WD Blue 3D SSD & SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD Review (1TB) – Twins That Rival the Best

TSSDR TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL

SSD testing at TSSDR differs slightly, depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise SSDs. For consumer SSDs, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide. To see the best performance possible, the CPU C states have been disabled, C1E support has been disabled, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST) has been disabled. Benchmarks for consumer testing are also benchmarks with a fresh drive so, not only can we verify that manufacturer specifications are in line but also, so the consumer can replicate our tests to confirm that they have an SSD that is top-notch. We even provide links to most of the benchmarks used in the report.

TSSDR 2017 Z170 Test System

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

This Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to those who jumped in specifically to help the cause. Key contributors to this build are our friends at ASRock for the motherboard and CPU and be quiet! for the PSU and cooling fans. Also, a big thank you to Thermaltake for the case and Kingston for the RAM. We have detailed all components in the table below and they are all linked should you wish to make a duplicate of our system as so many seem to do, or check out the price of any single component. As always, we appreciate your support in any purchase through our links!

PC CHASSIS: be quiet! DARK BASE 900
MOTHERBOARD: ASRock Z170 OC Formula
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K
CPU COOLER: Corsair H75
POWER SUPPLY: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000W
SYSTEM COOLING: be quiet! Silent Wings 2
MEMORY: Patriot Viper Elite Series DDR4
STORAGE: Samsung 950 Pro
OS STORAGE: Samsung 960 EVO
OS: Windows 10 Anniversary 64-bit
IRST DRIVER: 14.8.0.1042

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software in use for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of Crystal Disk Info, TRIMcheck, ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Mark, AS SSD, Anvil’s Storage Utilities, HDTune, and PCMark 8. We prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.

CRYSTAL DISK INFO VER. 6.8.2

Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.

WD

1TB WD Blue 3D SSD CDI

SanDisk

1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D CDI

While we can utilize the manufacturers provided software to view the SSD’s SMART data, we prefer to use Crystal Disk Info for our reviews. In Crystal Disk Info, we can see that there are some vendor-specific attributes, but we can view most of the important ones. There are total host reads and writes counters, a working temperature sensor, and CDI shows that DevSleep and TRIM are both supported. The firmware we are testing today is X61130WD for the WD Blue 3D SSD and X61110RL for the SanDisk Ultra 3D.

TRIMCHECK

We’ve covered TRIMcheck in the past. It is a great tool that easily lets us see if TRIM is actually functioning on an SSD volume in your system.

WD

1TB WD Blue 3D SSD TRIMCheck

SanDisk

1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D TRIMCheck

As can be seen in the screenshot above, TRIMcheck’s result is positive. TRIM is indeed working on both drives. Now, let’s move on to the benchmarks…

5 comments

  1. blank

    Great-With 3D reaching the market,perhaps the “race to the bottom” is over.
    And we can send planer TLC and ram-less drives off to silicon heaven.

    Pretty please, can we get a review of the 250 size.
    Thanks

  2. blank

    HOW will we know we are getting new stock rather than old slow stock?? is there a model number or suchlike? they are highly priced in the uk 90gbp for 250gb

  3. blank

    Shouldn’t they be called 3D SSDDD ?

  4. blank

    Is there compatibility for Dell Inspiron 14 3421?

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