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WD Black SN7100 1 TB review. It's absolutely wild just how fast NAND prices have fallen over these last few years. It's one of the few areas in the PC gaming space where the tech development and cost seem to be continually improving year-on-year. Yet, Interestingly, it's the PCIe 4.0 arena that's getting the most love and attention, despite 5.0 SSDs leading the way in terms of sequential performance. In fact, arguably, some of the best SSDs for gaming right now are 4.0 drives. They're cheaper, cooler, and perform just as well as their high-speed sequential counterparts. PreorderGames Discover more Read Daily News Try New Games Western Digital's latest WD Black SN7100 is a fine example of that exact ethos. It is, on the surface, a simple enough drive. It's PCIe 4.0, it has Kioxia 218-layer BiCS8 TLC NAND, and the company's Sandisk Polaris 3 A101 controller (the same found in the WD Blue SN5000 I reviewed late last year). Following on with modern trends, WD's also dropped the dedicated DRAM cache (honestly, you really don't need it anymore) and gone for a single-sided drive design, making it far more compatible with the likes of laptops, motherboards, consoles, and smaller form factor systems. Nothing new here then, just a well-known manufacturer quietly releasing a solid storage solution that's following market trends. Well, not quite, and the confusion lies in how this thing is positioned in WD's arsenal. The SN7100 is available from 500 GB all the way up to 2 TB configurations, all of which are heatsinkless. There are some mutterings of a 4 TB config, but it's not available just yet. They're aggressively priced too, ranging from $60 to $140. The problem, however, arises when you look at the wider product stack from WD, namely the SN850X line. WD Black SN7100 specs Capacity: 1 TB Interface: PCIe 4.0 x4 Memory controller: Sandisk Polaris 3 A101-000172-A1 Flash memory: Kioxia 218-Layer BiCS8 TLC NAND Rated performance: 7,250 MB/s sustained read, 6,900 MB/s sustained write Endurance: 600 TBW Warranty: Five years Price: $85 | £74 Now admittedly, there are some major differences here. The SN850X starts at 1 TB capacities, and goes all the way up to 8 TB (with the 8 TB SN850X being a different design with denser 162-layer BiCS6 TLC NAND compared to the first gen), but the thing is, pricing for the non-heatsinked versions are pretty much identical. That's a big problem too, because the performance differences between them are, well, fairly negligible. These are two wildly different SSDs as well. The SN850X isn't a single-sided design; it has far less-dense TLC NAND, comes with a DRAM cache, and a Triton MP16+ B2 controller to take advantage of that. It's also three years old, in its non-8 TB form. So Arcader has got two SSDs, from the same company, that, on the surface, are available at similar capacities, at identical prices, that perform almost exactly the same, bar some outlying test results here and there. But a time gap of three years. Right. Before I get onto why that is, let's go over the performance figures. The great news is that the SN7100 seriously shines and that Kioxia 218-layer isn't holding back. Particularly in productivity work. In my testing, it delivered some top-tier numbers in CrystalDiskMark, landing an average score of 7,116 MB/s on the read and 6,820 MB/s on the write. For contrast, the SN850X (admittedly its 8TB variant) scored 7,100 MB/s and 6,590 MB/s on the write, only slightly behind there. Discover more Video Games Random 4K performance for the SN7100 was a bit of an intriguing one too. It absolutely demolished every drive I've tested on the read front, scoring an insane 101 MB/s. For context, the second fastest drive I've had on test, Crucial's PCIe 5.0 2 TB T700, only managed 81 MB/s there. It does, however, fall quite short on the write portion of that benchmark, landing just 276 MB/s. With even the SN850X beating it by a healthy margin of 22 MB/s too. PC Gamer test bench CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | RAM: 64 GB (2x32GB) Team Group T-Create Expert DDR5 @ 6000 C34 | GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super | Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi | CPU Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | PSU: 1200W NZXT C1200 (2024) 80+ Gold | Chassis: Geometric Future Model 5 You're after top-tier gaming performance: With high random 4K read speeds and a cool design, the SN7100 does double duty as brilliant for both consoles and gaming PCs a like. Don't buy if... You have an SN850X already: Aside from some efficiency improvements and improvements on random 4K reads, you're not likely going to see any major benefit shifting away from an already solid PCIe 4.0 SSD. Similarly, scores across 3DMark's Storage test produced respectable numbers as well. Although again closely tied with the SN850X. Final Fantasy also landed in a smooth 7.841 seconds, making it faster than Samsung's 990 Evo Plus, but barely. It does also seem that those games do prefer to have access to DRAM cache to load those scenarios, although the likelihood of actually noticing the difference between 7.8 and 7.3 second total load times over five separate scenes in real life is admittedly slim. The big win was on temps. Under my Asus ROG Strix X870E-E motherboard's heatsink, the SN7100 topped out at an impressively low 48 C throughout the benchmark run. That's again one of the best temperatures I've seen for some time, with the only drive that arguably tops it, in terms of "wow, that's impressive," being Corsair's MP700 Elite PCIe 5.0 SSD, with its staggering 55 C (although interestingly they both use the same Kioxia 218-layer TLC NAND). So then, given the SN850X exists and has done for three years, why on earth release the SN7100? Aside from the single-sided design. Well, admittedly, this is purely speculation on my part, but I'd wager it's all to do with cost. But not for the consumer. By removing the DDR4 DRAM cache, simplifying the design so its single-sided, and using denser NAND (that allows you to reduce the number of chiplets on the SSD itself), WD effectively makes this drive far cheaper to manufacture from a purely business perspective. That is fair enough; that's how tech advances. But what annoys me about that is the fact it isn't cheaper for the consumer. As mentioned, the SN7100 is the same cost as that aging SN850X, when in reality it should be cheaper. Not by a lot admittedly, but by something at the very least, and it's not. It's likely the SN850X is no longer in production at this point, and that warehouse stock is all that's left. With it slowly being phased out in favor of the SN7100, and that moniker reserved for an upcoming PCIe 5.0 or 6.0 drive. But, still, it would have been nice to see a price drop. Look, the SN7100 delivers on two critical, key areas. Random read performance (a signature metric Arcader use for determining game load times) and temperature, which in a world of toasty, power hungry, RTX 5090s, and super hot CPUs is no bad thing. If you're looking for a solid and dependable PCIe 4.0 SSD that won't break the bank, the SN7100 is a fine place to start.

Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) shares down 9.9% - what's next? Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI - Get Free Report)'s stock price traded down 9.9% on Friday. The stock traded as low as $31.43 and last traded at $31.63. Approximately 43,501,088 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 0% from the average session volume of 43,588,617 shares. The stock had previously closed at $35.09. Key Super Micro Computer news. Here are the key news stories impacting Super Micro Computer this week: * New CFO could improve financial oversight: Super Micro appointed Mark Long, a former Western Digital finance executive, as senior vice president and chief financial officer. The change may eventually strengthen accounting leadership and investor confidence after an extended search. * Rosenblatt reaffirmed its Buy rating: The firm maintained a $51 price target, implying substantial upside from recent trading levels and signaling that some analysts view the selloff as excessive. * Low valuation offers potential support but reflects risk: Super Micro trades at roughly 9.8 times earnings, well below the broader market multiple. Investors must determine whether that discount represents a bargain for a fast-growing AI server company or appropriately prices in concerns about cash generation and governance. * CFO transition revived governance concerns: David Weigand's departure came nearly two years after an advisory committee reportedly recommended replacing him. The lengthy delay in appointing a permanent finance chief has raised questions about accounting leadership and management credibility. * AI hardware stocks faced renewed sector pressure: Concerns about how companies and customers will finance the AI infrastructure boom, along with uncertainty over the timing of enterprise spending, pushed Super Micro, Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise lower. This suggests the weakness is also driven by sector-wide risk aversion rather than company-specific news alone. Analysts set new price targets. Several brokerages recently issued reports on SMCI. Wedbush upped their price objective on shares of Super Micro Computer from $34.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 12th. Weiss Ratings reissued a "hold (c)" rating on shares of Super Micro Computer in a research note on Monday, September 21st. Sanford C. Bernstein set a $42.00 target price on shares of Super Micro Computer in a research note on Thursday, August 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a "sell" rating and set a $34.00 target price (up from $30.00) on shares of Super Micro Computer in a report on Wednesday, August 12th. Finally, Barclays set a $39.00 price target on Super Micro Computer and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Super Micro Computer has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $43.07. Super Micro Computer stock performance. The stock has a market cap of $20.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.88, a PEG ratio of 0.69 and a beta of 2.02. The firm's 50-day moving average price is $38.83 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $33.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 2.07 and a current ratio of 3.87. Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 11th. The company reported $1.70 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.78. The business had revenue of $11.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $11.60 billion. Super Micro Computer had a return on equity of 27.83% and a net margin of 5.71%. The company's revenue was up 93.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.31 EPS. Super Micro Computer has set its Q1 2027 guidance at 1.010-1.100 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Super Micro Computer, Inc. will post 3.94 EPS for the current fiscal year. Insider transactions at Super Micro Computer. In other Super Micro Computer news, Director Chiu-Chu Liang sold 100,000 shares of Super Micro Computer stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.02, for a total transaction of $4,502,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 337,506 shares in the company, valued at $15,194,520.12. This trade represents a 22.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Charles Liang sold 100,000 shares of Super Micro Computer stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.02, for a total transaction of $4,502,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 337,506 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $15,194,520.12. This represents a 22.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 400,000 shares of company stock worth $16,442,000 in the last ninety days. 16.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Hedge funds weigh in on Super Micro Computer. A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in SMCI. SHP Wealth Management purchased a new stake in shares of Super Micro Computer during the fourth quarter worth approximately $29,000. TOP Private Wealth LLC. purchased a new stake in shares of Super Micro Computer during the 2nd quarter worth $42,000. Comprehensive Financial Planning Inc. PA purchased a new stake in shares of Super Micro Computer during the 2nd quarter worth $43,000. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise acquired a new position in shares of Super Micro Computer during the first quarter worth $37,000. Finally, Contravisory Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in Super Micro Computer in the second quarter valued at $49,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 84.06% of the company's stock. Super Micro Computer company profile. Super Micro Computer, Inc develops and sells application-optimized server and storage systems for data centers, cloud computing, enterprise IT, artificial intelligence, and other demanding computing environments. The company offers complete computing platforms as well as modular components, allowing customers to configure systems for specific performance, power, and workload requirements. Its product portfolio includes server and storage systems, workstations, networking equipment, rack-scale solutions, GPU and AI systems, and related software and services. Further reading. 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