Western Digital has expanded its Red series of NAS-oriented products with the introduction of the WD Red SN700 M.2 NVMe SSDs. The drives may not compete with the best SSDs on the market, but they’ll make any NAS owner happy.
Many modern NAS systems now arrive with NVMe bays for consumers to slap a nice M.2 SSD inside them as a caching drive. There are already NAS-specific M.2 drives on the market, such as Seagate’s IronWolf 510 or Synology’s SNV3000 SSDs so Western Digital does have some strong competition in the segment.
The WD Red SN700 comes in a standard M.2-2280 form factor with a double-sided design for the 4TB model and single-sided design for the other capacities. The SSD features the NVMe 1.3 protocol and resides on a standard PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. Information on the WD Red SN700 is still short, but we suspect that the SSD leverages a SanDisk SSD controller and 3D TLC NAND chips. We’ve reached out to Western Digital for more details. There’s probably onboard DRAM as well, although we’re waiting for confirmation.
The performance figures for the WD Red SN700 fall in line with what you expect for a PCIe 3.0 drive. In fact, the WD Red SN700’s performance is very close to the WD Black SN750 – at least on paper.
WD Red SN700 Specifications
| Model Number | Capacity | Sequential Read (MBps) | Sequential Write (MBps) | Random Read (IOPS) | Random Write (IOPS) | Endurance (TBW) | Warranty | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WDS400T1R0C | 4TB | 3,400 | 3,100 | 550,000 | 520,000 | 5,100 | 5 Years | $650 |
| WDS200T1R0C | 2TB | 3,400 | 2,900 | 480,000 | 540,000 | 2,500 | 5 Years | $290 |
| WDS100T1R0C | 1TB | 3,430 | 3,000 | 515,000 | 560,000 | 2,000 | 5 Years | $145 |
| WDS500G1R0C | 500GB | 3,430 | 2,600 | 420,000 | 380,000 | 1,000 | 5 Years | $80 |
| WDS250G1R0C | 250GB | 3,100 | 1,600 | 220,000 | 180,000 | 500 | 5 Years | $65 |
The WD Red SN700 delivers sequential read and write speeds up to 3,430 MBps and 3,100 MBps, respectively. Western Digital rates the WD Red SN700’s random performance for up to 550,000 IOPS reads and 560,000 IOPS writes. Obviously, the performance on the WD Red SN700 is dependant on the capacity that you choose.
Western Digital backs the WD Red SN700 with a limited five-year warranty across all capacities. The SSD is optimized for 24/7 NAS workloads and always-on applications. The 4TB model has the highest endurance out of the lot with a rating og 5,100 TBW. The 2TB and 1TB variants are good for 2,500 TBW and 2,000 TBW, respectively. The lower capacity drives, such as the 500GB and 250GB models end up with 1,000 TBW and 500 TBW, respectively.
Being a high-endurance drive, the WD Red SN700 is pricey. The 250GB, 500TB and 1TB models cost $65, $80 and $145, respectively. The 2TB and 4TB models, on the other hand, will set you back $290 and $650, respectively.
