The WD Blue SN5100 comes in four capacities, ranging from 500GB to 4TB. Its pricing, based on both list and retail costs, is in the upper tier for a QLC-based and/or DRAM-free PCIe 4.0 SSD. Still, it’s not exorbitant, especially given its performance (as we’ll see shortly).
Solid-state drives based on QLC NAND flash memory tend to be less durable for heavy write activity than either TLC or MLC models. You can see that in their lower terabytes written (TBW) ratings, a manufacturer’s estimate of how much data can be written to a drive before some cells begin to fail and get taken out of service. That said, the SN5100’s durability is good for a QLC stick, better than many of its peers. For example, the Sabrent Rocket Q4 is rated at 200TBW for its 1TB model, 400TBW for 2TB, and 800TBW for 4TB. The Crucial P310 is pegged at 220TBW for 1TB and 440TBW for 2TB, while the Corsair MP600 Core XT comes with a rating of 250TBW for 1TB, 450TBW for 2TB, and 900TBW for 4TB.
Still, once you get above 1TB, the SN5100’s durability is low compared with drives using TLC NAND; at 2TB, many TLC sticks have TBW ratings of around 1,200. Durability ratings for some elite TLC drives are even higher. The ADATA Legend 850, for instance, is rated at 1,000TBW (1TB) and 2,000TBW (2TB), and TeamGroup’s TLC-based MP44 comes in at 1,450TBW for 1TB, 2,500TBW for 2TB, 3,000TBW for 4TB, and 6,000TBW for its 8TB stick.
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Sandisk provides users with warranty coverage for five years, or until you hit the rated TBW figure in data writes, whichever comes first. But unless you are writing very large amounts of data to the SN5100, it is unlikely to fail during its warranty period.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The SN5100 comes with a free download of Acronis True Image backup and migration software. You can also download the Sandisk Dashboard utility, which allows you to monitor the health of your drive and update the firmware. For data security, the SN5100 supports the TCG Pyrite 2.01 specification for drive access control and some other functions, but it does not provide hardware-based drive encryption.