Review: WD My Passport Portable SSD – blindingly fast, secure, and portable

Western Digital’s 1TB My Passport External SSD is a great portable storage choice for anyone needing to quickly store and transfer large amounts of data with minimal fuss.

The first thing that struck me as I unboxed it was its sleek, curvy, compact design. While it is slim enough to comfortably fit in the palm of your hand and is easily pocketable, it is also built like a brick, you-know-what house. Its case is crafted of aluminium, so it looks flashy and is much more durable than many of its competitors, which often use plastic chassis. Its smooth curved edges and anodised finish give it a distinctly premium whiff.

According to Western Digital’s bumf, the My Passport SSD can handle falls of around 2 meters. It is also possible to monitor its health as it supports SMART data reporting. When formatted as an NTFS drive, it supports TRIM, which can improve the performance of writing data to SSDs and ensure a longer SSD lifespan. WD bundles a short USB Type-C cable and a Type-C to Type-A adaptor cable with the drive. While I’d have liked longer cables, bundling both USB-C and USB-A cables is a real bonus.

On the performance front, the My Passport External SSD is a beast. Performance is helped by the fact that it uses USB 3.2, which translates into transfer speeds of up to 1050MB/s – that’s lightning fast. In practice, I could transfer my entire photo library in just a few seconds. Under its brushed aluminium hood sits a USB 3.2 Gen2 controller and the WD’s Blue SN550E NVMe SSD. Compared to old-school portable mechanical hard drives, the My Passport leaves portable HDDs behind.

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Available in capacities Ranging from 500GB to a whopping 4 TB, there is a My Passport SSD capacity for everyone. It also played nice with my M2 MacBook Pro and Windows 11. The review unit was formatted in exFAT, so it’ll be good to go with both. There’s also a pile of software utilities that can extend the usefulness of My Passport. WD Discovery provides an intuitive way of managing your drive, creating backups, and setting up password protection. Equally useful, it also allows you to download other WD apps. 

Suppose the secure storage of your data is important. In that case, the good news is that the My Passport external SSD has built-in hardware encryption, so your data is always safe from prying eyes. Data can be password protected; the encryption used is military-grade 256-bit AES.

My Passport can be bought for as little as $199. This makes it a no-brainer for anyone needing a safe, secure, and portable means of transporting large amounts of data. Considering its super-fast performance and built-in security, it offers excellent value for money, especially when compared with other external SSDs. Its sleek and compact design makes it easy to carry around. Its super zippy performance and hardware-based encryption keep your data safe and secure. Given its reasonable sticker price, it’s an excellent investment.

www.westerndigital.com