Western Digital’s WD Black is a new brand of hard disk drive and solid-state drive solutions for PC and console gamers who are running out of disk space. For those players, WD has storage devices that can store as much as 300 games on an Xbox One game console.
The problem is getting acute as games like Halo 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, Gears of War 4, and Final Fantasy XV all top 100 gigabytes (GB) of space. Each one of those games could take up more than 20% of the space on a 500GB Xbox One or PlayStation 4 storage.
But what’s worse is that the average gamer has about 20 games, taking up on average about 1.7 terabytes (TB) of space, said Jared Peck, senior product manager at WD, in an interview with GamesBeat.
For the consoles, if the gamers upgrade their storage, they would need to have more than the typical 500GB or 1TB drives — or just start deleting games that they’ve already finished, Peck said.
“Some people say my console storage is full, so I’m not going to play,” Peck said. “Those are pain points in the survey. People are tired of deleting old games to play new ones.”
45% of gamers said they would buy a storage device in the next year, and 41% who play on PCs said they would definitely buy storage. Double-digit percentages of console owners are already attaching external storage to their consoles.
WD has now officially designated WD Black as its gaming storage product rather than just the top of the line for its products. In its research, WD estimated 500 million gaming PCs and 125 million consoles can take external storage.
Above: WD Black is styled for gamers.
Under the WD Black name, WD is introducing a number of new products with a single “design language.” They include:
- WD Black P10 Game Drive. It has up to 5TB (125 games) for $150. 2TB for $90 and 4TB for $130. The largest has a capacity for 125 games on a 2.5-inch drive. The 2TB drive has 140 megabytes (MB) per second transfer time, and while 4TB and 5TB versions have 130 MB/second. It has Superspeed USB of 5GB/second connectivity, with one drive and multiple platters. It ships in August.
- WD Black D10 Game Drive. It has 8TB, or up to 200 games on one drive. It has a 250MB/second transfer speed with 7200 RPM drives. This drive has active cooling technology and two 7.5-watt charging ports on its power supply so you can charge gaming accessories. It costs $200, stands vertically or horizontal. It has its own fan and ships in September.
- WD Black P50 Game Drive SSD. It has 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB. It uses the Superspeed USB at 20 gigabits per second with Type-C connector. It ships in the fourth quarter, has USB-powered LED lights. It transfers data at 1,980MB/second and it has forged aluminum for its top for passive cooling. Pricing is TBD.
- WD Black P10 Game Drive for Xbox One. It costs $110 for 3TB or $150 for 5TB. You also get two months of free subscription to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate — a $30 value. It has 130MB/second transfer rates and USB 3.2 Gen1 connectivity.
- WD Black D10 Game Drive for Xbox One. It has8TB for 200 games or 12TB for up to 300 games, 250MB/second transfer speed, 7200 RPM, two 7.5-watt charging ports, and external power. It can stand vertically or horizontal and comes with a three-month subscription for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It ships in September for $300.
“We constantly hear from gamers about how the performance and capacity limitations of their current systems challenge the quality of their gaming experiences,” said Susan Park, vice president of product management for content solutions at WD. “We are helping make room for the latest releases, whether a gamer has been playing for years or is just starting out and looking for a high-performance edge. With the latest additions to our WD Black portfolio, anyone from the casual to hardcore gamer can now capture a variety of games in one accessible place.”
