WD P10 Game Drive WDBA3A0040BBK-WESN 4 TB

Your Console's Best Friend

There isn't much room for creativity when making hard drives. It's not like writing "Alice in Wonderland." That's why we'd like to give a special nod to the folks at Western Digital for being less dull than their competitors. A few years ago, one of the brightest stars in the external hard drive market was the WD My Passport and Passport Portable models, which stood out with bold, unconventional designs and daring colors. At the end of 2019, the company released another interesting experiment called the P10 Game Drive.

Ammunition Box

This is a durable and spacious HDD encased in a sturdy plastic frame that strongly resembles an ammunition box. Just look at the huge bolts on the corners and the slits resembling metal containers. Consequently, it doesn't come with shock or drop protection (despite its formidable appearance), so handle it with care. The main buyers of the P10 Game Drive are PC masters and owners of PS4/PS4 Pro and Xbox One consoles, who desperately need more storage space for their ever-growing game collections in Steam or the PS Store. Considering how massive modern games have become, even the available 4TB doesn't seem excessive. If you consider 40GB as the average size of a modern game, you'll end up with a collection of a hundred games. However, no one forbids taking a smaller or larger option, as there are also models available in 2TB and 5TB.

A Bit Faster Than the PS4 Pro's Standard Hard Drive

When connecting the WD P10 Game Drive to the console, it will take a few minutes for initial setup, while with PC, no extra actions are required—the drive is recognized automatically. In terms of characteristics, the model fully justifies its somewhat high price: reading and writing speeds reach 140 MB/s and don't slow down as quickly as other external HDDs thanks to a large buffer. In use, it even outperformed the built-in PS4 Pro storage: loading a save in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey took it 1 minute and 10 seconds, compared to 1 minute and 16 seconds for the built-in drive. In other open-world games that take a long time to load, it also shows a slight advantage of a few seconds. It was also pleasing that it operates quietly and doesn't heat up significantly, while the rubber feet on the bottom effectively dampen vibrations and prevent it from scratching the table.