The WD BLACK SN770M is Western Digital’s latest storage solution, and it’s new because it’s meant to be improve the internal storage capacity of portable consoles like Steam Deck or ASUS Ally.

That same week, we published a special with 10 features we’d want from Valve in the creation of a potential Steam Deck 2, and among them we listed both improved storage capacity for games 150GB or larger and easier updating. .

WD BLACK SN770M is a good solution for these requirements. It is a hard drive in format M.2 2230 which as you know is smaller in size (22 x 30mm) than a typical M.2 2280 SSD. They can be used in ultraportable devices (for example, it’s the format used by the Microsoft Surface) and are also ideal for handheld machines.

WD BLACK SN770M, versions and prices

Its smaller size does not mean low performance, as this unit is interfaced PCIe 4.0 and supports the NVMe protocol. It uses its own TLC 3D NAND memory from Western Digital, has nCache 4 technology, which the manufacturer uses in its SSD drives, and is compatible with DirectStorage from Microsoft.

Its performance is remarkable, with data transfer of up to 5,150 / 4,000 Mbytes per second in sequential read/write modes and up to 800,000 IOPS in random write. WD ships it with a 5-year warranty and 300 TBW (minimum terabytes) endurance in the following capacities and prices:

• 500 GB: $74.99
• 1 TB: $109.99
• 2TB: $219.99

It is clear that the big manufacturers are not forgetting the current good state of portable consoles and their needs, in this case internal storage, which – to keep prices low – is too little for the needs of today’s big games. In addition, the delivery of the M.2 2230 format has been quite rare so far, and WD flash drives are a guarantee.