If you need to carry a high-capacity external drive with you when you travel or go to work, you’ll likely be interested in making that memory device as small as possible. Take a look at the Western Digital My Passport SSD; it’s 1 Terabyte, rated for 515MB/s, and it measures just 3.6″ long by 1.8″ wide by 0.4″ thick.
The box seems a normal enough size, but when you open it you’ll see that the My Passport SSD is really small, and it weighs about an ounce. In other words, you can slip this little guy into your pocket, briefcase, purse, backpack, or just about anywhere without adding any weight. It’s crazy!
Included in the package are the My Passport SSD, a USB Type-C to Type-C cable, a USB to Type-C adapter, and a warranty guide.
Here’s a picture of the SSD on top of my BlackBerry KEYone to give you an idea of how small it is.
The Western Digital My Passport SSD is available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities. Its shock-resistant body is composed of a matte black plastic top with a wavy-textured aluminum bottom; the SSD is built to be able to “withstand a drop of up to 6.5 feet.” It has a single Type-C port on the bottom, and it will work with both PC and Mac computers.
The My Passport SSD will get quite warm when it is being used, but don’t let that alarm you. There are no lights to show you that it’s working,
The Western Digital My Passport SSD features:
• Offers an easy-to-use connection to devices. Backward compatible with USB 2.0 for simple connection to your computer.
• Allows you to use compatible software to back up your files to the server.
We’ve covered the many benefits of using an SSD versus a hard drive before, but here’s a speed test that shows how special this one is …
My Passport SSD is the fastest My Passport drive to date with speeds up to 515MB/s using the USB Type-C port to rapidly transfer data. Its speed gives great performance to help run virtual machines on your computer.
These are the files included on the disk. They allow you to erase the SSD, encrypt the SSD, and do checks to make sure that everything is running smoothly. There is also an included suite of links to various partner apps that offer discounts for their various services.
Store growing content on My Passport SSD to alleviate limited internal storage space. You can set a password to help keep it protected with built-in 256-bit AES Hardware Encryption with WD Security software.
If you’re on a Mac, you can also use this drive for your Time Machine backups. You’ll have to reformat it before using it that way, so be sure to download the Western Digital Discovery app first.
The largest capacity drive is $400; while that might seem steep for a device that is so small, if you want a fast, tiny, and extremely portable SSD, this is the one. Come to think of it, this would be an excellent Graduation or Back to School gift … just sayin’!
The Western Digital My Passport SSD is available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities; it retails for $99.99, $199.99, and $399.99 respectively, and it is available exclusively from Best Buy.
Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample
What I Like: It’s so tiny (!); It’s fast; Large capacity; Included software for checking disk health and easy formatting; Included links to special offers on various apps
What Needs Improvement: Expensive, but you get what you pay for