WD 5TB My Passport portable external storage, external hard drive, USB 3.0, portable HDD with software for device management, backup and password protection, works with PC, Xbox &Playstation, Black

This review is for the My Passport 2 TB standard version (not Ultra) - I just got this drive yesterday, and I'm a bit wary of writing such a positive review so early on, but I know if I don't do it now then I never will and I'll forget all the details. I'll definitely update it if I do start to have any problems with it later though. Be warned - this review might be very long, but there don't seem to be that many reviews of this particular model so I'd like to cover everything that would have been useful to me in case any of it helps anyone else.The reason I went for this particular drive is that I needed a portable drive of at least 2 TB, but wanted it to be as small and light as possible, so while 4 TB would have been nice, those seem quite a bit bigger and heavier and the reviews for them seem worse in terms of both performance and reliability, so decided to stick with 2 TB. All the drives I could find to have plenty of reports of them failing etc in the reviews, but the WD ones *seemed* to have less, and I get the impression that most knowledgeable people on other forums etc with experience of different drives tend to favour WD for reliability over other manufacturers these days. I almost went for the Ultra version, as my new laptop has USB-C and it does seem nicer than the extra-wide MicroUSB 3 connector, but I didn't particularly want it to be made of metal (it's just extra weight for me), and my laptop's USB-C ports are usually taken up by the charger and a hub anyway. Plus lots of reviews say the USB-C cable that comes with it is really bad, and I didn't like the choice of colours. So when I realised the standard version was £20 cheaper, available in black, and doesn't seem to have any real drawbacks apart from the wider connector (maybe the performance is slightly worse, but I'm not sure because that's not really mentioned anywhere) I decided to go for that one instead.Amazon's packaging of it wasn't great - I saw other reviews saying to order other items at the same time as a hard drive so that they get packed around it in the box, so I did, but unfortunately that didn't help because the packaging consisted of one small strip of the large air bubble type stuff placed on top of all the items, which left literally half the outer box empty for everything slide around in. Just picking up the box after it was delivered, everything loudly slid over and thudded into the other side of the box. It seems to have survived ok though (and of course it was in its own retail box which I would hope provided some protection). From looking into it I've found people saying that hard drives these days can survive huge forces as long as they're not turned on at the time, so anything that was enough to damage it in transit would have caused visible damage to the casing too (in this case even the cardboard retail box it was in doesn't have any signs of damage), and that it would be likely to not work properly at all straight away rather than just failing later. So I think it's fine.I currently have two similar-style drives - an older WD My Passport (Essential SE, apparently) 1 TB from sometime around 2010 which has a MicroUSB 2 connector, and a slightly newer Samsung M3 1 TB with MicroUSB 3 (same as this drive), so it's interesting to see how this compares to those. The first thing I noticed when unboxing it was that it is considerably smaller than either of those (about half the height, despite having double the capacity), and also noticeably lighter. So I am impressed and pleased with that - it looks very sleek, and the casing feels solid, so definitely no complaints about the plastic of the drive itself from me. When plugged in and spinning, it is slightly noisier than my Samsung M3, but still pleasantly quiet (no noticeable seeking noises at all so far, just the constant spin). And this is with a Razer Blade Stealth (late 2019) laptop which is almost completely silent when not doing much, and the drive in front of it at the moment, so I probably wouldn't be able to hear it at all if I wasn't in such a quiet environment.The cable that came with it seems to be working fine so far, but possibly is of similar bad quality to the USB-C version - it is quite stiff, possibly a bit wobbly when connected in the ports on both ends (although no loss of connection so far even when moving it) and is noticeably thinner than the cable (of the same type) that came with my Samsung M3 drive. So I might still get a better cable at some point, at least if/when this one starts to have any connection issues.In terms of performance (which I'm surprised isn't mentioned at all in the product details/marketing etc, other than I think I saw the USB 3.0 maximum speed of 5Gbit/s mentioned somewhere which is obviously ridiculous as the drive won't be capable of anywhere near that), I'm getting maximum read/write speeds of 126/116 MB/s in ATTO Disk Benchmark, and sequential read/write speeds of 138/116 MB/s in CrystalDiskMark (just as it came, with NTFS formatting and nothing on it yet). My Samsung M3 (which I remember performance being a point of when I bought it, although I hadn't been able to make full use of that until recently as my old laptop only had USB 2) seems to be maxing out at about 85 MB/s for both read and write (although with a lot more data on it, if that makes any difference), so I'm pleased with this.One issue I have with my old My Passport drive is that it always seems to spin down (to a lower speed if not completely off, I'm not sure) about 20 seconds after it was last accessed, and then takes about 5 seconds to get going when something tries to access it again, which can get very frustrating. I've tried increasing/turning off the sleep timer in both WD Drive Utilities and the Windows Power Management "Turn off hard disk after" setting, but neither makes any difference, it seems to have its own fixed internal idle timer for some sort of low-power mode which even WD's own software can't change. Thankfully that doesn't seem to be an issue with this new drive.I've tried enabling the encryption on this drive to see if it makes any difference to performance - it doesn't, but as the "encryption" process is so basic (it's basically just setting a password on the drive in the "WD Security" software, and it seems to take effect immediately), I'm guessing the drive is actually encrypted at the hardware level all the time (as otherwise it would surely take time to encrypt/decrypt the existing data when setting/unsetting the password). So I'd say that's a drawback as it means even if you don't use the drive encryption, if the controller fails but not the drive itself, you can't take out the actual drive and connect it up to something else, but on the other hand you apparently can't do that with these particular WD drives anyway as the controller board is soldered directly to the drive rather than it using standard SATA connectors or anything. I'm not sure how the password system would work if you connect it to other devices such as phones/tablets etc (on Windows, the drive having a password set causes it to appear as a CD drive with an executable file on it which you run and enter the password into, which then causes the actual hard drive to show up as well), but if I wanted the drive encrypted I don't think I'd rely on this as a solution anyway as WD's system apparently has a lot of vulnerabilities.I also tried enabling write caching for the drive in Windows (before trying the encryption), but it seemed to make barely any difference at all (write speeds very slightly higher, read speeds possibly actually lower, but probably all within the margin of error anyway) so I'm going to leave that off as it's not worth the extra risk if the drive gets disconnected by accident (especially if the cable does become dodgy).I think that just about covers everything I've thought of so far, so I hope someone finds it useful :)

