The WD_Black SN8100 is a PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe M.2 2280 solid-state storage drive designed for gaming PCs. Western Digital boast a rather breathtaking top read speed of 14,900 MB/s. We were sent the 2TB version of the drive for testing.

We have come so far in such a short space of time. The WD_Black SN8100 M.2 2280 SSD is available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities and with or without a heatsink. These drives offer some of the fastest available consumer PC storage speeds in a component no bigger than a stick of chewing gum.

With most modern motherboards designed to accommodate three or more NVMe M.2 drives, the days of mechanical hard disk drives are largely over. With some games requiring a solid-state storage drive to run, it’s time for gamers to ditch hard drives altogether.

In addition to significantly faster speeds compared to traditional hard disk drives, NVMe M.2 SSDs are easy to install. There are no more cables and no more trying to find a suitable place to mount a massive box. M.2 drives are mounted flush with the motherboard, clipping in place. They run quite hot, so they need to be used with a heatsink. Most motherboards have integrated heatsinks covering the PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot; if not, you’ll need an SSD with a factory-fitted heatsink.

The WD_Black SN8100 is the perfect complement to your modern CPU and motherboard for your gaming PC. But to get the most out of a PCIe 5.0 x4 drive, you need compatible hardware. Whilst it is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 and 4.0, you’ll not get anywhere near the SSD’s maximum speed.

Regarding that maximum speed, it is a theoretical maximum, and several factors affect the practical drive speeds you’ll get in your machine, most of which are beyond your control. The stated 14,900 MB/s is derived from the PCIe 5.0 lane speed of about 4GB/s, with four lanes offering a theoretical maximum of 16 GB/s. This is compared with the PCIe 4.0 x4 speed of 8GB/s. And, of course, the faster the potential speed, the more potential bottlenecks in your system.

I tested the WD_Black SN8100 with an Asus TUF Gaming Z890 Pro WIFI and an MSI MEG Z890 Unify-X motherboard, both running an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor. Both motherboards had integrated heatsinks. The maximum speeds achieved were 12209.89 MB/s read, and 13302.10 MB/s write. The results were nigh on identical for both motherboards. The results are peculiar, as the read speed is usually the fastest. Hence, the reason I tested the SSD on two motherboards.

These results are pretty impressive. Compared to the PCIe 4.0 x4 WD_Black SN580X SSD I tested recently, with a maximum read speed of 6838MB/s and a maximum write speed of 6689MB/s, the WD_Black SN8100 is an order of magnitude faster. Considering my last regular HDD has a max speed of 130 MB/s, the WD_Black PCIe 5.0 x4 drive is next level. The PerformanceTest Disk Mark score placed the SN8100 in the top 99% of all drives tested.

Do these ridiculous speeds matter, though? Well, yes and no. Your operating system and applications will start up quicker and stream data faster from a WD_Black SN8100 than a PCIe 4.0 drive. You may not notice it, though. Games, as well, will benefit from the faster data transfer speeds, but by how much? Well, something like Assassin’s Creed Shadows may load 10 or so seconds faster. Do you NEED it? Probably not. But the same could be said for any number of components in your rig. But, if you’ve got a PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 socket in your top-end motherboard, I’d forgive you for wanting to fill it with one of the fastest SDDs you can get, such as the WD_Black SN8100.

The 2TB WD_Black SN8100 is a PCIe Gen 5 SSD that delivers blisteringly fast data transfer speeds. If you have the pre-requisite specs, and only the best will do, this SSD deserves consideration.