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

REAL WORLD FILE TRANSFER

We also wanted to see how performance was in a real-world use when transferring large files to the SSD. For this test, we are going to simply stress write performance by transferring over a 30GB folder of movies off of a 512GB Samsung 950 Pro to the test SSDs and time how long it takes. Once complete we can calculate the average speed.

Transferring 30GB of data to the WD Blue 3D SSD and SanDisk Ultra 3D went without a hitch. Both averaged 539MB/s, which is more than the rated spec of 530MB/s. So far, write speed degradation doesn’t seem to be apparent, but we will see how these SSDs do in HDTune’s write test after checking the power consumption.

POWER CONSUMPTION

For our power consumption testing, we have the drive connected to the system as a secondary drive. To record the wattage, we are now utilizing a Quarch Technology Programmable Power Module. It allows us to accurately measure power consumption over time and is flexible enough to allow us to test any SSD that comes our way.

Our power analysis may change as time goes on, but for now, we are looking at just a few metrics with the main goal of measuring our results against the manufacturer’s ratings. Because most consumer systems are at idle for about 80% of the time, idle power consumption is an important measure to look at when understanding the efficiency of a drive.

In the chart above we can see that SSDs are magnitudes more efficient than standard HDDs. WD rates the WD Blue 3D SSD’s idle at 52-60mW. At 0.053W (52mW) the WD Blue 3D SSD’s idle power consumption matches that rating as well as its predecessor.

POWER EFFICIENCY

Finally, we wanted to post up a graph of the power efficiency of the SSDs in comparison. We are looking at MB/s per Watt in this graph. The higher the result, the better.

In the chart above shows us that the WD Blue 3D SSD is very efficient. WD actually states that this new model is 25% more efficient. Looking at the results, it may not be the highest on the chart, but it is ahead of many other mainstream SSDs. We can see that its write efficiency has improved dramatically from its predecessor, just as WD states. The previous WD Blue 3D SSD only delivered 122MB/s per watt. The new 3D NAND model is capable of delivering 100MB/s more per watt! That’s an 81% increase in efficiency! Well done!