WD My Passport Portable SSD [500GB] (Gold)

Bought this to store and transfer files and photos from my old iPhone 12 pro. It doesn’t work when directly connected to the iPhone and even if you use a dongle. Took a me a day of searching, several troubleshooting, formatting and reformatting until I found the solution. You need a USB hub with separate power source (mine is 5v DC) and thats what you need to connect to the dongle, a bit hassle if you want to use it on the go. I think it might work directly plugged for iPhone 15 series since its already Type C. When used in laptop, be sure to use the data type c port as its faster rather than the USB. Other than that works great, very pocket size, true to its size and with freebies.

A small lightweight SSD

This 2 TB SSD is small and lightweight. It had a file saying, "Install Western Digital Software for Windows." However, when I clicked on it, it got to "Installing 18%" and stopped when I had the drive plugged in with USB-C. It was nice that the drive came with a USB-A extender. When I plugged that into my USB-A port, the drive seemed to work fine. It seems the USB-C connector didn't make a good connection to the USB-C port on my laptop. I'm curious about whether the USB-C connector is defective or if the USB-C port on my laptop is defective. The device came with a 16"x13" piece of paper containing much information, but with a font that was too small to read, except for one page that said, "? support.wd.com/contact". However, when I went to support.wd.com/contact, ... MoreThis 2 TB SSD is small and lightweight. It had a file saying, "Install Western Digital Software for Windows." However, when I clicked on it, it got to "Installing 18%" and stopped when I had the drive plugged in with USB-C. It was nice that the drive came with a USB-A extender. When I plugged that into my USB-A port, the drive seemed to work fine. It seems the USB-C connector didn't make a good connection to the USB-C port on my laptop. I'm curious about whether the USB-C connector is defective or if the USB-C port on my laptop is defective. The device came with a 16"x13" piece of paper containing much information, but with a font that was too small to read, except for one page that said, "? support.wd.com/contact". However, when I went to support.wd.com/contact, the page never loaded. I also tried support.wd.com. I tried twice on two computers with 12 hours between the attempts, but didn't succeed. However, when I went to support.wd.com/contact, the page never loaded. I also tried support.wd.com. I tried twice on two computers with 12 hours between the attempts, but didn't succeed. On an IPhone, I saw a message that said, "Safari could not open the page because the server stopped responding."In any case, I can copy data to the SSD using the USB-A extender. It doesn't seem any faster than my WD EasyStore.

Affordable SSD Storage!

