WD Black P50 Game Drive Portable SSD Review

Testing Summary

As right as a rain, WD Black P50 portable External SSD is available in the price range of under 150$ which is justified by its excellent read speed of up to 2000 MB/s to enable fast gaming by reducing the overall load time. Additionally, it features a portable form factor, shock resistance, compatibility with Super-Speed USB to meet all your dreamy needs.

This would allow you to get the benefit of new hardware components and accessories in the coming years due to built-in advanced SSD technology. Above all, it’s available in up to 4TB of additional storage to keep your previous games and files along with the new ones. Plus, the varied storage options are provided to meet the demands of almost all users making it the best external SSD for gaming.

Introduction

Grounded, In fact, WD_Black P50 portable SSD comes in a slim and sleek design to enlarge your gaming library. As it comes in various storage options of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, which make it an excellent option to meet the dreamy needs of almost all types of users including professionals.

Stunningly, the unequaled read speed of up to 2000 MB/s along with the shock-resistant durability would let you enjoy the benefit of both worlds. The most stunning feature of this SSD is its suitability with USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2, which is decided innovatively to make it compatible with almost all devices and with the advanced coming devices in the near future.

To dig deep, WD_Black P50 portable SSD delivers a stable, fast, and efficient performance which is no less than gold for extensive gamers. Amazingly, this drive is compatible with both Mac and PC, in addition to excellent compatibility with Xbox One X, One S, and PS4 Pro which ensures versatility.

Hang on there, besides the perfect compatibility, let’s put down the stress of deleting previous data to feed the new files as the provided space is more than enough to keep all your records safe. And just forget the tension of wait after plugging it in as it’s just ready to operate instantly. Undoubtedly, it’s called a gaming drive, but you could find it marvelous to store all other files on this SSD. Its compact design along with outranked performance make it the best portable external drive of the year. Isn’t it fun to carry such a well-performer SSD along with you?

WD_Black P50 Specifications

WD_Black P50 Game Drive – Design

Once in a blue moon, WD_Black Portable External SSD is designed innovatively to impart a crate-like look which you might have seen in Halo or Gears of War, rather carving smooth edges just like previously existing drives. This innovative design integrates durability besides enhancing the overall look. There are four small rubber feet and vents to dissipate the heat is located at the bottom of this SSD and the USB port is incorporated on the side.

The name of the drive along with the model and QR-code is printed on the surface by following the WD_Black branding. Overall, this military-grade game drive with a rigid support structure weighs only 4.1 Ounces in the compact dimensions of 118 x 62 x 14 mm.

Inching forward, WD Black Portable External SSD incorporates a white activity power or indicator light right beside the USB Type-C port on both sides of the drive. Moreover, the NVMe controller in addition to M.2 2280 form factor is placed active inside the case. Surprisingly, this drive is always ready to operate without any wait. Furthermore, the cooling effect keeps the device’s performance on the track.

See: Best M.2 NVMe SSDs for Gaming

Jump on the bandwagon, to make the design fully cost-effective the BiCS3 is just made on two planes almost half of the Micron flash planes, and the charge trap technology is enabled to scale instead of a more expensive floating gate featuring the technology. Additionally, the WD_Black P50 game drive entails soft decode, XOR, hardware DSP, and multi-gear LDPC engine, and all other valuable parts are placed in a slim package.

To make the long story short, WD takes the design of this P50 SSD from a shipping container, and condenses it to a thick, small, black rectangular shape, added ribbed sides with catchy hex screws on each corner. Overall, its uniqueness looks international!

WD Black P50 Game Drive – Features

On cloud nine, the most stunning feature of WD_Black P50 Portable External SSD is comes formatted out of the box, which means you don’t need to bear the pain of making it uprightly. Amazingly, it’s formatted in the exFAT file system which makes it able to work with any host such as Windows, MAC, and gaming consoles. Plus, by making functional your PC or console’s USB ports, you can swiftly optimize the storage efficiency or capability.

Overall, this SSD is carved to enhance the gaming experience by providing up-to-mark speed boosts, efficient stability, and 5-years of warranty to let you enjoy your gaming for years. Plus, this drive is available in varied storage capacities of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB with a read speed of around 2000 MB/s that is useful to reduce the loading time and compress the longer downloading hours.

As mentioned that this SSD doesn’t support any encryption, which might be good as the consoles mostly do not have a feature of accessing encrypted drives, so this drive doesn’t need any reformatting. Adding more, WD_Black P50 SSD is also compatible with Super-Speed USB interface (USB 3.2 Gen 2×2) to let you take the advantage of advanced gaming components, and hence make the device excellent for future use of advanced models.