Whenever I’m looking for an external hard drive, I always go for Western Digital. It’s a brand I trust and one that’s never let me down. The WD 6TB My Passport Ultra – 20th Emerald Anniversary Edition continues that tradition of reliability and quality.I bought this as an upgrade from my old 1TB drive, which had finally run out of space. This new 6TB version is a massive improvement – it easily stores all my photos, music, documents, and still has loads of room to grow. The transfer speeds are quick and consistent, and setup was super simple.The built-in backup software and password protection add an extra layer of peace of mind, and the fact that it includes ransomware protection is a huge plus in today’s digital world. On top of all that, the Anniversary Edition design looks sleek and modern – a great balance of style and function.Overall, this drive is great value for the price, and I couldn’t be happier with the purchase. Highly recommended for anyone needing dependable and secure storage in a portable package.

Excellent quality removable hard drive. Transfer speeds appear to be fairly good so far.Excellent for gaming and storing photos.Reasonably priced

I bought this WD My Passport drive specifically to use as an external storage device for my PlayStation 4, and it works great for that. As anyone with a PS4 knows, the internal hard drive fills up way too fast with all the massive game installs and updates. This little drive is a lifesaver.Setting it up was a breeze. You just plug the USB cable into the PS4, and the console imediately recognises it as an external storage device. The PS4 guides you through the process of formatting it for use with the console, which takes just a few seconds. After that, you can set it as the default location for all your new game downloads, or you can manually move games from your internal hard drive to this external one. The transfer speeds are really fast, so you can move a big game like Call of Duty in a reasonable amount of time.I have the 5TB version, which is a massive amount of storage. To put that in perspective, the average PS4 game is around 40-50GB, so this drive can hold around 100 of them. It's way more space than I'll ever need, so I don't have to worry about deleting games anymore.One thing to keep in mind is that this is a traditional hard disk drive (HDD), not a solid-state drive (SSD). This means that while it's much cheaper per gigabyte than an SSD, it's also a little slower. I haven't noticed any major preformance issues with games I've installed on it, but the loading times might be a tiny bit longer than if they were on the internal SSD of the newer consoles. But for the PS4, which also has an HDD, the difference is pretty minimal. The drive runs off the USB power from the console, so you don't need an extra power cable which is a big plus for keeping your entertainment centre tidy.Overall, it's a fantastic, reliable solution for anyone who needs to expand their PS4's storage without spending a fortune. It does exactly what it's supposed to do and has plenty of space for my whole game library.

What to say, it does exactly what it's supposed to. Portable, cheap storage, great for a laptop. Not the fastest transfer speeds every but I regularly copy over 30-40GB on a macbook and it takes around 10 mins which is fine, if I wanted speed I would buy an SSD but at a much greater cost.After about 6 months no faults and no corruption. Wouldn't hesitate to buy again.

It's pretty & functional.I've taken the extended insurance warranty as well.Software could be a little better though. It defects an older version and fails to upgrade or reinstall.Overall a nice piece, might I add - prefect for special occasions.