As a computer enthusiast, you can never have enough storage, especially when you need to backup your most sensitive data. Typically faster storage usually coincides with higher price, however, we are at a point now to where external SSDs are quite affordable even for those who do not necessarily care about the speed of the transfer. As such, I was happy to be given the opportunity to review WD's latest passport offering. Packing 1 TB of space in a sleek and lightweight enclosure, the new passport attempts to offer the sweet spot for price and capacity. Additionally, I wanted to test several different types of transfers to give you a clearer picture on what to expect with this latest offering.As one would expect, the newest My Passport SSD features NVMe technology, ... MoreAs a computer enthusiast, you can never have enough storage, especially when you need to backup your most sensitive data. Typically faster storage usually coincides with higher price, however, we are at a point now to where external SSDs are quite affordable even for those who do not necessarily care about the speed of the transfer. As such, I was happy to be given the opportunity to review WD's latest passport offering. Packing 1 TB of space in a sleek and lightweight enclosure, the new passport attempts to offer the sweet spot for price and capacity. Additionally, I wanted to test several different types of transfers to give you a clearer picture on what to expect with this latest offering.As one would expect, the newest My Passport SSD features NVMe technology, offering read speeds up to 1050 MB/s and 1000 MB/s write over USB 3.2 Generation 2. As soon as you open the box, you will be quite excited with the sheer size (or lack thereof) of the new drive. It is extremely compact and has a nice aluminum iodized feel. On the front of the drive, you will note the wavy etched pattern that gives the new drive a premium design. As expected, the drive includes a small USB Type-C cable, along with an adapter that will allow you to plug the drive into existing Type A ports. Overall, setup should be straight forward. Lastly, the new SSD Passport ships already formatted in exFAT.For my tests, I wanted to focus the new Passport with a comparable drive of similar specifications. I decided I would compare the newly released SanDisk Extreme V2 1TB drive (Model: SDSSDE61-1T00). Additionally, for data transfers, I wanted to keep my tests relatively simple to focus on an out of box experience. As with anything computer related, data and benchmarks can quickly become complicated, especially when you factor in the different ways USB is implemented across a wide range of chipsets. With this in mind, I wanted to give you an idea on what to expect with this drive given two drastically different computer environments. I ran both drives over USB 3.0 using the included Type-A adapter on my Asus Maximus V Extreme Z77 motherboard running Windows 7 Ultimate. My second test was to then use my HP Laptop Envy X360 (2017), this time over USB Type-C using Windows 10. Additionally, the laptop's USB Type-C port is limited to Generation 1. Lastly, to compliment my Crystalmark tests, I manually copied two sets of data. My first data test is one large 37.3 GB bluray image. The second transfer is one large 28.9 GB music folder, but features 5,002 files and 1,152 folders to test the random 4K performance.Here is the data for both drives on my desktop. UASP was disabled on my board due to not being supported in Windows 7. To shorten the data, I will only list the Sequential values and Random 4K at a queue depth/ thread of 1 (full results in the pictures).Passport: Sequential Read: 257.97 / Sequential Write: 264.06Passport: 4K Read (Q1T1): 37.26 / Random 4K Write (Q1T1): 72.99SanDisk: Sequential Read: 258.18 / Sequential Write: 263.23SanDisk 4K Read (Q1T1): 37.26 / Random 4K Write (Q1T1): 72.73As you can see both practically equivalent, which probably suggests that both of these drives could, in fact, house the same M.2 drive inside, though I cannot 100% confirm that is the case. Coinciding these results, here are the results from my laptop.Passport: Sequential Read: 430.72 / Sequential Write: 368.50Passport: 4K Read (Q1T1): 22.74 / Random 4K Write (Q1T1): 30.96SanDisk: Sequential Read: 430.68 / Sequential Write: 367.83SanDisk 4K Read (Q1T1): 28.22 / Random 4K Write (Q1T1): 37.81Once again, the results are almost identical as I noted on the desktop between the two drives. The noticeable increase on sequential is almost certainly due to having UASP native support on Windows 10. Next, I ran both of my manual transfers on both computers.As for my manual transfers, the WD 1 TB and the SanDisk Extreme V2 performed just as my data would suggest. On the desktop and laptop, my Bluray image would sustain a write speed on both drives around 215-230 MB/s, which was exciting to see. The nearly 40 GB image transferred in roughly two minutes. Next my 28.9 GB folder of music proved to be a more difficult task, albeit still extremely fast. I noted that the drives would both sustain around 140-160 MB/s. Occasionally, you will see some dips but nothing too drastic. I will note, however, that on my laptop, the music folder transfer was drastically different. The manual transfer dipped anywhere from 75 MB/s all the way up to bursts of 180 MB/s. Not sure of the reasoning of the drastic dips, especially given that my laptop uses a Crucial P1 1TB M2 as its boot drive. However, it is certainly obvious that this transfer is certainly a worst case scenario and yet it was still able to complete the task in roughly 3-4 minutes. Safe to say, the WD My Passport SSD is absolutely stunning in performance.In conclusion, the WD Passport 1 TB SSD performs exactly as expected. It is both sleek and compact, and certainly breezes through any transfer you can throw at it. In addition, the price is certainly affordable and with 1 TB of space it could prove quite useful for anyone looking for storage. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fully unlock the drives full potential due to not having an available device that is equipped with a USB 3.2 Generation 2 port. However, it would not surprise me if those results are exponentially faster than the ones I have presented here. Regardless of whichever device you use this with, most should be extremely satisfied with the results. With that said, the WD My Passport SSD comes highly recommended.

Cute but ordinary

Being an old, happy, and faithful WD’s HDs consumer and user, having used around 5 devices along the last 10/15 years (I still have those and the SNs), I had no doubt to buy one WD My Passport 2TB SSD, last June. For my immense unpleasant and frustrating surprise this device was a disaster: since the very initial moments of use its behavior was very unstable, not saving and allowing proper reading, affecting the behavior of my iMac even causing restarts due to mal functioning.Of course, I looked for WD support help, but only after I was able to demonstrate the device was defective, what took weeks, WD accepted to replace it (5 years warranty). Another bad surprise: saying there wasn’t inventory, and would take too long to rebuild it, they proposed (and I accepted) ... MoreBeing an old, happy, and faithful WD’s HDs consumer and user, having used around 5 devices along the last 10/15 years (I still have those and the SNs), I had no doubt to buy one WD My Passport 2TB SSD, last June. For my immense unpleasant and frustrating surprise this device was a disaster: since the very initial moments of use its behavior was very unstable, not saving and allowing proper reading, affecting the behavior of my iMac even causing restarts due to mal functioning.Of course, I looked for WD support help, but only after I was able to demonstrate the device was defective, what took weeks, WD accepted to replace it (5 years warranty). Another bad surprise: saying there wasn’t inventory, and would take too long to rebuild it, they proposed (and I accepted) to replace by an HD (not SSD) with a larger capacity – 5 TB

