Side-by-side: Crucial T705 4TB ($749) vs WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB ($319). $/TB winner, specs, real-world picks for May 2026.
This is a generational matchup at 4 TB: the older-gen drive offers proven reliability and better $/TB, while the newer-gen sibling brings raw bandwidth that most users never tap.
Hardware-wise, the Crucial T705 4TB runs on the Phison E26 — the first widely-deployed Gen 5 controller, capable but thermally demanding. The WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB pairs SanDisk's A101 controller, used in newer WD_BLACK SKUs after the SanDisk spinoff.
Money matters here — $79.75/TB on the WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB versus $187.25/TB on the Crucial T705 4TB. That's enough of a spread that for budget-conscious builders, the WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB becomes the default unless reviews of your specific workload prefer the Crucial T705 4TB.
Read speeds favor the Crucial T705 4TB: 14,500 MB/s versus 7,000 MB/s for the WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB, a 52% advantage. Sequential-heavy workloads notice; transactional workloads don't.
The Crucial T705 4TB writes about 47% faster (12,700 MB/s vs 6,700 MB/s). Whether that matters depends entirely on what you write to the drive — gameplay capture and large project saves benefit, browsing and gaming do not.
The DRAM-vs-HMB question divides opinion: Crucial T705 4TB's on-board DRAM theoretically helps under sustained workloads, while WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB's HMB approach has matured enough that most users won't see the difference. Pick on price if everything else is similar.
If this purchase is for a PS5 storage expansion, the comparison flattens — Sony's PCIe Gen 4 controller normalizes both Crucial T705 4TB and WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB to roughly equal in-game load times. The cheaper drive is the smart pick. Comparing across generations always invites the same question: does the bandwidth gap convert into user-visible improvements? Honest answer for the Crucial T705 4TB vs WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB pairing: only for sustained sequential reads of multi-GB files. Heavy write workloads — video editing, RAW photo libraries, backup operations — favor the Crucial T705 4TB's 12,700 MB/s sustained write speed. Both drives use the 2280 form factor, which is too long for Steam Deck or ROG Ally — you'd need a 2230 variant if either manufacturer offers one, or a dedicated handheld-format drive instead.
Go with the Crucial T705 4TB for meaningfully faster reads (14,500 MB/s), higher sustained writes (12,700 MB/s), and a dedicated DRAM cache chip. Crucial drives benefit from being a direct Micron product — the same NAND that powers competitors' drives, but at lower margins.
Go with the WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB for the lower retail price ($319 vs $749), and better $/TB economics ($79.75/TB).