It is worth pointing out that these are typically larger files than what most people would actually use in a daily task but either way, there was little to no difference, with the odd one-second deviation.

These files are slightly larger than what you may typically be loading but the results still show little difference. The test data consisted of a 3MB spreadsheet, a 10MB word doc, and a 20MB image. To test application load times, we used LibreOffice Calc, Libre Writer, and Gimp. While conducting these tests we wanted to pay attention to the differences between larger and smaller drives, pointing out what we already knew, SSDs with higher capacity are generally faster. While conducting these tests, the time was taken from the point of clicking “install” (when it actually starts) and concludes when the window changes, showing the “finish” button. Application Installationĭiving a little deeper into what the SN550 can do, we measured the amount of time it takes for the drive to install non-gaming applications. We set out to test this for more than just gaming, looking at how long different applications take to install and open, measuring our results in seconds. To test the performance, we put the WD Blue SN550 through a number of different scenarios, comparing it to the faster WD Black SN750 and the Samsung 860 QVO SSD. This SSD features as no-frills design, not quite as subtle as the Black version, but still fairly aesthetically pleasing with a bright royal blue color and black middle. This particular model features WD architecture with sequential read and write speeds of 2,400MB/S and 1,750MB/s respectively. Fast M.2 drives such as this one are perfect for gaming, with extremely fast loading times, giving you more time to game instead of staring at loading screens! NVMe SSDs can also tackle large data transfers such as video content more effectively, quickening the process. NVMe type SSDs are capable of read and write speeds at over 3GB/s, leaving SATA connected devices in the dust with their limited speeds of around 550MB/s. Rather than using a SATA connection, the WD Blue SN550 uses four PCIe lanes, giving it eight times more bandwidth to utilize.

This type of SSD will pop into your motherboards M.2 slot as long as it can accommodate the 2280 form factor. The WD Blue SN550 drive is an NVMe (non-volatile memory express) SSD.

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