Budget
Reviewers split on this one. PCWorld praised the price-to-performance ratio, Trusted Reviews found it underwhelming next to similarly priced competitors. The DRAM-less design handles everyday use fine but slows noticeably on very large sustained transfers.
Western Digital 2TB WD Blue SN580 NVMe SSD
Reviewed by Chue Len, Lead Editorial
Updated August 23, 2026
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Specifications
Chue Len
Oversees all editorial content on the site, keeping coverage accurate, timely, and on-brand.
Been mapping out Vice City since the first trailer dropped, still finds something new on every pass through the map.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- PCWorld called it "game-changing" on price when it launched, and it still undercuts most Gen4 competitors by a wide margin per terabyte
- 900 TBW endurance on the 2TB model is solid for a DRAM-less drive at this price
- Single-sided design fits laptops and tight motherboards without compatibility issues
- nCache 4.0's burst performance means most everyday transfers finish before you'd ever notice the lack of DRAM
Cons
- Trusted Reviews was notably unimpressed, calling it disappointing against similarly priced Crucial and Adata competitors in real-world use
- No DRAM cache means performance drops sharply once you exceed the SLC cache, PCWorld's own testing showed it fall to around 500MB/s on a sustained 450GB transfer
- ServeTheHome flagged the endurance math directly, doubling capacity from 1TB to 2TB only adds 50% more rated endurance instead of scaling evenly
- Tom's Hardware summed it up bluntly as "more of the same," an incremental update over the SN570 rather than a real leap
How We Tested It
We haven't run our own benchmarks on this drive. Findings above are drawn from PCWorld's sustained-write testing, ServeTheHome's endurance analysis, and Trusted Reviews' comparative testing against similarly priced competitors. If your team tests this drive, worth adding: actual game load times compared to a SATA SSD, and how it performs on a specific sustained transfer size relevant to your own workflow, since that's exactly where independent reviewers disagreed most.
Who It's For
Budget-conscious upgraders moving off SATA or an older NVMe drive, especially in a laptop where the single-sided design and low power draw matter. PCGamesN's testing found it holds its own in everyday random-access tasks even if peak sequential numbers trail faster drives. Skip it if you regularly move very large files in one sitting, PCWorld's own sustained-write test showed the cache running dry partway through a 450GB transfer. If your budget stretches another $20 to $30, several reviewers note a faster Gen4 drive is a better use of that money.
Our Verdict
Reviewers don't fully agree on this drive, and that's worth being upfront about. PCWorld and PCGamesN both called it a legitimately good value pick for budget builds and laptop upgrades. Trusted Reviews took the opposite view, finding it underwhelming next to similarly priced competitors in real-world performance. Tom's Hardware split the difference, an honest, competent drive that isn't reinventing anything. What's consistent across all of them is the core trade-off, the DRAM-less design keeps the price down and works fine for typical use, but sustained heavy transfers will expose the cache limit. For a laptop upgrade or a budget desktop build where most of what you do is normal file access, not sustained 100GB+ transfers, this remains a reasonable pick.