Western Digital stealthily introduced a spacious 8 TB variant of its performance WD Black SN850X M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSD. The drive debuted in 2022 and had topped off at 4 TB. The new 8 TB variant is priced at $849 for the bare drive (without heatsink, model number WDS800T2X0E), and $899 with the PS5-friendly heatsink (model: WDS800T2XHE). The drive combines an in-house controller by Western Digital, with KIOXIA-sourced 3D TLC NAND flash. We’re not sure if it’s using the same 112-layer BiCS5 that the 4 TB variant does.
Western Digital claims performance figures of up to 7200 MB/s sequential reads, up to 6600 MB/s sequential writes, and up to 1.2 million IOPS 4K random reads/writes. The read speed is a touch lesser than the 7300 MB/s max sequential reads of the 4 TB variant. The write endurance of the 8 TB variant is rated at an impressive 4,800 TBW. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor the drive takes advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 interface. Western Digital is backing these drives with 5-year warranties.