Western Digital's 4TB SSD appears on some retail sites

[midian182]

Something to look forward to: If you’re finding storage space is becoming an increasingly precious resource, you may be interested to learn that several retailers are now listing Western Digital’s WD Blue 4TB SSD.

Western Digital still hasn’t announced a 4TB model joining its Blue SSD line, but Anandtech has spotted it listed on a number of Austrian retail sites. It’s priced at €555 to €575 (around $621 to $644), which is about what you can expect for an SSD with such a huge capacity.

Currently available in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB configurations, the Blue SSD line uses triple-level cell (TLC) 3D NAND flash memory from WD subsidiary SanDisk along with a Marvell 88SS1074 controller. They are rated for up to 560 MB/s sequential read speed and up to 532 MB/s sequential write speed.

The other drives in the Blue SSD series are available in both 2.5-inch and M.2 form factors, though the listing for the 4TB version appears to only show the former.

WD won’t be the first to launch SSDs in 4TB capacities. Samsung’s same-capacity 860 EVO, which also uses TLC memory, can be grabbed for $661 from Amazon, while the company’s 4TB QLC-based 860 QVO is $547 for the 4TB version.

There’s no word on when the WD Blue 4TB SSD will launch, but the listings' appearance suggest Western Digital will make an announcement soon. We still don’t know the precise US price, either, but if it’s close to the European figures, we can expect it to be around $0.15 per gigabyte

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https://www.techspot.com/news/79886-western-digitals-4tb-ssd-appears-retail-sites.html

 

[elementalSG]

When I bought an SSD for the first time in 2012, the Samsung 830 was $160 for 128GB ($1.25/GB). Now this WD Blue will cost just $621 for 4TB ($0.155/GB)? Really is unbelievable how prices drop as technology matures!

 

[LNCPapa]

I got my first SSD in June of 2011 - an Intel 320 Series 2.5" 600GB for $1200 ($2.00/GB). I have never felt regret for making that purchase but someone has to be the early adopter and I think this site has many of that type of user. I'm considering getting this 4TB or another brand for my secondary steam library drive since my current secondary drive (1 TB 850 Pro) always stays full.

 

[Uncle Al]

"around $621 to $644" Probably worth it but it will need to be half that amount before I'll take the plunge ....

 

[Lew Zealand]

Late last year I bought a 2TB Crucial for around $200 so this'll need to be around $400 before I bite. But frankly that 2TB SSD was already overkill so I'll just wait patiently for now.

Until they cut NAND production thanks to oversupply and the damn prices go up.

 

[Adhmuz]

July of 2010 I bought a Kingston V series 64GB SSDs at $190, I think that was the first SSD I purchased, as a boot drive and a couple game installs it was plenty back then, now with 4TB you have everything you'll ever need on a single point of failure. At least WD backs them with a 5 year warranty.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Samsung's 4TB QVO SSD is $549 (down from $1500) .

I personally think that if SSD storage is that big a deal to you, you should just buy 1TB at a time.

A 1TB SSD can be had under $150. They take up half the space of a regular HDD. You can buy two 1TB or one 2TB ($250) and gradually build your SSD storage up like I did.

I use a single M.2 as my OS drive. Then I started buying 1TB SSD every time they went on sale.

For people building a system on a budget, it's the best way to go.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

July of 2010 I bought a Kingston V series 64GB SSDs at $190, I think that was the first SSD I purchased, as a boot drive and a couple game installs it was plenty back then, now with 4TB you have everything you'll ever need on a single point of failure. At least WD backs them with a 5 year warranty.

Most downloaded data is stored on the cloud somewhere.

Nothing beats a single HDD as a backup which is why I encourage people to buy a NAS like WD My Cloud or any model with auto backup and 3 - 6TB of storage.

 

[LNCPapa]

This drive has a specific target - someone like me would find this very useful. I have different tiers of storage at home that span from 3 TB of NVMe storage across my machines, to a few TB of 2.5 SATA SSDs, to large 5400 rpm mechanical drives for low priority media, and finally to 128 TB of storage across my NAS and other arrays. It's definitely not for everyone but I'd love to get my hands on it - only thing stopping me is money. I have several games that I've never installed simply because I haven't been able to free up enough "fast" storage to get them installed. In fact, I think last I checked I've only ever installed 11% of the games I own on Steam - not to mention the other platforms that I don't like to use.

