WD_Black P10 Game Drive
WITH CLOUD-BASED storage solutions becoming more and more integrated into our digital lives, the external drive is in danger of fading into obscurity. Gone is the need for chunky backup hard drives, when we can simply punt our files off into the yawning data void that is Google Drive or Dropbox. Gone are the days when you’d need a USB flash drive to bring some files to a friend, now that wireless data transfer between devices is commonplace.
It’s not just that cloud storage has become more effective and widely available, it’s the flexibility it offers. In the past decade, compatibility has massively improved, to the point where we can now save a document on our PC, then open it up on a smartphone or tablet to continue working on it. It’s this ease of use that has made cloud computing a success—but it can’t do everything.
For low-intensity tasks like word processing or playing music, streaming directly from your cloud isn’t a problem. Google Drive works near-perfectly on any suitable device, with multiple users able to edit the same document in real time, because streaming basic inputs like typing back and forth isn’t difficult even on lower-end internet connections. Google’s ability to pour money into its projects helps too.
But when we get to the more demanding activities you might do on your PC—in this case, gaming—simply streaming from the cloud isn’t always going to work. Cloudbased gaming platforms have had a rocky history, from the now-infamous collapse of OnLive to the more contemporary issues being faced by Stadia and GeForce Now users. The fact is that while fully streamed gaming is perfectly possible, the internet infrastructure needed for the average consumer to use it isn’t here yet. Google recommends a bare minimum of 35Mbps, while the national average in urbanized areas barely scrapes above that, and in rural areas is unlikely to reach it at all. In a telling move, Sony added a download function to its game-streaming subscription service PlayStation Now in 2018, allowing players to retain a local copy of the game so that the content didn’t need to be streamed.
Enter the WD_Black P10 Game Drive. Western Digital’s expertise when it comes to data storage isn’t in question; this looks and feels like a high-quality product, with a hard plastic casing. The WD_Black range features hardware designed with gamers in mind, and the P10 is no different. It connects to your PC (or a console) via an included USB-A to USB-B Micro cable, then acts as an additional drive for you to run games from or store files on. As with most of Western Digital’s hardware, it comes with a three-year warranty.
Using it couldn’t be simpler; with a PC, this is as straightforward as plugging it in and downloading your games onto it. We tested several games with the P10 on a stock gaming PC, and it performed admirably throughout, with no noticeable hiccups. Load times in a few games were a tad lengthy, but we’re accustomed to the blinding speeds of M.2 SSDs, so it’s not really an issue. Under test conditions, our P10 hit a maximum transfer speed of 138MB/s, just below the advertised maximum of 140MB/s. It’s not super-fast, but it outstrips most conventional HDDs.
The P10 comes with up to 5TB of storage capacity, with the 2TB model clocking in at $80: Cheaper than Western Digital’s 2TB WD_Black internal HDD. If you’re trying to game on an HDD but don’t have at least $200 to splurge on a 2TB SSD, the P10’s the way to go. –CG
$80, www.westerndigital.com