Western Digital WD My Passport SSD, Midnight Blue, 1TB, USB-C 3.1

Mit der WD My Passport bietet Western Digital eine portable SSD-Familie mit Kapazitäten bis 4 TB an. Mit einem schlanken, robusten Metallgehäuse in verschiedenen Farben (Space-Grau, Mitternachtsblau, Rot, Rose Gold und Silber) und blitzschnellen Geschwindigkeiten, ermöglicht das kompakte Laufwerk Heim- und Geschäftsanwendern wichtige Inhalte zu speichern, darauf zuzugreifen und sie zu schützen. Gegenüber der Vorgänger-Generation wurde mithilfe von NVMe-Technologie und USB 3.2 Gen2 die Performance fast verdoppelt und erreicht damit Lesegeschwindigkeiten von bis zu 1.050 MB/s und Schreibgeschwindigkeiten von bis zu 1.000 MB/s. Der Anschluss erfolgt über eine USB-C-Schnittstelle. Für sicheren Schutz sensibler Daten sorgen eine 256-bit-AES-Hardwareverschlüsselung mit Passwortschutz sowie eine unkomplizierte Datensicherung. Integrierte Backup-Software erleichtert die Sicherung großer Dateien auf dem Laufwerk oder in der Cloud. Wie sich die WD My Passport SSD von Western Digital in der Praxis behaupten kann, klären wir in unserem gewohnt ausführlichen Review der 1-TB-Version, die aktuell für rund 130 Euro den Besitzer wechselt. Wie immer wünschen wir viel Spaß beim Lesen!

The decision to revamp the My Passport SSD was overdue since many brands that offer portable storage have released an NVMe technology external drive over the past year. A few brands are determined to squeeze the last from SATA SSDs. But, with USB 4.0 on the horizon, it won’t be long before even faster external drives are available. While not as elegant as its predecessor, the new My Passport SSD delivers good-enough performance combined with excellent transportability and an effective hardware-based security model. The problem for Western Digital is pricing, as comparable designs, like the Crucial X8 and Adata SE760 can be found cheaper. The wonky pricing, software that isn’t currently functional, the lack of alternative colours, and the missing 2TB capacity at launch all hint that Western Digital rushed into releasing this product. Hopefully, it will address all of these things in due course, and the new My Passport SSD will be as popular as the countless others that came before it.

Portable storage is all the rave as of late and you just might see quite a few reviews in the next while as, well, I have six sitting behind me. They range from SATA 3 (560MB/s) to USB 3.2 (1050MB/s) all the way up to Thunderbolt 3 at 2.8GB/s. Pretty much the only thing they have in common is that fact that they are all now using USB Type-C connectors. Today, we are going to take a quick look at the Western Digital 1TB My Passport SSD.

The latest iterations of portable external storage have moved the performance needle to the right by taking advantage of faster NVMe-based SSDs connected via USB 3.2 Gen-2 Type-C. A good example is this year's WD My Passport SSD that's currently shipping in 500GB and 1TB flavours with a 2TB model to follow. Performance is tasty enough to hit the GB/s barrier in large-file reads and get close to it on writes, representing about 2x the performance of older SSD-based USB drives. It's also very portable, naturally has access to WD's array of utilities, and will be available in different colours in due course. It would be nice to have a longer Type-C cable in the box, a fingerprint-reader option would keep up with the Samsungs of this world, yet the biggest stumbling block is price. The recommended price of £222 for the reviewed 1TB model is at odds with the £175 for the rival Samsung T7 and also substantially higher than the ($190 ex tax, ~£175 inc. VAT) for the same drive over the pond. Overall, the WD My Passport SSD (2020) 1TB is a supremely fast external drive that, in the UK at least, is compromised by an uncompetitive street price. Technically excellent, it would make far more sense at £175 or so.