Western Digital has lots of transportable drives, and whereas the likes of the Black P10 are a good selection in order for you loads of space for storing to retailer media and different information, the mechanical HDD is not notably quick. You will ideally want a conveyable SSD to get the absolute best speeds, and that is the place the Black P50 is available in.
The Black P50 makes use of the identical rugged design as the remainder of the WD Black portfolio, and it options an aluminum chassis with a shock-resistant design, and it connects over USB-C. You get a USB-C to USB-C and USB-C to USB-A cable within the field, and one of the best half concerning the P50 is that it makes use of the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface, which has a complete bandwidth of 20Gbps.
A characteristic that I notably like is RGB lighting; you will discover two tiny RGB lighting zones on the underside of the SSD, and it offers the P50 a little bit of character.
The drive is touted to hit 2,000MB/s for sequential reads and writes, and in my testing, I discovered that determine to be nearer to 1,540MB/s for reads and 1,520MB/s writes — nonetheless on par with one of the best transportable SSDs obtainable at present. You’ll be able to simply join it to a Home windows machine, pocket book, or your telephone, however as a result of it makes use of the three.2 Gen 2×2 commonplace, you will not discover many units that may leverage the drive’s full potential.
That is a recurring challenge with this drive, and for essentially the most half, I examined it with a typical USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. Additionally, the P50 misses out on any form of {hardware} encryption, one thing that is supplied as commonplace in all Samsung transportable SSDs.
The opposite draw back is the associated fee; the 1TB model of the Black P50 prices $199 on Amazon, and that is an excessive amount of for a conveyable drive in 2023 — notably when costs for many merchandise on this section has nosedived in current months.
Mainly, the Black P50 is overkill in the event you simply need an exterior drive for the NVIDIA Protect TV or wish to join a conveyable drive to your router to make use of as a storage server. The WD P10 mechanical HDD is a greater choice as you get far more storage for much less — the 5TB drive is at present promoting for $110.
However in the event you’re shifting away from HDDs and wish an SSD to retailer your media, you must take a look at one thing just like the Essential X9 Professional, which prices $215 for the 4TB mannequin — supplying you with 4 instances the storage because the P50. The X9 Professional is bigger and would not have Gen 2×2 connectivity, however it nonetheless manages to ship sequential reads and writes of over 900MB/s effortlessly.
If you would like one of the best speeds and have a machine with a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface, then sure, the Black P50 is smart. However in the event you simply need to maximize worth and wish a conveyable SSD with dependable speeds, you must take a look at the Essential X9 Professional, or Samsung’s T7.
WD Black P50 1TB Moveable SSD
The Black P50 is among the quickest SSDs round, however it’s costlier than its rivals due to the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface. It is nonetheless a terrific recreation drive, however in the event you want an SSD for storage, look elsewhere.
