WD_BLACK Expands With Gaming Dock SSD, PCIe Gen4 For Gaming

Today Western Digital revealed several new SSD products all aimed at a top-tier next-gen gaming experience. Included in the release were the WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD, the WD_BLACK AN1500 NVMe SSD Add-in-Card, and the WD_BLACK D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD. The NVMe SSD with next-gen PCIe Gen4 technology rolls with up to 7000 MB/s sequential read speeds and up to 1M IOPs, so says Western Digital.

The collection shown today is interesting, where generally a company that focuses on storage solutions struggles to make their products LOOK exciting. WD accomplishes that today with RGB lighting options, but also a Thunderbolt 3-powered NVMe SSD gaming dock, the likes of which most gamers have never seen before.

The WD_BLACK D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD is a "high-performance gaming dock SSD" complete with heatsink design. This device connects to a Thunderbolt 3 port in a modern laptop and turns said laptop into an "integrated and immersive gaming station." That includes customizable RGB lighting (so long as it's connected to a Windows laptop to make use of the WD_BLACK Dashboard software.

There are two iterations of this dock, one a non-SSD version (WD_BLACK D50 Game Dock) for approximately $320, the other called the WD_BLACK D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD with 1TB capacity starting at a price of approximately $500 USD, on pre-order now.

WD_BLACK AN1500 NVMe SSD Add-in-Card works with two internal SSDs in RAID 0 and connects with PCIe Gen3 x8 technology. WD_BLACK AN1500 NVMe SSD Add-in-Card is available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities starting at approximately $300 USD. This Add-in-Card is available in stores now.

The WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD connects with PCIe Gen4 technology and is touted by WD as rolling with speeds up to 7000/5300MB/s (1TB model). This piece of hardware was made with the WD_BLACK G2 controller to be optimized specifically for "top-tier and high-intensive gaming" and specifically NOT for NAS or server environments. There'll be a standard edition and an optional RGB-enabled heatsink model.

The WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD non-heatsink iteration will be available in several sizes: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, starting at approximately $130 USD. The non-heatsink version of the WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD is expected to be available for purchase before the end of October 2020. The WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD heatsink model is expected to be available for sale starting in the first quarter of the year 2021.