WD Green SN3000 500 GB vs Samsung 960 (NVMe) 500 GB

Short answer: which is best?

WD Green SN3000 500 GB is 33.7 % stronger than Samsung 960 (NVMe) 500 GB. WD Green SN3000 500 GB ranks #16 of 54 measured system drives at WhatFPS (11,813 Drive score over 1 verified runs). Samsung 960 (NVMe) 500 GB ranks #27 of 54 measured system drives at WhatFPS (8,833 Drive score over 7 verified runs). The numbers are measured in 8 verified WhatFPS runs — not estimated, not self-reported.

Measured comparison

MetricWD Green SN3000 500 GBSamsung 960 (NVMe) 500 GB
Drive score (the drive's own performance: sequential read + 4K IOPS)11,8138,833
Best rig (GAMING — whole PC)9,17821,848
Sequential read2,855 MB/s1,945 MB/s
4K IOPS17,15513,422
4K latency, median (lower is better)51 µs69 µs
TypeNVMe SSDNVMe SSD
Size500 GB500 GB

What the numbers mean

The drive score is the system drive's measured performance in the rigs it sat in — sequential read and 4K IOPS, unbuffered. PCIe generation, fill level and driver affect it. GAMING is the whole rig's score. We show both and never mix them.

All numbers come from our benchmark suite, the same test on every PC, written in Rust with no middleware. The methodology is open at https://whatfps.com/metodik

All measurements for WD Green SN3000 500 GB · All measurements for Samsung 960 (NVMe) 500 GB