WD Black D10 Game Drive
Top-tier backup for your Mac and more
The drive picked up file transfers almost instantly
£182.99 FROM Western Digital, shop.westerndigital.com FEATURES 8TB 7,200rpm hard drive storage, USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Micro B) interface, 2x USB-A ports, USB-A to Micro B cable included
This 8TB drive is designed for Macs, PCs, PlayStations and Xboxes and is of the old-school, traditional mechanical hard drive type, with platters and everything. That enables that huge 8TB capacity, but it also means the drive needs its own power cable. Likewise, if you want a gigantic eight terabytes of storage, then you’re not going to get it in a svelte, compact form factor – but despite its (relatively) large 195x125x44mm size, the WD Black D10 brings with it its own style. It’s black, and chunky, and vaguely military-esque in its appearance, but it’s also tasteful. and will slot away on any desk or in any cabinet fairly easily.
Rubber feet on one side of the box and a simple plastic stand included with the drive mean you can have it positioned either vertically on its side or flat on a surface. Around the back are power and data ports, together with two USB-A 7.5W ports for charging your other gadgets, if you need to.
Capacity and heritage
Setup is simple – you just plug it in and it’s ready to go, at least as far as the Mac goes. Getting everything configured on a PlayStation or Xbox is a little bit more involved, but it’s not difficult to do, and the WD Black 10 is no different to any other external hard drive in that respect.
It’s tricky to make a chunky external drive like this look attractive, but Western Digital hasn’t done a bad job here. The little extra touches like the rubber feet for horizontal placement and the extra charging ports mean it scores highly as far as the aesthetics of the drive go.
Western Digital says the WD Black 10 is capable of a 250MB/s read and write speed which, while not record-breaking, is certainly good enough. You’re not going to find many drives that go much faster at this price and with this much storage included.
What we can tell you is that the drive picked up file transfers almost instantly, never skipped a beat in terms of read and write performance, and was very quiet in operation – not as quiet as a solid-state drive (SSD), but nothing that’s going to distract you from your computing or your gaming.
The drive spins at a standard 7,200rpm and comes with active cooling technology to make sure it doesn’t overheat (reassuring if you’re going to be working directly from it).
You don’t get any software bundled with the drive, but you can download Western Digital’s usual suite of tools from the web for free, including a basic backup tool.
We were impressed with the WD Black D10. That 8TB is ample, and there are a lot of nice touches that we like on this drive – the charging ports, the design, the way it can be positioned flat or on its side… even the white read/write indicator light is tastefully done.
Add to that the heritage and reputation you get with Western Digital as a hard drive maker, and this is obviously going to be near the top of your shortlist for an external drive – just make sure you check prices on other drives first, and consider whether you’d be better off with a portable, USB-powered device.