There’s not much reason to update solid-state drives, except maybe for more speed or size. Fortunately, WD has focused on the latter this year.
We’ve seen some pretty solid work out of Western Digital over the past year, what with the excellent external solid state drives available from the company, devices that add on extra storage with similar speeds as to what you can get from maybe inside your computer, except in a backup drive. The most recent My Passport has been so good, it manages to put up quite a fight against Samsung’s own solid-state drive, something we found in our comparison between the two.
So how is WD bettering its gear for 2021?
Well, we’re not seeing a new model in time for CES 2021, though changes to the SSD models tend to be in two year increments, with the model before last year’s My Passport SSD coming out in 2018. However WD seems intent on upgrading its drives somehow, and size may well be it.
This week, the company announced that across its portable solid-state drive range, maximum sizes will now be increase to 4TB, covering the My Passport SSD, the SanDisk Extreme, and the SanDisk Extreme Pro.
For WD, both the My Passport SSD and SanDisk Extreme appear to be similar pieces of hardware, with the same 1000MB per second maximum write speeds, and even the same expected price for the models, with $1199 fetching the 4TB version when they each arrive in Australia in March. The slightly faster variation built for photographers is the SanDisk Extreme Pro, which aims to hit write speeds as fast as 2000MB per second max, and will cost $1499 when it arrive in March, as well.
Meanwhile, gamers also get the option of a fast external SSD, too, coming in the form of the WD_Black P50, a drive that works with the PC, Xbox, or PlayStation, an supports read speeds of up to 2000MB per second, aimed at getting games to load faster.
“Our consumer brand products are used by millions of professionals and consumers around the world, and we continue to drive technology forward to deliver the performance, reliability and leading products they demand,” said Jim Welsh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Consumer Solutions at Western Digital.
Early March 2021 is when the updated range is expected in Australia.
