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Western Digital Debuts First My Passport Portable SSD

Portable SSDs are overkill for most use cases. The two exceptions already mentioned would be VMs and video editing, although I am curious about the longevity of an SSD used for video editing.
 
WinstonRumfoord said:
Also if you want to have a copy of an OS on a drive, having it o nan SSD is infinitely better, obviously.
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This is what lead me to try an SSD in a TB enclosure and a USB3 enclosure many years ago.... running the OS on an external SSD for my 2012 iMac

In the end I just got a retina iMac in 2014 with 1TB Flash lol.
 
A couple weeks ago, I bought a 512gb lexar external sad for about $125 at costco. I've been happy with that. Also usb c. i don't know the technical details of speed comparison, etc.
 
I have 1TB Gdrive SSD - I'm very happy with it. Curious if there is a difference in performance between it & the new WD.

The other thing I'd love to get is a USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter so I can use one of my Thunderbolt ports on my 2013 MBP. Apple's adaptor works in the other direction: plugging in Thunderbolt cables into a USB-C port.
 
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MrGimper said:
So Thunderbolt is still better for running external SSDs then, as it supports TRIM.
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Yes if you are concerned about TRIM. Newer drives seem to have pretty good garbage collection, so I think this is less an issue than it was. Some people use USB3 external SSDs as their main boot drive and don't have write slowdowns from no TRIM, while others do have slowdowns over time.

I have a Samsung EVO SSD in an USB-C enclosure I use (lightly) for CCC clones and I have not had any write speed degradation.
 
I love WD drives—short their little stint a few years ago of installing crapware on my Mac.

Anyway, I've been waiting for SSD from WD for some time now. Looks like they did a great job on specs, form, and it looks amazing. I'll definitely be buying the 1 TB drive—which in the cloud world seems odd nowadays to do, but it's always good to have a local copy.

Apple should take note this is how you launch a product. You don't have to be first, but when you launch, it should have the very best specs and be great design. I'm hoping they learned their lesson from the MBP launch, being cheap on iPad Pro memory, 8gb iPhones, etc. The MBA suits designing products from spreadsheets will keep you wildly profitable for a while, even a long while, but sooner or later you get out innovated and your customer base grows sick of your cheap mindset.

Anyway, great job WD. Happy to continue to be a customer.
 
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Ted13 said:
The other thing I'd love to get is a USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter so I can use one of my Thunderbolt ports on my 2013 MBP. Apple's adaptor works in the other direction: plugging in Thunderbolt cables into a USB-C port.
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There are several thunderbolt 2 to USB-a adapters, could you then add another adapter from USB-a to USB-c?

https://www.amazon.com/Kanex-Thunderbolt-eSATA-plus-Adapter/dp/B00LOLBBQQ
https://www.amazon.com/Lemeng-USB3-...d=1491493529&sr=1-1&keywords=USB+3.0+to+USB-c
 
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MrGimper said:
I hadn't realised prices had dropped as much as they had for SSDs ... looking forward to seeing the price of the 512GB and 1TB models in the UK.
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£179 for the 512GB and £349.00 for the 1TB model. Pretty great mid-tier pricing.
 
That is one ugly drive. Glad they're in the game. I currently have a Lexar 512GB I got in Costco for what I think was $160 or so last year on special. It's super light, black, plastic, and tiny.

These WD look huge, unless it's just the picture. Granted, being shock proof and drop proof and all that stuff is nice but probably overkill if youre keeping the drive at home or a hotel room and not bringing it to the beach or crowded coffee shops/bars.
 
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Nice product but pretty ugly skin. The My Passport Ultra Metal drives looked much nicer.

WD_My_Passport_Ultra_metal-1.jpg


Although not quite as fast, the SanDisk Extreme Pro flash thumb drives are a good alternative at up to 256 GB now if you prefer standard USB.
 
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Gregintosh said:
That is one ugly drive. Glad they're in the game. I currently have a Lexar 512GB I got in Costco for what I think was $160 or so last year on special. It's super light, black, plastic, and tiny.

