Western Digital expands WD_BLACK series with three NVME SSD options

Western Digital is expanding the high-performance WD_BLACK series of storage devices with three new ultra-fast SSD options engineered with gamers in mind. These new storage options offer NVME performance for gamers with new and old PCs alike.

2

"As game developers move towards creating immersive titles that require higher performance, consumers need to equip themselves with the best tools to stay up-to-speed," said Jim Welsh, senior vice president, Consumer Solutions, Western Digital. "Innovative, high-performance storage solutions are essential to keep up with this ever-changing landscape. Our latest WD_BLACK products have been purpose-built to allow gamers to meet the increasingly high standards of future games and gaming platforms. We've optimized these products to not only provide more storage for gamers but to elevate the gaming experience as a whole."

The WD_BLACK SN850 is Western Digital's new performance NVME SSD. This new drive features PICe Gen4 technology, which enables ridiculous access speeds of 7000MB/s read and 5000MB/s write. The SN850 NVME drives feature a new cache technology with improved low queue-depth performance, which Western Digital said enables smoother loading in applications and games.

The WD_BLACK SN850 will be available with and without a pre-installed heat sink and it comes in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities. The heat sink version includes RGB lighting. It won't be available until 2021.

If you don't have a free m.2 slot in your motherboard, you may be interested in Western Digital's new WD_AN1500 NVM SDD add-in card. This device is a PCIe Gen3 x8 card with two internal NVME SSDs configured in RAID 0 that provides data access speeds similar to Gen4 drives, with read speeds up to 6500 MB/s and write speeds up to 4100 MB/s.

The WD_AN1500 drives come in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB variants. These drives offer customizable RGB lighting to match your system.

2

Western Digital even has a solution for laptops that don't have an NVMe slot, as long as they have Thunderbolt 3 port. The WD_BLACK D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD is a portable gaming storage system, with up to 2TB of rapid NVMe storage. The D50 is also a full docking station complete with a gigabit ethernet port, three USB-A and two USB-C ports, and a DisplayPort output. As you probably guessed, it also features customizable RGB lighting.

The WD_BLACK D50 Game Dock is available with a 1TB or 2TB SSD, or with no storage at all.