 

[Adhmuz]

Most downloaded data is stored on the cloud somewhere.

Nothing beats a single HDD as a backup which is why I encourage people to buy a NAS like WD My Cloud or any model with auto backup and 3 - 6TB of storage.

I'll stick to my two 12TB RAID 5s for now.

I have several games that I've never installed simply because I haven't been able to free up enough "fast" storage to get them installed. In fact, I think last I checked I've only ever installed 11% of the games I own on Steam - not to mention the other platforms that I don't like to use.

The real question is how many of the games you already have installed are you actually playing, could you not move some of those to one of your slower tiers of storage and free up space for a couple games you actually have interest in playing? Modern games aren't small but ~50GB is the norm for the larger ones, with a few stretching near the 100GB mark that I can think of. With 3TB of NVMe surely you can free up at least a couple hundred GBs, or put the games on regular slow SATA SSDs.

 

[LNCPapa]

My main machine has a 1 TB 960 Pro NVMe drive + 1 TB 850 Pro 2.5" SSD. The games I play most that show marked improvement from fast storage are on the 960. The ones that either don't show much improvement or I'd like to play one day soon are the entirety of the 850. Keep in mind that when I say "play most" I only mean about 3 hours a week. That's about all I get to play games these days so you'll see that most of my games are really not played. The problem is when I do get a few minutes to play and I feel the desire to play if it's not already installed then I probably won't have time to install, configure, and play. I tend to spend more time configuring than anything else.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/lncpapa/games/

 

[Draconian]

"...while Samsung's 4TB QLC-based 860 QVO is $547 for the 4TB version."

Anandtech said to avoid the 860 QVO due to reliability concerns.

 

[fktech]

SSD is the future of portable PCs. PC in your pocket. Call it a "smart" PC or smartphone, your choice.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

SSD is the future of portable PCs. PC in your pocket. Call it a "smart" PC or smartphone, your choice.

Well yeah: a CPU, RAM and SSD storage all on a chip can basically shrunk to any size. Add a bluetooth/ Wifi chip and you can make an entire computer the size of a flash drive - like we already have.

Essentially that's exactly what a Smartphone is. The only thing making them so large is the needs for the display (monitor).

 

[fktech]

Well yeah: a CPU, RAM and SSD storage all on a chip can basically shrunk to any size. Add a bluetooth/ Wifi chip and you can make an entire computer the size of a flash drive - like we already have.

Essentially that's exactly what a Smartphone is. The only thing making them so large is the needs for the display (monitor).

My comment was sarcasm.

 

[Danny101]

I've yet to break the terabyte barrier. Lol. Although everything I have are strewn across many drives on and from different systems. To aggregate all to one drive would certainly do that. If it works, I don't throw it away. I'm basically a computer hoarder and I do need to rid of the stuff. I'm getting to the point to where I want to reduce down to two systems. A 98/XP system for classic games and DVD watching, and then a 10 64-bit/7 32-bit system for modern games and BluRay watching. Maybe a 3rd one with DOS/ Win 3.1 so the kids can see how far we've come.

 

[DAOWAce]

I personally think that if SSD storage is that big a deal to you, you should just buy 1TB at a time.

As someone who currently owns 7 SSDs, I strongly recommend AGAINST this.

Your motherboard only has so many ports. Your case only has so many mounting spots. Want to use M.2 ports? You have to cut off access to dedicated SATA ports (YMMV).

Programs and media are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. 1TB now may seem like a lot, but it's paltry a few years later, if not days. Install some modern games and development kits on it and oh, out of space.

I have next to no space left and have been looking to replace my SSDs with higher capacity ones.. and of course in doing so I'll be tossing out hardware I paid a lot for, because I have no way to continue using it even though they're perfectly functional. Ergo, I'm spending the same or more money than if I just paid for higher capacity in the first place, for a bigger hassle.

Sure I could maybe throw them in some JBOD NAS setup, but again, that's way more money and more hardware running, costing more electricity and outputting more heat (and noise) in a room that already gets hot enough with poor AC.

It's just not viable.

Put the money forward for bigger capacity upfront. You'll save yourself hassle now and down the road. This applies to more than just SSD's too.