WD's New NVMe SSD Is Fast Enough For PS5

Western Digital has a new slate of SSD products, and one of them is particularly exciting. The company's new Gen 4 NVMe SSD boasts speeds that are fast enough for the PS5, meaning you can upgrade your internal storage and hold more next-gen games on your new console. In addition to this ultra-fast NVMe SSD, WD also revealed a PCIe add-in SSD card and a new Thunderbolt 3 SSD game dock that makes adding extra storage and ports to any laptop easy. All of the new SSD products boast fast read/write speeds and customizable RGB lighting that should make them top-of-the-line PC and gaming parts.

Western Digital's WD Black line is focused specifically on products for gamers, which is why the company has put a focus on gorgeous 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 and should put you at the cutting edge of PC loading speeds.

With the PS5 making the jump to powerful SSD memory over hard drives, this might be a good time to pick up some extra storage before everyone else realizes they're going to need more than the default memory on their PlayStation 5 during the holidays.

WD Black SN850 NVMe SSD

Starts at $150

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

See at WD Black

WD Black AN1500 NVMe SSD add-in card

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

See at WD Black

WD Black D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD

$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

See at WD Black

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