When it comes to digital storage, there was a time when you were very selective about what you needed to store because you only had so much space available. I remember having to carry a box of 3.5inch disks with me during my varsity days that stored all of my projects because USB drives weren’t available at the time. And now I feel old.
These days, not only do we have an impressive amount of storage space available to us through various devices, but they are becoming increasingly smaller too. And that portable digital footprint is about to increase as Western Digital has announced that its are doubling the maximum storage size of several of its SSDs to 4TB, up from 2TB.
Yes, you can easily get portable hard drives that exceed this limit, but not SSD ones that offer high transfer speeds. That is a whole lot of PlayStation 5 and Xbox series space right there. Or one patch for Call of Duty.
The new drives will reportedly offer up to 1050MB/s read speeds and 1000MB/s write speeds with a special P50 Game Drive offering transfer speeds of up 2000MB/s, and is compatible with the latest consoles and your PC too. It’s worth noting that it’s not compatible with the next-gen console’s internal SSD expansion output to take full advantage of the next-gen hardware, which is likely to still be disappointing for most gamers.
The new 4TB drives are expected to retail for $680, with the Gamer P50 retailing for $750. That is still a lot of money for a portable hard drive, but if you have a lot of data that needs to be transferred quickly, these are the drives you want to do that with.
Last Updated: January 13, 2021
