Western Digital Announces Thunderbolt-Powered My Passport Pro RAID Drive

[MacRumors]

Western Digital today announced the new My Passport Pro, the company's first thunderbolt-powered, dual-drive storage solution. With user-selectable RAID functionality, the drive is suitable for graphics professionals looking for high performance or consumers who need reliable mirroring.

The aluminum enclosure accommodates two 2.5-inch drives, providing a total of 2 TB or 4 TB of storage space. Because it connects via Thunderbolt, the drive is powered by the bus itself and requires no extra cables and no external power source. It also delivers transfer speeds of up to 233 MB/s.

Superior to both FireWire 800 and USB 3.0, the integrated Thunderbolt technology of My Passport Pro makes video manipulation quick and easy--with the ability to copy a 22 GB high-definition video file in half the time typically required by a USB 3.0 drive working in RAID 0 format.

The My Passport Pro is available now at other major electronics retailers, including Apple, and online from Western Digital. The 2 TB My Passport Pro costs $299.99, while the 4 TB model is priced at $429.99.

Article Link: Western Digital Announces Thunderbolt-Powered My Passport Pro RAID Drive

 

[PlainviewX]

I wonder how blazing it would be with two SSDs in it?

 

[cmChimera]

I wish thunderbolt was cheaper.

 

[Traisoon]

I wish thunderbolt was cheaper.

Same here.. :-(

 

[g4cube]

Seagate Backup Plus Fast --> 2x 2TB drives inside, USB 3.0, and faster than this Thunderbolt drive; $269.99

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-STDA4000100/dp/B00HXAV0X6

Also bus powered.

 

[MacOG728893]

I wonder how blazing it would be with two SSDs in it?

This looks great for MacBook Pro owners! Not that it wouldn't work for an iMac, but I prefer a vented enclosure with ambient fans for better cooling.

 

[sofila]

... Until maverick wipes off everything...

 

[jacklink01]

Article contains wrong link

This article contains the incorrect link to WD's site...

Here's the correct one:
http://store.westerndigital.com/sto...d.13092300/catid.55288100/categoryID.67791900

 

[BornAgainMac]

So after several years the first thunderbolt powered drive is announced.

 

[mojolicious]

I wish thunderbolt was cheaper.

I do wonder what the price of a plain old diskless Thunderbolt enclosure would come down to if a few companies started producing them in 2.5" and 3.5" flavours.

 

[technopimp]

Seagate Backup Plus Fast --> 2x 2TB drives inside, USB 3.0, and faster than this Thunderbolt drive; $269.99

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-STDA4000100/dp/B00HXAV0X6

Also bus powered.

That looks very big and clunky compared to the WD. But hard to say I guess.

 

[willcapellaro]

Seagate Backup Plus Fast --> 2x 2TB drives inside, USB 3.0, and faster than this Thunderbolt drive; $269.99

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-STDA4000100/dp/B00HXAV0X6

Also bus powered.

If I'm reading correctly, your Seagate is a tad slower. But the speeds seem comparable.

 

[Digital Skunk]

So after several years the first thunderbolt powered drive is announced.

The LaCie Rugged TBolt is TBolt powered and has both SSD configs and HDD configs. Although, this is the first dual drive bus powered enclosure I've seen.

Which definitely gives it my thumbs up.

 

[Kobayagi]

Insane prices, I understand it's faster than usb 3.0 but come on...

 

[GSPice]

Seagate Backup Plus Fast --> 2x 2TB drives inside, USB 3.0, and faster than this Thunderbolt drive; $269.99

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-STDA4000100/dp/B00HXAV0X6

Also bus powered.

Except,

a) The WD can be configured for RAID 1.
b) For heavy, heavy-duty multicam video editing, thunderbolt streaming protocol wins over USB 3.0's data burst protocol
c) Seagates gonna Seagate.


Most people may not even care, though.

 

[rw3]

That looks very big and clunky compared to the WD. But hard to say I guess.

