Western Digital, LaCie Claim Top PCMag Lab Awards for SSD Speed

PCMag’s Lab Awards identified the fastest internal solid‑state drives after testing more than 100 models. The Western Digital Black SN8100 earned the PCIe 5.0 champion title, while the Western Digital Black SN850X won for PCIe 4.0 performance. Both drives are also marketed under the SanDisk brand.

In the external‑SSD category, the Lab Award went to LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro5, which outperformed over 60 competitors in benchmark suites that included CrystalDiskMark, PCMark 10 Storage, and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. The review noted the impact of the ongoing memory shortage on pricing and the importance of modern connectivity standards such as USB4 and Thunderbolt 4/5 for achieving peak speeds.