Like Western Digital's other SSDs, the WD_BLACK SN850 works with their WD_BLACK Dashboard software. This easy to use, Windows-based utility gives users the ability to manage and monitor their drives. From the main screen, you can check the status of your SSD and view information like the firmware version, capacity, temperature, interface speed and the life remaining.
With the WD_BLACK SN850, you can also enable what Western Digital calls "Gaming Mode." This feature disables the low power mode function on the SSD which keeps it running at peak levels.
The SSD Dashboard also gives users the ability to monitor the performance of their drives. The chart provides two different real time performance metrics: transfer speed MB/s (megabytes per second) and transfer IOPS (I/O operation count per second).
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The Tools section offers a number of options, including the ability to do a firmware update and perform a secure erase. The SSD Dashboard also has the ability to run S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic tests and provide details about your drives and system.
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From within the Settings tab, you can update SSD Dashboard and configure the software so that it starts up with Windows. You can also turn off write-cache buffer flushing and select from one of 17 languages.
Last, but not least, you have the Help section which contains links to Western Digital's support page as well as their end user forums.
