return, the cache is above average with 700GB. For comparison, a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB has just +- 230 GB cache.
Therefore, the bottom line is that this is suitable for most everyday applications. However, if you copy a lot of large amounts of data from A to B, video files, etc., then this is not the optimal SSD!
power consumption
Unfortunately, measuring the power consumption of M.2 SSDs is a bit complicated. To do this, I use a trick. I put the SSDs in an external enclosure. This way I can measure the power consumption of this case, including the SSD.
These values are not 100% accurate and only at a maximum of 1000 MB/s, but we can still clearly see tendencies. It is therefore advisable to pay less attention to the absolute values and rather to compare the models with each other in order to assess whether an SSD tends to need more or less energy in comparison.
For use in a desktop computer, this test is of little importance, since a fluctuation of +- 1W hardly affects the electricity bill. However, a difference of +- 1W in an ultrabook can mean almost an hour longer runtime.
But there is a lot of positive things to report here! Both the SN570 and the SN580 are very economical!
Even with constant measurements of the power consumption when running the CrystalDiskMark benchmark, both SSDs are among the most economical models in the test so far.
Conclusion, WD SN570 vs SN580
The Western Digital WD Blue SN580 represents a minimal improvement over the SN570. And when I say minimal here, I mean absolutely minimal!
Western Digital seems to use the same hardware almost 1 to 1 with the SN580 and SN570. Only the PCIe 3.0 limit was lifted, which slowed the SN570 down a bit.
However, at 4246 MB/s to 3732 MB/s, the new SN580 isn’t much faster. It can consistently put itself ahead of the SN570 in tests, but usually only by a hair’s breadth. Not surprising, since both SSDs use the same NAND and apparently the same controller.
So I don’t think you will feel any difference in practice between the SN570 and SN580!
In principle, both are recommended SSDs! So these are absolutely recommendable as “storage” SSD for programs, games and data, especially in notebooks. Because both SSDs require very little energy and do not get excessively hot (a cooler is still recommended).
In principle, both could also be used as a system SSD, but there are other models that I would prefer. With all love, the SN580 is not “rapidly” fast compared to many other PCIe 4.0 SSDs, whether these differences are so noticeable in practice I leave it open.
Just consider that the SN580, like the SN570, has a very aggressive SLC cache! Both SSDs have a very large write cache, around 700 GB for the 2TB version, but after the cache these are very slow! You can only expect just under 400 MB/s here.
Therefore, the WD Blue SN580 is less suitable if you want to copy large amounts of data from A to B. This is more of a typical “Media / Programs / Games” SSD, which brings a lot of capacity and good reading performance at a fair price.
hp Incidentally, I would only recommend the SN580 if it costs as much to maybe €5-10 more than the SN570! Both SSDs are so similar that a larger surcharge is not justified in my opinion!
POSITIVE
Good everyday performance
Very low power consumption
Fair price
NEGATIVE
Very slow after SLC Cache