Here’s a device that may appear boring to many, but it can significantly improve gaming and content creation experience. Called the WD_BLACK SN7100 NVMe SSD (from SanDisk), it comes in multiple storage options with up to a 4TB option. It’s not the most expensive SSD drive you can buy, but it’s not the cheapest either. Somewhere in the middle, it specialises in expanding the storage in laptops or gaming devices that allow NVMe connectors.
On the box, it says it will do up to 7000 MB/s, but it actually does up to 7250 MB/s read and up to 6900 MB/s write (1TB to 2TB options). Theoretically, it’s possible to achieve these speeds, but looking at it practically, one may not even look at such ridiculously high speeds.
The drive hits the read-write marks without a hitch. In practical use cases, you achieve a speed that will blow your mind out. Transferring something like 300GB across 1000 files took hardly any time. If you are transferring a single big file, you may not be looking at the most practical use case scenario. It took less than two minutes to transfer files from the MacBook Pro (M4) via the Thunderbolt 4 port. Even transferring some 6K Blackmagic RAW files came with zero glitches.
In terms of use case, the speed is more than what most people would require. If you are looking for something that would be efficient for a laptop or a gaming device, this is definitely an option worth looking at.
The SSD drive offers a massive improvement over the previous generation. With video and game files getting larger, you require high read-write speeds. A 30 per cent performance increase is quite an achievement.
If you are a video editor, you will have very little to complain about. Also, it’s easy to keep cool in a gaming laptop or gaming console, like the Asus ROG Ally X. You can keep playing on battery longer.
It also boasts up to 1,200TBW (4TB model) of endurance for gameplay streaming, speedrun captures, and creating with the latest game engines, and for gamers who often write and delete a lot of data from their drives.
The WD_BLACK SN7100 NVMe SSD comes in capacities including 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB.
Mathures Paul