Western Digital’s reportedly working on an ultra-fast WD_BLACK SN850X SSD

Western Digital’s fastest SSD might soon be upgraded

It looks like Western Digital is gearing up to create a new flagship SSD, an upgraded version of their already popular WD_BLACK SN850 drive. @KOMACHI_ENSAKA on Twitter has spotted Western Digital’s WD_BLACK SN850X SSD, and it could bring Western Digital to the top of the PCIe 4.0 SSD market. 

At this time, it is unknow what Western Digital has planned for its SN850X SSD. The drive’s addition of an X appears to signify some kind of performance uplift, though it remains to be seen whether or not the drive will feature faster NAND, a new SSD controller, or both. Either alteration could result in a faster SSD. 

With their SN750 SE SSD, Western Digital upgrade their fastest PCIe 3.0 SSD, the WD_BLACK SN750 to support PCIe 4.0. While the performance upgrade offered by this change was minimal, it does make us wonder if Western Digital is upgrading their fastest SSD with PCIe 5.0 support. We think this is unlikely given the number of Intel 12th Gens motherboards that lack PCIe 5.0 slots, though it is nonetheless a possibility.

Currently, our bet is that Western Digital has created an SSD using faster NAND or an updated PCIe 4.0 controller. Either could deliver a large enough performance boost to give the drive its X classification, making the SN850 a little bit faster than it was before. 

Corsair has already released a updated MP600 PRO SSD called the MP600 PRO XT, which featured an updated heatsink design and faster TLC NAND. Western Digital could easily do the same with their SN850X SSD. Corsair delivered a notable performance boost with their MP600 PRO XT, so there is little reason to believe that Western Digital can’t do the same. 

You can join the discussion on Western Digital’s WD_BLACK SN850X SSD on the OC3D Forums.