These WD look huge, unless it's just the picture. Granted, being shock proof and drop proof and all that stuff is nice but probably overkill if youre keeping the drive at home or a hotel room and not bringing it to the beach or crowded coffee shops/bars.
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It is the pictures.

ZrHmyej.png
 
Mac 128 said:
I know I find making Tome Machine backups of my 1TB drive excruciatingly slow, using my 1TB external 5400 HDD. However, I'm still dubious as to whether this drive would make a significant dent in transfer speed, as the transfer rate is ultimately decided by the bus speed.

I've been weighing whether or. It to get an external SSD for my external Thunderbolt drive case, and have been held back due to the fact that Thunderbolt far exceeds the internal bus speed. I'd like to see some real world tests of the transfer speeds.

Than there's the problem with SSDs eventually breaking down after so many writes. As a backup disk, that would likely add up to a lot more changes to the disk over a shorter amount of time. I would also think video editing would have this same premature aging effect. But for archival storing, or a media drive, it seems ideal in that it would be much faster retrieval and copying, which is important for the user sitting there waiting on the drive to perform the job. At least with a backup I can walk away.
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Are you really going to overwrite the whole drive 300+ times? (And I think moden drives do a little better) Most backup routines like Time machine write the whole backup out one then do incremental changes only. So that's a very low usage rate and lasts a long time.
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MrGimper said:
:cool:
[doublepost=1491486541][/doublepost]Does USB now support TRIM then?
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Trim is a function of the file system drivers to tell the SSD what to free up. Most modern SSDs not "need" trim because they have internal routines now. On an external SSD you'd have to us it a lot to need trim anyway, like for a system drive or something. Regular file storage doesn't really matter.
 
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samcraig said:
The entry level $250 is priced well and undercuts the Samsung T3. The upper capacities are on par with the pricing.
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T3 is available in 2TB capacity. And as a year old product, it is often discounted. Looking at B&H:
  • 250GB: $115 (vs. $99 for WD)
  • 500GB: $200 (vs. $200)
  • 1TB: $382 (vs. $399)
  • 2TB: $759
Having said that, it's always good to have competitions to drive the price down and I am certain WD's models will be discounted shortly.
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malexandria said:
surprisingly cheap. just don't understand the point of a portable SSD vs. just getting a cheap portable hd.
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For me, I use a portable SSD for storing Photos.app library. HDD is too laggy and slow and Apple's flash storage pricing is prohibitive for me.
 
Been waiting for T3 price to drop a bit more than last sale (500GB was $170 last month and the lowest was around $150 sometime last year)
Glad to see another option. Just need to see the reviews first but I just really don't get their new design language...
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Gregintosh said:
That is one ugly drive. Glad they're in the game. I currently have a Lexar 512GB I got in Costco for what I think was $160 or so last year on special. It's super light, black, plastic, and tiny.

These WD look huge, unless it's just the picture. Granted, being shock proof and drop proof and all that stuff is nice but probably overkill if youre keeping the drive at home or a hotel room and not bringing it to the beach or crowded coffee shops/bars.
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From their website:https://www.wdc.com/content/dam/wdc/website/downloadable_assets/eng/product_overview/4178-707296.pdf
DIMENSIONS
Height: 10mm (0.39 in) Depth: 90mm (3.5 in) Width: 45mm (1.8 in)
VS Samsung T3:http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/portable/t3.html
DIMENSION (WxHxD)
74 x 58 x 10.5 mm

So WD My Passport SSD is actually thinner than T3 but longer and narrower.
 
Yeah no. I can buy a 512GB mSATA SSD and UASP supporting enclosure with USB3 Gen 2 over a USB-C port for 160-170 bucks rights now and get the exact same performance. These prices are ridiculous. I'm not sure where they think these price premiums are justified, but they're not. Curiously that padding only grows as you increase capacity. The DIY difference between 512GB and 1TB is about $100, but WD wants double that. Why? It's the exact same enclosure between the sizes as far as I can tell, so what gives?
 
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