Western Digital has unveiled its new line of next-generation SSD products, including a Gen 4 NVMe SSD that features speeds fast enough for expanding the PS5’s internal storage. The company also revealed a PCIe add-in SSD card and a new Thunderbolt 3 SSD game dock that makes adding extra storage and ports easy. All of the new SSD products boast fast read/write speeds and customizable RGB lighting.
Western Digital’s WD Black line is focused specifically on products for gamers, which is why the company has put a focus on RGB lighting for its next line of storage options. All of WD Black’s RGB-enabled products can be customized and synchronized via the WD Black Dashboard app on Windows. Thankfully, the company hasn’t neglected the speed of its NVMe SSDs, providing a number of options that rival the best on the market.
Starts at $130
The SN850 NVMe SSD is Western Digital’s first Gen4 solid-state drive, and one of the first NVMe SSDs to feature RGB lighting on its heatsink. It boasts impressive read/write speeds of 7,000/5,300 MB/s, which surpasses the PS5’s required speed for expandable storage of 5,500 MB/s read speed. Sony has yet to confirm which drives are compatible with the PS5, but all indications point to the SN850 SSD working well with the PS5. Of course, this NVMe SSD also works with PCs, though if you want to take full advantage of the next-generation speeds, you’ll need to make sure your motherboard supports Gen4 SSDs.
The WD Black SN850 NVMe SSD without a heatsink is expected to launch by the end of the month, while the RGB-enabled heatsink model is expected in Q1 2021.
Storage options: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB
Starts at $300
The WD Black AN1500 add-in card is an RGB-lit NVMe SSD that you insert into one of your PCIe slots–the same type of slot your graphics card uses. All you have to do is insert it into a compatible x8 PCIe slot and you’re good to go. It’ll show up in your PC as a drive like any other. It boasts fast read/write speeds of 6,500/4,100 MB/s in its 2TB and 4TB models, which is a lot of fast storage to have on your PC.
The AN1500 NVME SSD add-in card is available now through a number of different retailers.
Storage options: 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB
$500 with SSD, $320 without SSD
The WD Black D50 Game Dock acts as both an external storage add-on and a way to turn your gaming laptop into a proper full-on gaming PC–as long as your laptop supports Thunderbolt 3. The Thunderbolt 3-powered game dock adds 1TB of NVMe SSD storage capacity as well as extra ports for a host of accessories and monitors. On top of all that, it features RGB lighting.
The D50 Game Dock is available now to preorder through multiple different retailers.
Storage options: 1TB and no SSD