Western Digital WD_BLACK P50 Game Drive SSD, 1TB, USB-C 3.2

The WD_BLACK P50 4TB Game Drive is the fastest portable SSD that we have ever tested. It won every single benchmark performance test that we ran! That is pretty impressive as it out performed over 20 well known drives with relative ease. This drive is rated at 2 GB/s read and write and we managed to get over 2 GB/s read and write on a USB 3.2 2×2 (20Gbps) port on our test platform. But, the real story here isn’t all about speed. Western Digital has doubled the capacity of all of their portable SSDs from 2TB to 4TB without sacrificing performance. That is the big take home message! The WD_BLACK P50 delivers all the capacity you crave with industry leading performance! Introducing 4TB portable SSDs will solve some problems for people out in the market that needed more than 2TB of storage space. It will be a savior for those that really needed a larger capacity as they can possibly use just one drive now instead of two or more. All WD_BLACK P50 Game Drives are backed by a 5-year warranty, but lets hope that is never needed. When will we see 8TB portable SSDs? We asked Western Digital that question just last week and they declined to comment on the record about when that will happen. They did point out that they showed off 8TB M.2 NVMe drives at CES 2020 last year and that the technology is ready for when the market is ready for such a product. So, for the foreseeable future it looks like 4TB will be the largest capacity that you’ll be able to purchase. 4TB WD_Black P50 Game Drive SSDs are expected to be available later this month at select retailers and the Western Digital Store at an estimated U.S. MSRP of $749.99. The WD_BLACK P50 Game Drive easily gets our Editors’ Choice award for those that have a need for a big and fast portable storage drive!

As a media professional, I am not alone in the mindset that I want a sufficient backup device with me at all times for my work, regardless of where I am or what I am doing. Too many have fallen prey to something happening to their all important work or personal media, with no backup or way to recover. Western Digital’s upgrading My Passport SSD, SanDisk Extreme Portable and Pro, as well as the WD_Black P50 to 4TB capacity is a great thing. Much has to be also said for the fact that Western Digital is all alone in providing portable SSDs that will move USB 3.2 Gen 2 data at 1GB/s (My Passport SSD/ Extreme Portable) or 2GB/s (Extreme Portable Pro/WD_Black P50) and the fact that all come with a 5-year limited warranty. Nevertheless, this still leaves me wondering about the lack of success with Thunderbolt 3 for the most part. Is it just too expensive to buy at the consumer level or does it have to do with licensing difficulties at the manufacturers level? In any case, Western Digital is doing a great job picking up those pieces to ensure USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps) gets all the recognition it deserves.

So, at the end of the day the WD_Black P50 Game Drive has simply incredible performance numbers when using most canned benchmarks on the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port. The only problem is that we were unable to have a folder copied to it straight out of the box! This is unacceptable and to think that this is on a drive that came out in November 2019. Other review sites like Hardware Canucks (review) and Computer Base (review) both ran into issues and reported on them. Most of the other reviews that have been published were not completed on the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface and didn’t run into the issue. When it comes to pricing the P50 Game Drive is available in three capacities: 500GB ($145.00), 1TB ($239.99 shipped), and 2TB ($395.26 shipped). All are backed by a 5-year warranty. For now the WD_Black P50 Game Drive isn’t something we’d recommend to our readers. You will not have a good user experience with it on a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port (20Gbps). It works fine on USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (10Gbps), but you loose half of the drives rated performance. Why pay a premium for something that you’ll never likely be able to hit in the real world? This issue hasn’t been fixed in over half a year and who knows how well the ‘fix’ could be via firmware. Legit Reviews reached out to WD before this article was published and let them know that we ran into issues. The PR team believed newer firmware was available, but was unable to immediately available to send it over. We’ll report back if and when we get the firmware!