Seagate Backup Plus Fast (4TB) - Product Dimensions: 4.6 x 3.2 x 0.9 inches ; 10.9 ounces

Western Digital My PassPort Pro (4TB) - Product Dimensions: 5.65 x 3.48 x 1.74 inches

Western Digital My PassPort Pro (2TB) - Product Dimensions: 5.65 x 3.48 x 1.13 inches

The Seagate Backup Plus FAST is using two 9.5mm 2.5" drives whereas the 4TB Western Digital has two 15mm 2.5" drives installed. The 2TB is a little closer in size to the Seagate.

 

[thedeske]

Just reading Storage Review's take on this. Interesting, but yet again the single drive mode (jbod) is slower than a basic 3.0 Passport or most other 3.0 portables.
Still, it's a a nice chunk of storage. Video people might love it. Most of the still image people I know are fine with a basic 1TB portable & a nexto or UDMA reader in the bag. We'll see how that hardwired TB cable holds up. Can't decide if it's a good thing or not.

 

[Macman45]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Western Digital today announced the new My Passport Pro, the company's first thunderbolt-powered, dual-drive storage solution. With user-selectable RAID functionality, the drive is suitable for graphics professionals looking for high performance or consumers who need reliable mirroring.

Image​

The aluminum enclosure accommodates two 2.5-inch drives, providing a total of 2 TB or 4 TB of storage space. Because it connects via Thunderbolt, the drive is powered by the bus itself and requires no extra cables and no external power source. It also delivers transfer speeds of up to 233 MB/s. The My Passport Pro is available now at other major electronics retailers, including Apple, and online from Western Digital. The 2 TB My Passport Pro costs $299.99, while the 4 TB model is priced at $429.99.

Article Link: Western Digital Announces Thunderbolt-Powered My Passport Pro RAID Drive

It's nice, but I'm always concerned by drives even SSD's that require power from a Logic Board....I know, It works, but my own theory is that it shortens the life of the PSU. If they release a version with an external PSU I'm in.

 

[nzalog]

I've been waiting for a mirrored raid in a portable drive for a while. Just wish it was USB 3 and OS agnostic. I avoid having one drive I keep a lot of stuff on because drives fail. It's a fact of life, data needs to be protected somehow.

 

[GSPice]

It's nice, but I'm always concerned by drives even SSD's that require power from a Logic Board....I know, It works, but my own theory is that it shortens the life of the PSU. If they release a version with an external PSU I'm in.

Are you concerned by the memory, CPU, GPU, fans, speakers, camera, display, keyboard lighting, or anything else that might be drawing power from the logic board?

 

[nzalog]

It's nice, but I'm always concerned by drives even SSD's that require power from a Logic Board....I know, It works, but my own theory is that it shortens the life of the PSU. If they release a version with an external PSU I'm in.

Turning no your computer also shortens it's life, so does using it and so does letting it sit there. Sounds like your best bet is not buying a computer if you want the longest life out of it.

 

[11thIndian]

I wish thunderbolt was cheaper.

Don't expect twice the performance for the same price.

 

[joe-h2o]

So after several years the first thunderbolt powered drive is announced.

I've been booting off a LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt bus powered drive with an SSD in it since December 2012.

This one is late to the party, but it does have two drives instead of just one.

 

[Mr Dobey]

I've been waiting for just this kind off super minimal/small device for a long time. Basically two 2.5" drives rubber banded together. Problem is now you could do two 1TB mSATA SSD drives stuck together with Thunderbolt 2 and get a much smaller package with the same performance.

 

[Hexley]

Summary: External dual notebook HDD: USB 3 vs Thunderbolt 1

Seagate
- $270
- USB 3-based
- Slightly faster
- RAID0-only
- 116.9mm x 82.5mm 22.35mm x 307g
http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_backup_plus_fast_portable_review

Western Digital
- $430
- Thunderbolt 1-based
- Slightly slower
- RAID0, RAID1 and JBOD
- 143.4mm x 88.5mm x 44.2mm x 720g
http://www.storagereview.com/wd_my_passport_pro_review_4tb

It appears that the less bulky and "slower" interface external dual notebook HDD used by Seagate is slightly faster than Western Digital model. But the WD can be configured for RAID0, RAID1 and JBOD while the Seagate is limited to RAID0.