WD_BLACK 1TB D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD, WDBA3U0010BBK-NESN

The utility app does not support mac. You can’t manage your device from Mac.
The dashboard app does not even have a mac version.
The light still looks cool. But Mac users don’t have control over it.
Anyway just looks cool, I will keep it.

This storage and peripheral dock is an impressive way to upgrade multiple aspects of your thunderbolt equipped computer, increasing storage capacity, read/write speeds, and connectivity to peripherals.
My laptop is no slouch but only has 4 type C ports. I do a lot of multimedia and find myself often short on storage.
I’ve tried several external drives that were fast but were slower than my main drive, and didn’t have other dock functionality. Thanks to the wonders of Type C thunderbolt technology and absolutely top end SSD, this WD Black D50 dock provides external storage at speeds better than my internal SSD!
Crystal disk mark measured 2600mb/s read 2100mb/s write for a 4gb test, faster than the internal disk of my Dell XPS 17 which reads and writes at 2100mb/s. I did not notice any significant difference in performance between games loaded on this disk and my internal disk, but if you have the right thunderbolt port and a slower SSD in your computer you can see a significant improvement without disassembling the computer with a time consuming upgrade.
Copying 300gb of files to the WD Black D50 from my computer, copy speed drops and stabilizes at 400-500mb/s after the initial high speed burst. Intra-dock transfers seem unimpeded as well. After sustained writing (while not supplying power), the outer surface reached 100F in an 80F environment
Max measured total power when supplying type C power passthrough: 96W. This checks out if you assume 87W of passthrough and 9W used by the dock’s other functions or lost to conversion inefficiencies. My laptop’s original type C charger supplies 130W when I run the CPU and GPU at full blast, 87W of power will adequately slow down the battery discharge in the highest power scenarios but it is still not as good as delivering the full 130W. Given that it is common for type C chargers on the market to supply 100W, and the fact that the Game dock’s own power brick is rated for 180W, for such a high end product it is strange that it would only supply 87W.
The game dock’s built in 1TB SSD is fast, but the ports are fast too, I connected a slower external SSD and the game dock was able to pass through its data at 900mb/s as well. Simultaneous read/write to the dock’s SSD and the other external SSD did not result in significant speed drop for either so WD did a good job eliminating bottlenecks. There is plenty of bandwidth for transferring all the data at full speed, be it displayport video or usb peripherals.
The game dock does not appear to support connecting to a regular type A USB port via a type C to type A adapter/cord, so if you lose access to a type C device you may not be able to access data in the dock.
In summary, this game dock is a top notch way to increase the speed and connectivity of your laptop, with the only major downside being you may need another charger if your laptop consumes more than 87W of power.

I’ll be honest, this wasn’t going to be my first choice, but given the current climate with everything being out of stock or listed for scalper prices, when I found this I pounced. I have acquired this for my WFH setup, and it has been brilliant. True thunderbolt connectivity, plenty of USB ports, dual monitor connectivity, ethernet and audio. All components were detected, and drivers installed by Windows. No issues with power delivery to my Dell notebook.

The WD software only enables RGB strip control.

I got the no storage option and it does not work at all (except for the power pass through). I called WD support and they said they only offer the option to buy the version without a 1 or 2 TB SSD because some people want to use their own. That’s fine but there is no warning that it will only work with a SSD inside. I currently do not have a NVME SSD to use and make sure this is the case, but that is what WD support told me.

This would explain why so many people’s product does not work if true. Can anyone else verify this?

I called WD support a 2nd time. This time they said it should work without an SSD. It seemed obvious both times I called that neither person knew this product or what it was supposed to do. Thankfully, Amazon support is awesome. I am returning the product and do not even want to bother trying again.

As the title says, this thing is great. Full 100W charging and TB3 connectivity. One cable to dock, that’s it. The more expensive versions of this have internal storage, but you can easily add an NVME drive. I added a 1TB WD_Black SN750 NVME drive and it gets better speeds than the advertised 1TB version of the dock. It’s a super simple process of unscrewing the side cover, popping the drive in and securing with an M4 screw, then formatting.