games getting bigger and bigger with each
each passing update adding some extra storage to your next-gen console might be necessary in the near future while the cda expansion card is hands down the best performing option for Xbox one of the latest from western digital the wd black d30 SSD game drive is a nice bridge that can also be more versatile than what the Seagate drive has to offer black d30 SSD drive wd black is the
gaming-focused arm of western digital there are drives for consoles desktops and laptops wd black has dedicated nvme SSDPlayStation drives or you can get external storage that can easily be transferred between different devices the d30 is really easy to format and set up for a playstation for an Xbox or for pc and of course you can use these on Xbox one and PlayStation 4 as well as the next gen consoles PlayStationnext-gen 5 and xbXboxox series x and s one thing to note here at leastwith the Xbox side of things you won't
be able to play Xbox series s and x enhanced games usually the game of little icon on the title that tells you it's enhanced for Xbox series x and s if you have it installed on this drive when you have it plugged into your Xbox you won't be able to play the game you'll have to transfer it to your internal storage and we'll talk a little bit more about that here coming up and that versatility being able to use this withPlayStation and pc makes it a little
more multi-purpose than what that cda expansion card is the cg8 fits into one specific slot in the back of the Xbox series x and sand so you can't use it on your pc or PlayStation whereas an external drive like this is a little more versatile so you know if you get id of your Xbox but still have the drive you can use it on a PlayStation or a pc and just like the p10 game drive that we took a look at back in 2019 the d30 also has an extra Xbox branded version of it so it has a little white border around here and an Xbox logo on it as well there are no performancechanges but if you are on an xbox and
then you like that look then that might be something that you want to check outmoving on to the design while it doesn't matter for performance wd black's lineup is pretty great looking for accessories with military style text branding and a rugged-looking matte black body the d30 is a drive that you won't feel like you have to hide away tucked behind your xbox it does still have the longest usb c cord attached to the console so it's not nearly as seamless as the cd8 expansion card and moving on to performance western digital claims that the d30 can get up to 900 megabytes per second read speed to reach those speeds though you will need to connect via usb 3.2 gen2 and while my pc doesn't have any gen 2 ports i was able to reach speeds up to 446 megabytes per second read and 404 megabytes per second right when using crystal disk mark through a usb 3.2 gen 1 port and that is a pretty huge upgrade over you know the standard uh hdd drive with the spinning disc in there like the p10 which usually peak at just a little bit over 100 megabytes per second, so even getting 400 you know is a great speed boost on here doing some real world transfer tests on the xbox series x i was able to transfer a 3.27 gigabyte game to the d30 in just over 10 seconds surprisingly transferring a 38.6 gigabyte game from internal storage to the d30 took 7 minutes 41 seconds while transferring it back to the internal storage took only 2 minutes and 28 seconds and with the xbox series x only using usb 3.2 gen 1 ports you know it's unlikely that you'll see the max speed of what this drive can offer on your xbox series x console and like we briefly mentioned you also won't be able to play any xbox s or x enhanced titles directly from the game drive you know if you have stored those on here you will need to transfer them back to your console to be able to play those and that's something that is different withthe cd expansion card because it has pretty much the exact same speed as the internal storage you can actually play xbox series x and s enhanced games off of the cga expansion card but that is a very you know specific expansion option just for the xbox series x and s so youknow if that's something you want to
look for you just want the fastest speeds then definitely check that out but something like this can offer a little more versatility but if you do want even more performance than what this drive can offer then check out the p50 game drive from wd black with stated speeds up to 200 megabytes per second and up to four terabytes of storage as packing twice the speed of the d30 for those who need more and for pricing the 500-gigabyte to version of the wd black d30 comes in at 90 with the one terabyte coming in at 150 and then there is also a 2 terabyte version which will set you back 270 dollars so within that range there you know you can find where you fit and just for comparison that Seagate expansion card is one terabyte so the same size as this drive which cost 170dollars the cd8 drive one terabyte will
come in at two hundred and twenty dollars uh but it does get you know insanely fast speeds uh much higher performance for the xbox series x and s uh but you can't use it on playstationor on pc so overall wrapping up here the d30 seems like a great hard drive to add some more storage with some decent speeds to back it up i wasn't able to reach the advertised speeds due to my lack of usb 3.2 gen 2 but if you're used to using a standard spinning hdd you'll definitely see some speed increases with a wd black d30 game drive and again what i like about these drives is that they can also be repurposed for something else if you're done with your xbox you're done with your playstation or you know you have it on your pc but you need extra storage for your xbox or playstation you can easily jump around and you know reformat this and have some great other uses for it rather than just game storage you know on your console but that being said if you are on xbox series x or s and don't have any plans any other need to get any sort of external storage for a playstation or pc then the seagate expansion card is hands down the highest performance piece that you can get for your xbox series x or s with speeds matching those of the internal storage it's a seamless way todouble or triple your storage without any compromises alright and that'll do it for a quick look at the wd black d30ssd game drive let us know what you if you want to buy please click link
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