WD Green 120 GiB SSD Review – Hardware Secrets

We tested another entry SSD, the WD Green 120 GiB SSD Review from Western Digital. Let’s seek how does it perform against its competitors. Check it out!

Recently, we tested three new-generation entry SSDs: the Corsair Force LE, the Kingston SSDNow UV400, and the SanDisk SSD Plus, which are some of the most inexpensive SSDs available today. Now we are including a new inexpensive SSD: the WD Green.

Before proceeding, we highly suggest that you read our “Anatomy of SSD Units” tutorial, which provides all the background information you need to know about SSDs.

Just like the Kingston UV400 and the Force LE, the WD Green SSD uses TLC (triple level cell) memories. This kind of memory stores not two, as on most MLC memory chips, but three bits instead. It allows a higher data density and, thus, a smaller manufacturing cost for a same capacity chip.

The issues with TLC memory chips, compared to the two-bit MLC chips (and even more compared to the SLC memory chip, that store only one bit per cell) are the smaller speed (due to the error correcting mechanism) and a shorter lifespan, because there is more cell wearing on the erasing process (executed before writing new data).

The TBW (total bytes written, which means the amount of data written on the drive before it begin to experience tearing problems) for this model is 40 TiB . Obviously, this is a very high number and must not worry home users, but it makes this model inadvisable for applications that need a big amount of data writing, like servers, for example.

In the table below, we compared the tested units. All of them use SATA-600 interface and the 2.5” form factor, with 7 mm height.

Western Digital 120GB WD Green Internal PC SSD Solid State Drive – SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5″/7mm, Up to 550 MB/s – WDS120G2G0A

• SLC (single-level cell) caching boosts write performance to quickly perform everyday tasks
• Shock-resistant and WD F.I.T. Lab certified for compatibility and reliability
• Ultra low power-draw so you can use your laptop PC for longer periods of time
• Includes a 3-year limited warranty so upgrading your storage is worry-free
• The free, downloadable WD SSD Dashboard* lets you easily monitor the status of your drive

ManufacturerModelModel #
Nominal capacity
PriceWestern DigitalWD GreenWDS120G1G0A120 GiBUSD 55CorsairForce LECSSD-F120GBLEB120 GiBUSD 50KingstonSSDNow UV400SUV400S37/120G120 GiBUSD 41SanDiskSSD PLUSSDSSDA-120G120 GiBUSD 45

In the table below, we compared technical specs of the tested drives.

ModelControllerBufferMemoryWD GreenSilicon Motion SM2258XT–4x 32 GiB SanDisk 05497 032GCorsair Force LEPhison PS3110-S10C-12256 MiB Nanya NT5CC128M16IP-DI4x 32 GiB Toshiba TT58G51ARAKingston SSDNow UV400Marvell 88SS1074256 MiB Nanya NT5CC128M16FP-DI8x 16 GiB Kingston FT16B08UCT1-0FSanDisk SSD PLUSSilicon Motion SM2246XT–2x 64 GiB SanDisk 05446 064G

 
Figure 1 shows the box of the WD Gren 120 GiB.

Figure 1: The WD Green 120 GiB package

On Figure 2, we see the WD Gren 120 GiB, which has a plastic casing.

Figure 2: the WD Green 120 GiB

On the bottom of the drive, there is a sticker with unit info, as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: bottom side

Removing the cover of the WD Green, we see the PCB. At the solder side, there are two flash memory chips.

Figure 4: solder side of the PCB

At the component side, we see two flash memory chips and the controller chip. There is no cache memory.

Figure 5: component side of the PCB

The controller used by the WD Green 120 GiB is the Silicon Motion SM2258XT, presented in Figure 6.

Figure 6: controller chip

The flash memory chips are from SanDisk, and unfortunately we couldn’t find the official chip specs.

Figure 7: flash memory chip

During our testing procedures, we used the configuration listed below. The only variable component between each benchmarking session was the SSD being tested.

