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WD’s Black P50 Game Drive is one of the first USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 portable SSDs to hit the market -- and it's fast. It is designed and built for gamers looking for the best USB performance they can attain. But while gamers will seek WD’s Black P50 Game Drive for its sleek looks and speed, we feel its performance is much better suited to prosumer use cases rather than just gaming, especially considering that next-gen consoles won’t even support such fast USB capability, most gaming PCs don’t support 20 Gbps USB either and, even under the best circumstances, games would load a lot faster off of an internal NVMe drive.
Content creators in search of a new work drive who don’t have the funds to spend on the more expensive SanDisk Extreme Pro v2 will find the WD Black P50 Games drive to be very compelling. Leveraging the company’s Black SN750, the P50 Games Drive excels in reading and writing large files and is one of the fastest and most consistent writing SSDs we’ve tested.
With all that speed though, the device runs fairly warm and draws a good amount of power, even when idle. As well, it lacks AES 256-bit full-disk encryption support, a feature that is becoming more common on many SSDs these days. And, unlike the SanDisk Extreme Pro and LaCie Rugged SSDs, it lacks an IP rating for dust and water resistance.
Still, WD’s Black P50 Game Drive is a solid choice for those who are looking for a drive that's faster than 10 Gbps. And for the price, it’s much more affordable than Thunderbolt 3 alternatives. The 1TB capacity is half the price of Samsung’s $400 X5 Portable SSD and at just $10-40 more than most 10 Gbps alternatives. WD’s Black SN750 is a no-brainer for those who can take advantage of the fast Gen2 2x2 interface.
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