Retailers Begin Listing 4 TB WD Blue SSD
by Anton Shilov on April 29, 2019 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- SSDs
- Storage
- Western Digital
- 3D NAND
A number of Austrian retailers have recently begun to list Western Digital’s as-yet-unannounced WD Blue 4 TB SSD. The drive features a SATA 6 Gbps interface and performance you can expect from such storage devices, yet if you need 4 TB of NAND flash storage in a 2.5-inch/7-mm form-factor, the WD Blue 4 TB SSD is one of a handful of options.
Originally launched in mid-2017, the WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSDs are based on Marvell’s 88SS1074 controller as well as WD/SanDisk’s 64-layer 3D TLC NAND memory. When it comes to performance, the drives are rated for up to 560 MB/s sequential read speed and up to 532 MB/s sequential write speed (when pseudo-SLC cache is used), which is something that all advanced SATA SSDs offer these days. As for random reads and writes, we are looking at 95K IOPS and 84K IOPS, respectively, which is comparable to other mainstream SSDs with the same interface.
Initially available in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB configurations, the 4 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD (WDS400T2B0A) is now listed by multiple Austrian retailers, according to the Geizhals.at price search engine. The 4 TB drive is priced at €555 - €575, a high price, but consistent with the premium that top capacity SSDs normally carry.
Neither retailers nor Western Digital are disclosing when the WD Blue 4 TB SSD is set to become available (i.e., we do not know whether this is an EMEA-specific product or it will be available in other regions too), but stores typically don't list products until they're close to release. So we're expecting the drive to hit the market sooner rather than later.
While SSDs have made a great progress in terms of capacity in the recent years, 4 TB 2.5-inch/7mm consumer drives are still rare. For example, Samsung, the world’s largest supplier of SSDs, offers only two 4 TB SATA models in its entire consumer lineup: the Samsung 860 Evo 4 TB featuring TLC NAND and the Samsung 860 QVO 4 TB featuring QLC NAND memory. So the addition of a 4 TB consumer drive from WD expands the number of options considerably.
Related Reading:
- The Western Digital WD Blue SN500 SSD Review: Moving The Mainstream To NVMe
- One Design, Two Products: The SanDisk Ultra 3D (1TB) and WD Blue 3D (1TB) SSD Reviews, with BiCS 3D NAND
- WD Blue 3D NAND SATA & SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs Launched: 3D TLC NAND, SATA, Marvell
Sources: ComputerBase.de, Geizhals.at
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name99 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Samsung 4TB EVO sells at a 10% premium. $660That's more, but it's not what I would call "much" more or a "large" premium.
QVO is at a 19% premium, which I would consider in the "large" premium category. $550
No idea why the less desirable QVO gets a higher premium...
Not trying to make any point, just to give some numbers to the discussion. Reply
npz - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Using same seller and retailer, Newegg it's $149 vs $697, or 149 * 4 = $596 vs $697, or $100 diff so 17% more over the ratio of the 1TB. Replyname99 - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
To be fair, you can't blame Samsung for New Egg's charging extra!Amazon has the 860 EVO at $661.
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76... Reply
GTRagnarok - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
I would love to put one of these in my laptop at some point. Two 2TB M.2s + 4TB 2.5" for 8TB of solid state storage. That's the dream. Replys.yu - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Yeah why didn't this come sooner right ReplyHollyDOL - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Hopefully there won't be "WD Denies Existence of 4TB WD Blue SSD" article tommorow... ReplyPeachNCream - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
I haven't got a need for this much storage capacity yet, but it is nice to see its out there on the market. It would not be shocking to see a hefty markup on the price for capacity over drives in the 1-2TB range. Replymikato - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
You can't even get a 4TB spinning internal HDD from WD. They sell plenty of the My Passports with them inside, for quite a while now. On newegg, there is only one Seagate model available. I don't get it.And I probably have to mention for those unaware - the My Passports have USB on-board, so you can't use them out of the enclosure. Reply
name99 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Doesn't that just reflect the market? I would imagine the population that want- a 4TB internal drive AND
- prioritizes that 4TB as an HDD over a smaller SSD AND
- can't make use of an external drive of some sort for their extra capacity needs
is pretty damn small these days. Reply
svan1971 - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
"You can't even get a 4TB spinning internal HDD from WD" Really? pick a color....https://www.amazon.com/Red-4TB-NAS-Hard-Drive/dp/B...
https://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-4TB-Hard-Drive/dp/B...
https://www.amazon.com/Black-4TB-Performance-Hard-... Reply