Need to upgrade your PC storage but don’t have much budget? Western Digital’s new WD Blue SN580 might be just what you’re looking for, offering an affordable NVMe SSD with decent speeds.
An M.2 NVMe drive, the WD Blue SN580 is an easy way to add more capacity to your computer. Simply attach it to the corresponding slot on your PC’s motherboard and away you go.
It’s a PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD, so it won’t push the blazingly high speeds of newer Gen 5.0 technology, but that also means the cost is relatively low. With sequential read and write speeds of up to 4,150MB/s, the SN580 is still far quicker at data transfer than the older SATA-connected HDDs and SSDs. It’s also a reasonable upgrade from its predecessor, the SN570 (a PCIe 3.0 drive), which has peak sequential read and write speeds of 3,500MB/s.
Just don’t expect to upgrade your PlayStation 5 storage with it. PS5s need heatsink-equipped drives and read speeds of at least 5,500MB/s. If that’s what you’re after, the WD Black SN850 fits the bill capably.
If you just want an affordable storage upgrade for your PC, however, the WD Blue SN580 presents a totally viable option.
WD Blue SN580: a quick and easy SSD
Western Digital mentions that this SSD is the first of its ‘Blue’ products that not only uses PCIe 4.0 tech but also a technology called nCache 4.0. According to the storage brand, this helps with fast transfer speeds of large files such as videos and photos. As any creative professional will attest, storage fills up quickly, so speedy copying is a welcome feature indeed.
It’s also said to draw a relatively low amount of power, so you could upgrade your laptop’s storage with minimal impact on battery life. When looking closely at the spec sheet, it’s worth noting that the 1TB and 2TB models benefit from the fastest speeds. Meanwhile, the 250GB and 500GB contain 2,000MB/s and 3,600MB/s sequential write speeds respectively.
In other words, if you want the most responsive drive for moving large files, you’re better off investing in the larger storage sizes. On that note, the WD Blue SN580 starts at $74, making it nearly 30 cents per GB for the 250GB model. For comparison, the PS5-compatible WD Black SN850 works out to be 26 cents per GB at its full retail price of $269 for the 1TB model.
Of course, online retailers discount storage like there’s no tomorrow. At the time of writing, you can grab an imported 1TB WD Blue SN580 on Amazon for less than $100. 10 cents per GB is remarkable value – especially if you’re upgrading from an older and slower storage drive.