Ahead of the curve, the excellent storage feature won’t bother you to delete previous files to create rooms for new gaming files, you can keep all favorite data in your drive while feeding the newer ones. So, what’s the benefit of this feature? Actually, you can create a massive gaming library in a portable and shock-resistant case to take your games anywhere. In addition, you are free to save music, movies, or other such files that you may need without thinking about which file to replace.

The company marked this drive as shock-resistant and durable to give a premium feel to users. Unquestionably, whenever we carry a portable drive, dropping risks are always there which otherwise can damage your important data, so paying a bit more for added durability is just justifiable for almost everyone.

Back to the drawing board, the branding of the WD Black P50 drive is consistent with the theme of a shipping container, besides the addition of a stylized layout and font that delivers a utilitarian label of the contents. Amazingly, a heft is added which is efficient to bear occasional bumps and drops, and hence it adds a lot to the overall durability.

In addition to other stunning features, the P50 is delivered with both types of cables, one is USB Type-C to Type-C and second is USB Type-C to Type-A which means you won’t need any external adaptor to connect it to consoles or PCs, with the handy users-friendly guide to teach them well. Interestingly, this drive is also compatible with Microsoft Xbox One X, One S, and Sony Playstation-4 Pro to let you take the benefit of both worlds.

To get good mileage out of it, you can download the WD security app to put passwords on the drive, the WD Drive utility application to check the drive’s health and performance along with other maintenance setups. In order to make feel the users more secure, the company offers a 5-years warranty. Furthermore, the WD_Black P50 drive entails Small Static SLC Cache with a swift cache recovery policy to ensure consistent performance and to make it more responsive.

Performance

To begin with, WD_Black P50 SSD comes in a black metal casing to offer ruggedness and it can surely handle some beatings to sustain excellent performance at all times. Just like premium devices this drive is compatible with USB 3.2 Generation 2 X 2 that can reach the speed of around 20 Gbps to provide you with exemplary results.

Hold on there, besides using SuperSpeed USB it can also use a USB-C port to provide you with the best of both worlds. If you want to grab the excellent performance try to use it with USB 3.2. Amazingly, this drive delivers 2000 MB/s of reading speed which is ideal for heavy play.

To ensure smooth performance this drive is ready to insert right out of the box with no encryption. Plus, to make it compatible with numerous devices, it’s been formatted in the exFAT file system which lets it work well with almost any host such as Mac, Windows, or even game consoles. Interestingly, you are free to format it into any file system which you like.

To provide you with variety, this drive is delivered with both USB Type-C to C and USB Type-C to A to make it efficient for devices that come with Thunderbolt-3 or you can plug it into any USB-supported computer. On the clear ground, WD_Black P50 portable SSD doesn’t entail any software nor it features any kind of hardware encryption. But don’t worry you can use BitLocker to keep your data secure on this SSD.

When it comes to the exact numbers, WD_Black P50 portable SSD offers 5 Gbps with USB 3.2 Generation-1, 10 Gbps with Generation-2, and around 20 Gbps with Generation 2 x 2. Overall, it seems quite speedy, isn’t it? After counting the performance, the heavy games would take around half of the time to completely launch compared to no WD_Black P50 portable SSD attachment.

Clearly, this SSD doesn’t come with a special heat dissipator which might be a concern for many, but it’s designed in a way that its surface does not retain much heat for a long time so this factor is not going to affect the performance of your drive.

Digging around, WD_Black P50 portable SSD incorporates the PCI Express bus and also supports NVMe which makes it an excellent choice for gamers. Plus, the SLC smart static cache along with fast cache recovery enable high-end performance and swift response time to suit excellently to all professionals.

The WD_Black SSD is compatible with the next-generation consoles, so you can trust the ever-lasting performance of this drive even in the far future. Above all, this SSD can deliver extended bandwidth compared to a similarly priced model, and this thing is taking the heart of many professionals.

Testing Results

To be on solid ground, WD_Black P50 portable SSD is carved by keeping high performer gamers in mind and is carved in an excellent looking, portable, and compact design that allows you to take it anywhere. To meet the demands of all users, this drive comes in different capacity options ranging from 500GB to 4TB. Ahead of the curve, its perfection with USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2 would let you taste the coming technologically advanced devices with ease. If you are looking for a fast, efficient, easy-to-operate storage device with ample capacity to boost your gaming experience, then this SSD is perfect for you!