Western Digital was able to give a full presentation of its new SSDs equipped with an “in-house” Gen5 controller. Up until now, Western Digital had continued to release Gen4 SSDs throughout 2024, while its competitors were multiplying the announcements and releases of Gen5 versions, announcing performances of up to 14.5 GB/s thanks to the use of the Phison E26 controller. Western therefore waited until it had its own solution with its Gen5 controller, which uses BiCS8 218-layer 3D TLC NAND technology and offers DRAM designs with up to 8 channels, rather than DRAM with up to 4 channels. According to the manufacturer, its SSDs offer up to 2TB of storage capacity with twice the performance and 55% greater efficiency than Gen4 SSDs.
Western Digital seems to have the solution to stand out in Gen5 SSDs
Importantly, Western Digital has also demonstrated its Gen5 SSDs on notebooks (mobile workstations), a first for the Gen5 segment in general, and a way for the company to claim technological mastery when most of its competitors are trying to control the excess heat release found on this generation.
Western Digital has thus segmented its new SSD range:
- The top-of-the-range Gen5 “Performance” SSDs are rated at 7 W power consumption and offer speeds of up to 15 GB/s and over 2 million random IOPS (read).
- Gen5 consumer SSDs are based on a DRAM-free design with 4 channels and rated speeds of up to 10.7 GB/s at a power consumption of 4.97 W.
- Mobile” Gen5 SSDs boast a significant improvement in efficiency, with gains of up to 90% over existing Gen4 drives. Speeds of up to 10.7 GB/s are expected, while maintaining low power consumption and a compact format for notebook PCs.
All this information is exciting, but let’s get back to reality: Western Digital is targeting an early 2025 market launch. Not exactly innocent timing, since that’s also when Samsung will be arriving with its own Gen5 solutions.
