Review on WD_Black Game Thunderbolt Connectivity WDBA3U0000NBK NESN by Sean Davis

This version of the WD D50 Dock features an incredibly fast NVMe SSD, additional USB 3.0 Thunderbolt ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a 3.5mm audio jack and a DisplayPort connector. It can provide a gaming laptop with the same capabilities as its desktop counterpart. The only downside is that this dock is only compatible with Thunderbolt. It works fine on my Thunderbolt equipped laptop, but is not recognized by Windows at all on my non-Thunderbolt machine. I don't even get the usual Thunderbolt quality degrading warning, and the taskbar shows a generic connected device. Windows just ignores it completely. Everything is fine on my laptop with Thunderbolt. The NVMe drive provides additional storage space for gaming, and there's more than enough bandwidth for gaming. Given that most gaming laptops come with meager (250GB), mediocre (500GB), or good but not great (1TB) hard drive space, extra storage space is always a bonus. An external drive fast enough to use for lag-free gaming deserves a double bonus. My gaming laptop already has an Ethernet port built in, but that's another much-needed docking feature for laptops without it. That's one less USB dongle for those who need a wired connection but don't have an internal Ethernet port. The USB-C port can also provide 87W of power for a laptop or peripherals. The display options are a bit more limited than I had hoped. The ones with Thunderbolt displays are good. Everyone else has to be content with a single DisplayPort output as the only additional display output. The D50 has a striking black metal body styled after the usual WD Black gaming theme and an RGB lighting strip on the bottom. Admittedly, I wasn't thrilled with the RGB strip. It's so thin and hard to see that it's almost invisible from most angles. It can shine well on a reflective surface, as is well seen in most D50 product photos, but it's almost non-existent on a non-reflective surface. The size isn't the smallest and the design is a little chunky, but it's still small and light enough to fit in most backpacks. It's probably too bulky for all but the largest and most capacious laptop bags and briefcases. Sleeves with pockets can forget about it. I like the D50 but wish it was compatible with non-Thunderbolt machines too. I also noticed that sometimes it gets hot. It has an internal fan, but I haven't seen it spin yet. At first I thought the fan was bad, but a little research showed this to be a common thing. Western Digital's dashboard software provides control and monitoring tools, but does not allow for fan control. So far the dock hasn't gotten hot enough to be a concern, but it's getting warm. The D50 isn't the smallest dock and the color might not suit every theme, but those are minor issues. It's not a perfect docking station, but it gives a Thunderbolt-enabled device desktop-rival performance. The NVMe option adds much-needed, reliable additional storage.