Last year we spoke to WD representatives at the IFA fair and they told us that they weren’t in too much of a hurry as far as entering the SSD market is concerned. They also underlined that they have all the required technology to manufacture them, but that fact wasn’t enough to make them join the race that had just started. A little over a year ago, WD bought SiliconSystems, a famous SSD manufacturer. Their good standing as the leader of the hard disk market enabled them to expand to other market niches; by buying SiliconSystems, WD was able to provide industrial CF memory for servers and telecommunication equipment to companies such as Cisco and Ericsson. Although the device we’ve had tested first appeared on the market in the first quarter of 2010, the fact that only now we were able to review it speaks volumes about its availability on the market and the currently manufactured quantities. The model that we’ve received for testing is one of the three currently available with the WD SiliconEdge Blue marking. It’s an SSD with a capacity of 256 GB, with cheaper 128 GB and 64 GB version also available.
WD hasn’t dropped its traditional hard disk classification; we got the mainstream model from the Blue series, with Black and Green series undergoing preparations for the launch. As these are the first representatives and initial steps WD is making on this market, one should have several things in mind. WD is indeed a major player, but has opted for a secure approach this time around, with each move being thought through twice and very cautious, the consequences of which is a relatively high price of the Blue series, having in mind its limited availability. By presenting a high-capacity model of 256 GB, WD clearly states that they have all the required manufacturing technology and that they’re ready to take on any competitor in this market segment. It’s common knowledge that mass production yields lower prices, so the currently somewhat higher prices of these models are nothing particularly important to focus on.
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Let’s turn to the model at hand and the features it offers. This is a high-capacity SSD, targeting users with deeper pockets, so to speak; it will speed up the system considerably compared to any previously used standard hard disk, yet leaving enough space for any data you may have had on your system partition, regardless of specific tasks you are dealing with on an everyday basis.
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The casing that these disks arrive in is made of ground metal, with a noticeably dark texture. Besides outstanding firmness and resistance to physical damage, it’s also one of the better-looking drives we’ve encountered thus far. The controller logics carry the WD brand name, but careful examination told us that the controller itself was manufactured by JMicron. MLC chips were used exclusively, of course, and WD’s specs give a reading speed of 250 MB/s and a writing speed of 170 MB/s, which has been confirmed by our tests as well.