Great Drive (buggy APP)

This things rocks but I only wanted to post to help those who might be having issues setting up a password on this or any other WD drive using the WD Discover app.Greetings! I've had issues setting up passwords on all of my WD devices...going on 5 different models over 6+ years ranging from 500GB - 10TB devices. What I learned long ago is that in order to setup the password for the first time for a new drive, you cannot have any other WD devices connected to the computer (whether they are locked or unlocked). I think it is some sort of bug with the WD Discovery app software.You've probably seen on the forums and product manuals that all you should have to do is open the WD Discovery app and click on the drive settings, then there is supposed to be an option to ... MoreThis things rocks but I only wanted to post to help those who might be having issues setting up a password on this or any other WD drive using the WD Discover app.Greetings! I've had issues setting up passwords on all of my WD devices...going on 5 different models over 6+ years ranging from 500GB - 10TB devices. What I learned long ago is that in order to setup the password for the first time for a new drive, you cannot have any other WD devices connected to the computer (whether they are locked or unlocked). I think it is some sort of bug with the WD Discovery app software.You've probably seen on the forums and product manuals that all you should have to do is open the WD Discovery app and click on the drive settings, then there is supposed to be an option to set a password...but only eject is there if multiple drives are plugged in.The Solution =1. Unplug any WD drives connected to your PC (you may need/want to reboot for the next step to work)2. Plug in the new drive (still with no other WD drives connected to the PC3. Install the latest version of the WD Discovery app that comes on the device or simply open it if you have the newest version installed already4. Then you should see the option to set a password in the drive settingsI'm not sure if this is a problem for or if this fix will work on MACs.

Nice Portable Storage Drive!

The WD - My Passport 1TB portable storage drive is a great solution if you are looking for an external portable storage drive. I previously had a WD My Passport 500 GB portable storage drive that I have used for many years, but I am finally at a point where I needed more space, so I decided to upgrade to this new device. The 1TB of space gives me a significant amount of space for external storage. However, beyond that, I love the additional improvements with these new units.First, with the NVMe solid state performance, this drive is really fast! It says it will transfer up to 1050MB/s. Those numbers may not mean much unless you are comparing it to the numbers for other units, but all I can say is the speed is definitely noticeable! I can do a system backup in no ... MoreThe WD - My Passport 1TB portable storage drive is a great solution if you are looking for an external portable storage drive. I previously had a WD My Passport 500 GB portable storage drive that I have used for many years, but I am finally at a point where I needed more space, so I decided to upgrade to this new device. The 1TB of space gives me a significant amount of space for external storage. However, beyond that, I love the additional improvements with these new units.First, with the NVMe solid state performance, this drive is really fast! It says it will transfer up to 1050MB/s. Those numbers may not mean much unless you are comparing it to the numbers for other units, but all I can say is the speed is definitely noticeable! I can do a system backup in no time, far faster than with my previous drive. While it is great for backups, with this speed, it would also be great to use when working with large sized files or video footage that would normally take up a lot of space on a PC.The drive is really small compared to the one I previously used, making it very portable and convenient. It measures only 3 & 7/8 x 2 & 1/8 x 5/16 thick and it is very light weight. It would easily fit in a shirt or jacket pocket. They also made it quite durable as it was designed to be shock and vibration resistant and it can withstand drops of up to 6.5 feet. While I'm not prone to dropping things, it is nice to know if it happened that the drive would not be damaged and my files would still be accessible.It comes with a USB-C Cable and they provide a USB-A adapter, in case your PC does not have a USB-C port. It also comes with the WD Discovery software for easy backup.I like the fact the drive is also secure, as it provides password protection and 256-bit AES hardware encryption, so my files are protected if anyone gets their hands on it.I don't know what more you could ask for in a portable storage drive! If you are in need of an external storage device, you can't go wrong with this WD My Passport drive!