Hardware configuration

• Processor: Core i7-6950X @ 3.8 GHz
• Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Extreme6/3.1
• Memory: 64 GiB DDR4-3000, four HyperX Predator 16 GiB modules
• Boot drive: Kingston HyperX Predator 480 GiB
• Video display: Samsung U28D590D
• Power Supply: Corsair CX750
• Case: Thermaltake Core P3

Software Configuration

• Operating System: Windows 10 Home

Benchmarking Software

Error Margin We adopted a 3% error margin in our tests, meaning performance differences of less than 3% cannot be considered meaningful. Therefore, when the performance difference between two products is less than 3%, we consider them to have similar performance.

As you will have gathered from the previous page, we measured the performance of each drive using CrystalDiskMark.

It is important to note that we connected the SSDs to a SATA-600 port on our motherboard rather than a SATA-300 port, which could cause performance limitations.

First, we set CrystalDiskMark to “All 0x00 Fill mode” to evaluate the performance of the SSD when dealing with compressible data.

On the sequential read benchmark, the WD Green performed similarly to the other drives.

On the sequential write benchmark, the WD Green was 16% slower than Corsair Force LE, 8% faster than the Kingston UV400, and 91% faster than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random read test with 512 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 23% slower than Corsair Force LE, 7% faster than the Kingston UV400, and 21% faster than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random write test with 512 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 20% faster than Corsair Force LE, 52% faster than the Kingston UV400, and 45% faster than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random read benchmark with 4 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 74% slower than Corsair Force LE, 27% slower than the Kingston UV400, and performed similarly to the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random write benchmark with 4 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 5% slower than Corsair Force LE, and 9% slower than the Kingston UV400 and the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random read benchmark with 4 kiB blocks and queue depth of 32, the WD Green was 39% slower than Corsair Force LE, 40% slower than the Kingston UV400, and performed similarly to the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random write benchmark with 4 kiB blocks and queue depth of 32, the WD Green was 11% faster than Corsair Force LE, 24% faster than the Kingston UV400, performing similarly to the SanDisk SSD Plus.
For this test, we set CrystalDiskMark to the default mode, which uses incompressible data.

On the sequential read benchmark, all the SSDs has similar performance.

On the sequential write benchmark, the WD Green was 16% slower than Corsair Force LE, 9% faster than the Kingston UV400, and 92% faster than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random read test with 512 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 9% slower than Corsair Force LE, performed similarly to the Kingston UV400, and was 24% faster than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random write benchmark with 512 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 21% faster than Corsair Force LE, 52% faster than the Kingston UV400, and 45% faster than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random read benchmark with 4 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 35% slower than Corsair Force LE, 32% slower than the Kingston UV400, and performed similarly to the SanDisk SSD Plus.

And on the random write benchmark with 4 kiB blocks, the WD Green was 12% slower than Corsair Force LE, 9% slower than the Kingston UV400, and 11% slower than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random read benchmark with 4 kiB blocks and queue depth of 32, the WD Green was 40% slower than Corsair Force LE, 41% slower than the Kingston UV400, and 19% faster than the SanDisk SSD Plus.

On the random write benchmark with 4 kiB blocks and queue depth of 32, the WD Green was on a technical tie with the Corsair Force LE and the SanDisk SSD Plus, but was 17% faster than the Kingston UV400.

Analyzing the data obtained on our tests, the first conclusion is that the WD Green 120 GiB maintains the same performance with compressible and uncompressible data on reading and writing operations, which is great.

Compared to its competitors, we see that it was similar on some tests, slower in other ones, and faster on some of them. Our experience tells us this difference is not sensible in everyday usage.

So, we conclude that the WD Green 120 GiB is a good choice for the home user looking for an inexpensive SSD to work as the boot drive on a desktop or laptop PC.

Western Digital 120GB WD Green Internal PC SSD Solid State Drive – SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5″/7mm, Up to 550 MB/s – WDS120G2G0A

• SLC (single-level cell) caching boosts write performance to quickly perform everyday tasks
• Shock-resistant and WD F.I.T. Lab certified for compatibility and reliability
• Ultra low power-draw so you can use your laptop PC for longer periods of time
• Includes a 3-year limited warranty so upgrading your storage is worry-free
• The free, downloadable WD SSD Dashboard* lets you easily monitor the status of your drive

Last update on 2023-04-07 at 03:26 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API