Sandisk WD Blue SN5100: Why Gamers Should Care
SSD prices are pretty unpredictable right now, and the Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 lands right in the middle of this chaos. Thanks to rising NAND flash costs and general market turbulence, prices you see today might be very different in a few weeks. That makes it even more important to understand what this drive actually offers before you hit buy.
The SN5100 is the follow up to the WD Blue SN5000, a drive that honestly did not impress. The older model ran hot, underperformed, and relied on aging QLC NAND that did not deliver on its promises. The SN5100 fixes almost all of that and turns into a really interesting option for gamers who want fast storage without going all in on high end PCIe 5.0 SSDs.
On paper, Sandisk is not even pitching this drive at gamers. Officially it is aimed at creators who need big, affordable storage for 4K video, RAW photos, and heavy media workloads. But in actual tests, this drive performs so well in the areas that matter for gaming that it earns a serious spot on any PC builder's shortlist.
Specs, Tech Upgrades, And Performance
The SN5100 is a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD available in 2 TB capacity at around 130 dollars or 125 pounds at its original launch pricing, though current pricing may be higher. It uses the Sandisk Polaris 3 controller and Sandisk 218 layer BiCS8 3D QLC NAND, backed by a 600 TBW endurance rating and a five year warranty.
The big upgrade versus the SN5000 is that newer 218 layer BiCS8 QLC NAND. Compared with the older 162 layer BiCS6 QLC, Sandisk has stacked more layers vertically and improved lateral scaling, shrinking the cells that store data. The result is higher density, lower latency, better power efficiency, and much stronger performance. It is the same NAND tech and layer count used in the acclaimed WD Black SN8100, although that drive uses TLC instead of QLC.
Because of these density gains, Sandisk can fit up to 4 TB of storage in a single NAND package. The physical design stays simple: a single sided M.2 2280 form factor that fits easily into most gaming PCs, laptops, and even supported consoles, depending on the platform.
In real world testing, the SN5100 punches well above its supposed budget status. Sequential performance hits around 7.3 GB per second reads and 6.7 GB per second writes, which is right up against the limits of PCIe 4.0. In 3DMark's storage benchmark, it scores 3,915 with bandwidth of about 673 MB per second and latency around 59 microseconds. That puts it surprisingly close to some newer PCIe 5.0 SSDs and even ahead of some early gen 5.0 models.
Where things get really interesting for gamers is random 4K performance, because that is what influences how quickly games and levels load. The SN5100 manages roughly 107 MB per second random 4K reads and 308 MB per second random 4K writes. That read speed is the second highest the reviewer has seen, beaten only by the WD Black SN8100. No other PCIe 4.0 or even many PCIe 5.0 drives tested were able to top it in that specific metric.
Translated into gaming, this shows up as very competitive load times. In the Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers loading test, the SN5100 finishes in about 7.125 seconds, putting it on par with some of Crucial's best gaming SSDs. Thermal behavior is also solid, with peak temperatures around 61 degrees Celsius when attached to a typical passive motherboard heatsink.
SN5100 vs Alternatives And Who Should Buy It
The SN5100 was tested head to head with another QLC drive, the Teamgroup MP44Q. Across synthetic benchmarks, the Sandisk drive comes out ahead in most areas that matter for gaming and general responsiveness, especially random reads and 3DMark storage performance. It is essentially a semi budget drive that performs like a much more expensive model.
However there are some trade offs. Even though the sequential speeds are very good for PCIe 4.0, the SN5100 is still limited by the PCIe 4.0 interface. If you specifically want bleeding edge sequential performance for huge file transfers and you have a PCIe 5.0 capable platform, some gen 5.0 SSDs will pull ahead.
The other complication is price positioning. At its initial 130 dollar price for the 2 TB model, the SN5100 was an easy recommendation. Since then, the price has reportedly climbed by about 50 dollars, which changes the value calculation dramatically. Around this new price point, you can find the TLC based WD Black SN7100 2 TB for similar money.
That is important because TLC drives are usually better for sustained large file transfers once the pseudo SLC cache fills up. The SN7100 is naturally a stronger pick if you frequently move very big files, download massive games over gigabit or faster connections, or work with heavy media projects that write tons of data continuously.
In the benchmarks used for this review, the tested SN7100 model was only 1 TB, so its random 4K and game loading results lag behind the SN5100. But that is partly due to capacity differences and cache sizes, not the underlying flash type.
So who is the SN5100 actually for?
- If you mainly load and play games, run standard desktop apps, and want a responsive system, the SN5100 is excellent. Its random 4K read performance and gaming load times rival or beat many TLC and even some PCIe 5.0 drives.
- If you constantly move huge files or work with large ongoing writes, a similarly priced TLC drive like the SN7100 will likely serve you better over time.
- If the SN5100 drops closer to its original pricing, it becomes a fantastic value QLC drive that behaves more like a mid range TLC SSD for gaming.
The bottom line is that the Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 shows how far modern QLC SSDs have come. It still has the inherent limits of QLC when pushed with very heavy sustained writes, but for gaming and everyday PC use it performs at a level that would have been firmly high end not that long ago. Whether it is worth it depends heavily on the current market price and what competing TLC drives are going for when you are ready to upgrade.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ssds/sandisk-wd-blue-sn5100-nvme-ssd-review/