Sleek design, fast, loved it - until it died

Bought the 2TB version in February 2022. My last WD external drive lasted many years so I went for WD again.It's an easy-to-use plug-and-play solution and fast. So far, great.Today, I decided it was time to mirror it to my two backup drives and it suddenly stopped working without warning. It was about 85% full and on average, I used it a few hours per week.I can still see the drive in the device manager, with the name changed back to factory settings. I cannot open the drive or access any files.In file explorer, clicking on a recently used folder on the drive only shows the dialogue: Please insert a disc into SDHC (D:).When going to "safely remove hardware and eject media", it shows the factory setting name but the drive is greyed out.I lost a ... MoreBought the 2TB version in February 2022. My last WD external drive lasted many years so I went for WD again.It's an easy-to-use plug-and-play solution and fast. So far, great.Today, I decided it was time to mirror it to my two backup drives and it suddenly stopped working without warning. It was about 85% full and on average, I used it a few hours per week.I can still see the drive in the device manager, with the name changed back to factory settings. I cannot open the drive or access any files.In file explorer, clicking on a recently used folder on the drive only shows the dialogue: Please insert a disc into SDHC (D:).When going to "safely remove hardware and eject media", it shows the factory setting name but the drive is greyed out.I lost a substantial amount of photographic work that I won't be able to get back. Partially, it's my own fault for not backing up more frequently.At the same time, I really do expect a drive that is only in use a few hours a week to last longer than a year.

Small, but could probably be even smaller

I bought this after a 2.5" HD died during a thunderstorm. It was time for something less sensitive, and more robust when on the move. I was copying data folders for my wife and I onto this and a 2TB Crucial X9 for a double backup, and the both complete a 50GB folder decently fast, and not that far apart, though they were on a USB-C hub that used a C-to-A adapter to plug into the USB3 socket on the desktop. I hope to add a USB 3.2 (or later if available by then) PCIe card to the system for faster transfers in the future, but for now, just tossing a folder over to it before I do other things works fine.It comes with a short USB-C to C cable and a USB-C-to-A adapter, so you can use it with either out of the box.Note that is is an odd size - wider than a 2280 NVMe ... MoreI bought this after a 2.5" HD died during a thunderstorm. It was time for something less sensitive, and more robust when on the move. I was copying data folders for my wife and I onto this and a 2TB Crucial X9 for a double backup, and the both complete a 50GB folder decently fast, and not that far apart, though they were on a USB-C hub that used a C-to-A adapter to plug into the USB3 socket on the desktop. I hope to add a USB 3.2 (or later if available by then) PCIe card to the system for faster transfers in the future, but for now, just tossing a folder over to it before I do other things works fine.It comes with a short USB-C to C cable and a USB-C-to-A adapter, so you can use it with either out of the box.Note that is is an odd size - wider than a 2280 NVMe drive, but also shorter than one. Because of that, if you like using hard cases to transport drives, ones made for 2.5" drives will be much too large, so if you use one, you'll need to add some foam to keep it from bouncing around in the case.NOTE: the price they are charging for it right now, $154, is extreme, to say the least. I price-matched it down to the 'zon at $98 and it was well worth it at that point. -Talonts

WD MY PASSPORT SSD 2TB portable drive works GREAT!

The WD MY PASSPORT SSD 2TB drive is a Great little drive with a lot of space for system backups. This drive is replacing my WD My Passport Ultra 1TB drive that I have been using for “Time Machine” backups on my MacBook Pro. The My Passport Ultra 1TB drive was working fine, I just wanted a faster drive with more space. I formatted the new SSD drive as APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted). APFS is the default file system for Mac computers running macOS 10.13 or later, features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals. APFS is also optimized for the Flash/SSD storage.The old My Passport Ultra drive always worked fine, but the backups were taking 15 to 18 minutes. Which for Full System Backups doesn’t sound ... MoreThe WD MY PASSPORT SSD 2TB drive is a Great little drive with a lot of space for system backups. This drive is replacing my WD My Passport Ultra 1TB drive that I have been using for “Time Machine” backups on my MacBook Pro. The My Passport Ultra 1TB drive was working fine, I just wanted a faster drive with more space. I formatted the new SSD drive as APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted). APFS is the default file system for Mac computers running macOS 10.13 or later, features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals. APFS is also optimized for the Flash/SSD storage.The old My Passport Ultra drive always worked fine, but the backups were taking 15 to 18 minutes. Which for Full System Backups doesn’t sound bad. But the new MY PASSPORT SSD 2TB drive is running flawlessly and the backups or only taking 60 to 90 seconds. So far this SSD drive has been great with No problems at all. I would Highly recommend this drive.