Sandisk NAS 800 tops out at 14,000 TBW for $2,200
Photo Credit: Sandisk
Sandisk has introduced two SSD families built specifically for network-attached storage, the NAS 600 in the 2.5-inch SATA form factor and the NAS 800 in M.2 2280, with endurance figures that push well past what most NAS-oriented drives offer. The flagship NAS 800 7.68TB carries a rating of 14 petabytes written and sells for $2,199.99, the priciest drive in either lineup.
The launch arrives in the middle of a global storage shortage, a period that has kept Sandisk unusually active. The company had already shipped its 320 and 520 SATA SSDs before adding these two NAS-focused ranges, which target prosumers, professionals, and businesses running dedicated storage boxes. NAS owners have traditionally leaned on hard drives for their capacity and low cost, but SSDs offer higher throughput and are often deployed as performance accelerators alongside spinning disks. Because NAS units run continuously and write large volumes of data, endurance matters more than in a typical desktop, and that is the gap these drives are meant to fill.
The endurance headline belongs to the NAS 800. According to Sandisk, the 7.68TB model is rated for 14 petabytes written across its lifespan, which under the five-year warranty allows users to write up to 7.67TB of data every day. That works out to 1 Drive Write Per Day, meaning the drive can be filled and rewritten in full each day for five consecutive years. For context, consumer SSDs generally top out near 2,500 TBW and NAS-class drives sometimes reach 5,000 TBW, so the NAS 800 sits closer to enterprise territory, where ratings above 10,000 TBW appear. The Seagate IronWolf 525 peaks at 2,800 TBW in its 2TB configuration, while the comparable NAS 800 1.92TB unit is rated for 3,500 TBW, is a 25 percent advantage.
Sandisk has not disclosed the controller or NAND used in either series. As a result, the endurance figures invite some inference. Assuming a standard 8TiB of physical NAND behind the 7.68TB user capacity, effective over-provisioning lands around 14.5 percent, notably higher than the 7 to 10 percent typical of consumer drives. With Sandisk 3D TLC NAND rated at roughly 1,800 to 2,000 program/erase cycles, with a write amplification factor near 1.16X; NAND closer to 3,000 cycles, however, would leave the rating with proportionally more margin.
Performance falls in line with the interfaces each series uses. The NAS 600 delivers sequential read and write speeds up to 560 MB/s and 520 MB/s across its capacities, standard for SATA III. In contrast, the PCIe 4.0 NAS 800 reaches up to 14,900 MB/s reads and 13,200 MB/s writes, with random read and write figures climbing above two million IOPS on the larger capacities. The firmware has reportedly been tuned for the sustained, write-heavy patterns NAS workloads generate.
Neither series is inexpensive, which is expected for any SSD launching during a storage shortage. The NAS 600 opens at $179.99 for the 500GB model and climbs to $999.99 for the 4TB version. Meanwhile, the NAS 800 begins at $309.99 for 960GB, moves through $559.99 and $1,099.99 for the 1.92TB and 3.84TB options, and tops out at $2,199.99 for the 7.68TB flagship. Both families carry a limited five-year warranty and go on sale in September.
