The world of gaming is changing dramatically. New technologies are bringing ultra-high resolutions, higher frame rates, computed virtual field of view and ultimately, incredible immersive experiences! But fueling these enhancements requires strong hardware components that can support large graphics, 4K/8K video, and VR/AR content. This week at PAX East in Boston, MA, Western Digital launched its first 3D NAND NVMe SSD. Here’s how the Western Digital® WD Black™ NVMe™ SSD is ready to take on the highest-intensity gaming applications.

Over fifteen years after the first SATA drive was introduced, the world is ready for the next evolution in storage and computing.

As SATA makes the personal computing experience more productive and efficient, it was never designed for flash technology. With a maximum theoretical transfer speed of only 600MB/s, high-intensity software development is limited because of the SATA ceiling. The NVMe standard on the other hand was designed specifically to take advantage of the speed offered with SSDs. With a maximum transfer speed of 985MB/s per lane, the PCIe Gen3 interface can support up to 16 lanes, giving us a maximum transfer speed of up to 15.76GB/s! However, most systems today are using PCIe Gen3 with 4 lanes, giving you potential speeds of up to 3.94GB/s, which is still over 6X faster than what SATA III offers (potentially up to 600MB/s).