WD_Black C50 Review: Rugged and Fast Xbox Storage Expansion

Are you looking to supercharge your Xbox Series X|S with extra storage? If so, you’ll want to check out the WD_BLACK C50 Storage Expansion Card. This officially licensed accessory offers a seamless solution for storing today’s larger games. To use it, you insert the card into your console for expanded storage with performance on par with the Xbox’s internal drive. It’s easy to use and definitely fast, but as of now, it is only available in 512GB and 1TB sizes.

Why Would You Need More Storage in the First Place?

With the release of the latest generation of Xbox game consoles nearly two and a half years ago, gaming once again leaped forward regarding what was possible to achieve with graphics and gameplay. The upgraded processors and infrastructure meant increased capabilities, and the game studios were right there to take full advantage.

The new, more ambitious titles grew and, as a result, took up more disk space.

While the Xbox Series X ships with 1TB of NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) SSD storage and the Series S is available with either 512MB or 1TB of the same, every gamer knows this will not be enough.

As an avid console gamer, I have always bought the latest and greatest Xbox consoles as they became available. As I tend to play many different games and like to try new games regularly, I have added storage capacity in both external hard drives and storage expansion cards.

When the new Xbox models became available, there was only one choice for expansion cards: Seagate, which was available in 1TB or 2TB configurations. I opted for the 2TB model and also continued to use a 4TB Seagate USB external hard drive that I retained from my previous generation console.

Even with a total of 7TB, I still run out of room.

The Xbox regularly saves saved games to the cloud, even without a subscription. It can also save data to the cloud. One of my favorite features is that the Xbox will automatically move most files associated with games you are not currently playing to the cloud and retrieve them if you restart the game.

But even with all of these advances, disk space is always precious, which is most likely because as new technologies bring new opportunities, developers quickly take advantage of them, and the resulting games are larger in terms of storage.

All this to explain why I am surprised that the WD_Black C50 is only available in 512MB and 1TB sizes; it seems especially odd as the Seagate equivalent was available on day one in 1TB and 2TB sizes.

The WD_BLACK C50 Storage Expansion Card

What’s in the box:

• WD_BLACK C50 Storage Expansion Card for Xbox
• Protective Cover
• Quick Install Guide

Specifications

The C50 has the same rugged construction and military-tech look as other recent WD_Black drives. As with all the expansion cards, the C50 is compact, measuring just over 2″ long by 1 ¼” wide and just under 1/3″ thick.

With a weight of 25g, including the cap, it is truly pocket-sized, which is convenient as one of its uses is to bring games from one console to another.

The main reason expansion cards are popular is speed. Cards like the WD_Black C50 plug directly into the Xbox internals and take advantage of the Xbox Velocity Architecture to achieve speeds nearly as fast as the internal drive.

Speed Tests

The WD_Black C50 also supports X|S enhanced titles and Xbox’s Quick Resume feature, making it a truly powerful addition. According to the reported specs, the C50 offers sustained write speeds of 2,400 MB/s with peaks up to 4,800 MB/s and sustained read speeds of 2,400 MB/s with peaks up to 4,800 MB/s.

I did not hook the system to any special hardware or software to test the unit’s speed; instead, I put it through its paces in real-world uses. For comparison, I copied the same file from the internal drive to the WD_Black C50, my existing 2TB Seagate expansion card, and my Seagate 4TB USB external hard drive.

The file was the game Dirt 5, which totals 63.88GB. The WD_BLACK C50 1TB copied the file at a very even speed of 3.3Gbps with minimal speed drops and finished in 2 minutes and 40 seconds. The Seagate 2TB reached speeds of 2.59Gbps but dropped to lower speeds quite a few times, resulting in a completion time of more than the estimated 4 minutes and 15 seconds.

To be fair, we need to keep in mind that the WD_Black C50 is a new drive with nothing on it, and the Seagate is over two years old and nearly full. I am unsure how these factors affect performance, but I would guess they don’t help it.

Both files took a bit longer to copy back to the internal drive from the expansion cards, but not by a huge margin.

In comparison, the 4TB Seagate external hard drive hit a maximum write speed of 974Mbps and dropped to a low of 400Mbps. It completed the copy in 14 minutes and 11 seconds.

That makes the write speed of the WD_Black C50 more than five times as fast as that of the external hard drive.

Should You Buy the WD_Black C50 Storage Expansion Card?

The WD_Black C50 Storage Expansion Card is an excellent addition to the Xbox, whether you have a series X or S. I like the card’s look and feel, but frankly, the aesthetics are really not that important, as you rarely see this product unless you remove it to transfer games between consoles. Most importantly, the WD_Black C50 is fast.

Although the Western Digital website price for the 1TB expansion card is $149.99, Amazon is currently offering the C50 for $124.99, a savings of $25 over the Seagate alternative.

The WD_Black C50 Storage Expansion Card sells for $149.99; and is available directly from the manufacturer and other retailers, including Amazon.

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample

What I Like: Fast transfer speeds; Available at a lower cost than the Seagate alternative; Sturdy construction

What Needs Improvement: I only wish that there was a 2 TB or larger option