Over the years, I've been slowly introducing my Mum to the world of games. The next obvious step in my quest was to get her set up with Steam on her aged desktop. However, as the machine's boot sequence dragged on for minutes, I got the creeping sense that perhaps it would make more sense to prioritise some necessary hardware upgrades instead. Thankfully, Sandisk's WD Blue's SN5100 NVMe SSD might be just what I'm looking for.
Available in a range of capacities, the 1 TB is worth spotlighting for its $80 (£64) price tag straight out of the gate; no discounts, no codes, the MSRP is simply $80 (£64). Sure, as a PCIe 4.0 drive, it's not the fastest SSD showing up to the races these days. Still, with an advertised sequential read performance of 7100 MB/s, it can definitely whip a minutes-long boot down to size. That's right up there for PCIe 4.0 speeds—reaching close to the maximum theoretical speed of the interface.
Once you've popped your OS of choice onto this drive, the 1 TB capacity would still leave some space left over for your most frequently played games (or, in my personal experience, way too many Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 screenshots). That said, Sandisk doesn't lead with the SN5100's gaming applications, instead touting that the aforementioned read speed as necessary to "accelerate your AI-enabled workflow."
However you feel about that proposed use case, I personally can't wait to get my hands on this SSD. And that's especially true after seeing Zak rave about the similarly affordable WD Black SN7100 1 TB 4.0 drive and the much, ahem, flashier WD Black SN8100 2 TB 5.0 SSD earlier this year.
The WD Blue SN5100 is cheaper than both of those options, while promising performance I'm looking forward to putting to the test in the future. Another question I'm looking forward to being answered is whether the WD Blue SN5100 NVMe SSD can dethrone any of the current top picks in our best SSD for gaming guide. The Biwin Black Opal NV7400 SSD is the reigning budget champion, offering 1 TB for $70 at Amazon. That's some stiff competition to beat, but the WD Blue may be a real contender especially come sales times.
1. Best overall:
WD_Black SN7100
2. Best budget:
Biwin Black Opal NV7400
3. Best PCIe 5.0:
WD_Black SN8100
4. Best budget PCIe 5.0:
Crucial P510
5. Best 4 TB:
TeamGroup MP44
6. Best 8 TB:
WD_Black SN850X
7. Best M.2 2230:
Lexar Play 2230
8. Best for PS5:
Silicon Power XS70
9. Best SATA:
Crucial MX500
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