WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Review: Performance Fused With Style

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Western Digital is one of the leading brands when it comes to modern-day storage solutions. The company makes various types of storage solutions, including pen drives, internal and external storage devices. One of the well-known gaming-centric storage product lines from WD is the WD Black. Under this series, the company has launched top-of-the-line internal SSDs with best-in-class read and write speed, which improves with game loading time.

 

Rating:
4.5/5

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Review: Performance Fused With Style

The company recently launched the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD based on PCIe Gen3 technology, offering the best possible read and write speed when compared to any PCIe Gen3 NVMe SSD in the market. In fact, the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD claims to offer read and write speed, which is similar to the PCIe Gen4 SSDs.

Intro

We have been testing the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD on our gaming rig, and here is the full review of the latest SSD in the market that is tailormade for the gaming PC setup. Do note that the WD Black AN1500 is available in three configurations with 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB storage with a starting price of Rs. 30,990.

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Specifications

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Specifications

  • Capacity -- 1 TB
  • Antarmuka -- PCIe
  • Dimensions (L x W x H) -- 176mm x 72mm x 13mm
  • Sequential Read Performance -- 6500MB/s
  • Sequential Write Performance -- 4100MB/s
  • Warranty5 -- Year Limited Warranty
WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Design: Premium And Practical
 

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Design: Premium And Practical

The WD Black AN1500 NVMe is a PCIe express SSD that directly plugs into the motherboard like a graphics card. However, unlike a graphics card - the WD Black AN1500 NVMe does not need any additional power. However, make sure that your motherboard has an additional PCIe express slot to accommodate the WD Black AN1500 NVMe.

The overall design gives the SSD a rugged look, and the black paint job with the white letters is also reminiscent of the WD Black series of products. There is a large RGB LED strip on the front, which helps to further enhance the looks of your gaming PC.

The WD Black AN1500 NVMe is also called an add-in card that supports hot-swap. So, this is a plug-and-play drive, making it easy to install on any Windows 10 PC. The body of the SSD also acts as a passive cooler, which helps the drive to sustain the performance.

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Secret

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Secret

The WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD consists of two PCIe 3.0 SSDs. If you buy the 1TB version of WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD, then it will have two 512GB SSDs. Similarly, if you buy either 2/4TB WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD, then they will have two 1TB or 2TB SSDs internally.

These two SSDs are paired using an enterprise-grade RAID controller using the RAID 0 setup. Hence, they work in tandem with one another to offer higher read and write speed by combining the bandwidth of the two drives. This means, you can copy a single 1TB file onto this drive, and the information will be stored as a single file even though the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD is made using two 521GB drives.

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Benchmark

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Benchmark

WD claims that the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD can reach up to 6500MB/s read and 4100MB/s write speeds on CrystalDiskMark, the numbers we obtained from our PC were slightly lower.

On CrystalDiskMark, we got a peak read speed of 3285MB/s, and a peak write speed of 3236 MB/s. Again, these numbers depend on a lot of parameters like the motherboard, CPU, and the PCIe express slot we used. Though we were not able to achieve the numbers claimed by the company, the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD is definitely one of the fastest PCIe Gen 3 SSDs that we have tested so far.

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Real World Test

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Real World Test

While copying a file from an external SSD, we got a peak write speed of 368MB/s. Similarly, while copying a file from an internal PCIe Gen 3 M.2 SSD to the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD the average write speed was 1.9GB/s, again, making the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD one of the fastest PCIe Gen 3 SSD storage solution. We were able to copy a 30GB game installation file to the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD in less than 25 seconds.

As the game files continue to get bigger and bigger, having the read and write speed of this class will reduce the game loading time. Not just that, it will also help the content creators, who might work with high-resolution video files. We were able to open games like GTA: V and the Shadow Of The Tomb Raider in less than 15 seconds.

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Verdict

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD Verdict

The WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD is a cutting-edge storage solution for gamers and content creators who want nothing but the absolute best. However, it is also on the pricier side. One can easily get a PCIe Gen 3 SSD for less than half the price of the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD, but they will not offer the kind of performance that WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD delivers.

Overall, the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD takes computer storage performance to the next level. If you are building a gaming rig with a flagship CPU and GPU, then the WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD definitely deserves a place in that build.

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