WD Black D50 Game Dock 1TB Review

Rating: 8.0.

WD's Black D50 Game Dock combines a fast NVMe M.2 SSD with a Thunderbolt 3 interface and adds more ports than you can shake a stick at. No gaming product is complete without RGB lighting these days either, so WD has even added some LEDs to the Game Dock. Can it justify the £430 asking price?

The WD Black D50 Game Dock comes (at the time of writing) in two capacities, 1TB and 2TB. WD quotes read/write speeds for the D50 of up to 3,000MB/s and 2,500MB/s respectively. Using the CrystalDiskInfo tool we find that the drive inside the D50 is recognised as a WD SN730 drive, which uses an in-house controller and BiCS4 96-Layer TLC 3D NAND.

As well as the pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports there are three USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gb/s) Type-A ports and a pair of USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C ports. On top of these, you also get a single DisplayPort 1.4 port together with single Audio in/out port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The D50 uses a 180W adapter for power which enables one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports to support 87 Watt pass-through charging for a laptop.

There are no endurance figures for the D50 Game Dock on the spec sheet but the 1TB model of the SN730 drive that is used internally has a rating of 400TBW. WD backs the Black D50 Game Dock with a 5-year warranty.

Physical Specifications:

• Usable Capacities: 1TB.
• NAND Components: BiCS4 96-Layer TLC 3D NAND.
• NAND Controller: WD in-house.
• Interface: Thunderbolt 3.
• Other ports:  3 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C,  1 x DisplayPort 1.4 port, 1 x Audio in/out, 1 x Gigabit Ethernet.
• Form Factor: External Drive.
• Dimensions: 120 x 120 x 55mm.
• Drive Weight: 0.53Kg.

Firmware Version: 111110WD.

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