Western Digital is a famous company for their Hard drives and other storage devices. Already SSD’s started replacing the old HDD as a default primary drive in major PCs. To make their presence strong in the field of SSD, the company has launched its new Blue Series SSD’s a few months back. WD Blue Series is available in 3 different storage variants 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB.
The Past is Hard Disk Drive[HDD], Present is Solid State Drive [SSD] and we are waiting for the future soon.
I have tested the 250GB SSD variant for the past 1 month and here is my detailed review about the same.
Overview:
WD Blue SSD Series comes in two form factors, one is 2.5 inch/7 mm cased variant and the other one is M.2 2280. The 2.5 inch/7mm case variant is the widely selling product and available in a maximum number of countries, whereas the M.2 2280 variant of the SSD is available in few regions only.
I have used the 250GB 2.5 inch/7 mm cased variant and the drive is light weight and slim according to its specifications. On the top of the drive, we have WD Blue logo with the storage size specified. The dimension of the 2.5 inch/7 mm cased variant is 7 mm x 69.85 mm x 100.5 mm and the dimension of M.2 2280 variant is 2.38 mm x 22 mm x 80 mm. Check out the detailed specification in the below specifications chart.
WD Blue SSD Technical Specifications:
Pictures of WD Blue SSD:
Performance:
WD Blue Series SSD is based on the SanDisk’s X400 drive, and it keeps the SanDisk’s 3-bit per cell 15nm NAND in line with a two-tier hard and soft decision approach to error correction along with a Marvell 88SS1074 “Dean” 4-channel controller that supports low-density parity check (LDPC) error correction code and Micron DRAM. The endurance rating is also higher where you can able write up to 100 TB data on the 250GB variant in its lifetime. Similarly, you can write up to 200 TB on 500GB variant and 400TB on the 1TB variant. The endurance rating is higher than SanDisk’s X400. If you are unaware Sandisk is also owned by Western Digital.
I have tested the device and benchmark tests with the help of Crystal disk software. The sequential write and read speeds are up to the level as specified. WD Blue Series delivers the sequential write speed up to 525 MB per second and read speed up to 545 MB per second as specified by the company. In 4K the speeds are reduced to 40 MB per second on reading and 115 MB per second on write.
The overall performance of the drive looks stable and efficient.
WD SSD Dashboard Software:
WD SSD Dashboard Software is a nice application offered by the WD team for their SSD’s. The software helps to take complete control, performance results and more on your SSD. The dashboard is designed in a user-friendly manner, where anyone can access the options directly.
If you have an SSD, download the software from the official website and install it on your PC. The installation takes less than 5 minutes. Once installed open the application and it will detect your SSD and starts displaying the complete information about your SSD.
The dashboard displays all the information like Device Model, Serial Number, Firmware Version, Drive Health, Capacity, Temperature, Speed, Life, Performance Results, Firmware Update option, Drive Details, System Details, Erase Drive Option and more.
In addition to above, the company also provides Acronis True Image WD Edition software to clone drives.
Warranty:
Every WD Blue SSD comes with a 3-year limited warranty.
Price and Buy Link:
You can buy the WD Blue SSD in many countries, check out the partners in your country here.
WD Blue 250GB SSD has priced approximately at Rs.8000 in India, whereas the 500GB variant is priced at Rs. 11500 approximately and the 1TB variant is priced at Rs.27000 approximately.
Pros:
- Light Weight and Compact in Size
- Performance
- Dashboard tool to monitor the drive performance
- Comes in different memory variants
Cons:
- Over Priced
Final Verdict:
The overall performance of the drive is promising, the sequential write/read speeds are good and up to the level, but still the read and write speed lowers in terms of 4K. Also, the drive is little over priced when compared to the competitors. But, if you are looking for something similar to x400, then go WD Blue series which is similar and with more boosting performance.
