Western Digital Updates 'My Passport' Hard Drive Line With Up to 5TB Storage

[MacRumors]

Western Digital today introduced new My Passport and My Passport for Mac hard drives, which are equipped with up to 5TB of storage.

The drives are the slimmest 5TB options in the WD brand portfolio, measuring in at 0.75 inches thick, and Western Digital says they're about palm sized.

Western Digital refreshes its My Passport lineup each year, and this year's models have a new look in Black, Blue, and Red color options. My Passport hard drives are formatted for Windows 10 and feature a USB 3.0 connector.

The My Passport for Mac option, which is formatted for macOS Mojave and features a USB-C connector, comes in a Midnight Blue color option. Mac users who have a USB-C machine and are looking at WD hard drives will want the Mac version so it will work out of the box without an adapter.

The new drives are available starting now from the Western Digital Store and Best Buy in the United States. Prices start at $79.99 for 1TB of storage and go up from there.

Article Link: Western Digital Updates 'My Passport' Hard Drive Line With Up to 5TB Storage

 

[BrettArchibald]

Great! Now I can have 5TBs of data get lost forever when the drive invariably dies on me after a month, instead of just 2TBs!

 

[snipper]

Interesting how they avoid any number about speed at all, even in the ‘data sheet’ without data. It just says it’s “fast”.

edit: Indeed @Marx55 also has a point that almost all of these drives are still old motorized platters.

 

[Marx55]

Bring larger external portable SSD with 4, 8 & 16 TB (no RAID 0 inside!). Once you try SSD, you do not want mechanical rotational disks, even for free!

 

[Mike Haas]

Great! Now I have 5TBs of data get lost forever when the drive invariably dies on me after a month, instead of just 2TBs!

I went back to strictly 5.25 drives for safety. The USB bus on my 13" MBP cannot handle the power requirements of these little boogers. I've tried to work with the small 3.5s and the Mac just surreptitiously ejects them and 3rd party software like Amphetamine will not prevent it from happening. I noticed this behavior in Sierra (I had a 27" iMac at the time) and every OS that followed up to and including Catalina. Using strictly 5.25s for Time Machine, data, movies, and TV shows and my drives don't eject when I plug in my phone or simply because the Mac tosses them. I can use ONE 3.5 for files on-the-go and that's it. I can safely back-up my drives now. I never lost any data thanks to my back-up plan but I've lost at least 8 of the 3.5s over time (half were back-ups) and I realized it was because of power draw on the bus. 5.25s just use data. I bet this doesn't happen on PC hardware with Windows. Did I write that out loud?
[doublepost=1567590298][/doublepost]...and when I can afford to go that route, I'm definitely going to hop aboard the SSD train for externals. I know Apple wants me to use iCloud. Oh sure...in 20 years maybe, when the Cloud is available on-demand and it doesn't take 2 weeks for my photos to upload...

 

[max2]

Great! Now I have have 5TBs of data get lost forever when the drive invariably dies on me after a month, instead of just 2TBs!

Backup always backup.

That why I have two 14 TB hard drives.

One for main use and the other for backup.

 

[tribalhere10]

My WD passport for MAC always show preparing for backup forever even there is more than enough space. Won’t buy any WD hard disk anymore.

 

[jezbd1997]

My WD passport for MAC always show preparing for backup forever even there is more than enough space. Won’t buy any WD hard disk anymore.

Just sounds like a software glitch...
Time machine?
Format the drive and start over.
WD have been the best hard drives for myself, only ever had one formatting issue but was able to recover all my data.
[doublepost=1567592921][/doublepost]I’m glad about another redesign, previous complete redesign with colours was horrid. Skipped that gen entirely

 

[radiology]

Great! Now I have have 5TBs of data get lost forever when the drive invariably dies on me after a month, instead of just 2TBs!

You stole my words!!!
PURE GARBAGE!

 

[BrettArchibald]

Backup always backup.

That why I have two 14 TB hard drives.

One for main use and the other for backup.

I actually had TWO WD Drives for backing up my Mac – one 1TB Pocket Drive to back up the Mac and another 2TB Desktop Drive to back up the Pocket Drive, just in case – and they both failed within about a week of each other! Luckily my Mac has been running fine, so no data lost. I've now taken to backing up everything online instead. Bit more expensive, slightly more hassle, but so much more worth it.

 

[tribalhere10]

Just sounds like a software glitch...
Time machine?
Format the drive and start over.
WD have been the best hard drives for myself, only ever had one formatting issue but was able to recover all my data.
[doublepost=1567592921][/doublepost]I’m glad about another redesign, previous complete redesign with colours was horrid. Skipped that gen entirely

Yes. Time machine. If I reformat will I lost all the old backups?

 

[max2]

I actually had TWO WD Drives for backing up my Mac – one 1TB Pocket Drive to back up the Mac and another 2TB Desktop Drive to back up the Pocket Drive, just in case – and they both failed within about a week of each other! Luckily my Mac has been running fine, so no data lost. I've now taken to backing up everything online instead. Bit more expensive, slightly more hassle, but so much more worth it.

I disagree.

 

[snipper]

I actually had TWO WD Drives for backing up my Mac – one 1TB Pocket Drive to back up the Mac and another 2TB Desktop Drive to back up the Pocket Drive, just in case – and they both failed within about a week of each other! Luckily my Mac has been running fine, so no data lost. I've now taken to backing up everything online instead. Bit more expensive, slightly more hassle, but so much more worth it.

It's not just that (risk of failure), it's that you lose it all in a fire or burglary.

Yes, I have a external HD for backup but I also use a cloud service to backup everything important.

 

[jezbd1997]

Yes. Time machine. If I reformat will I lost all the old backups?

Copy the old backup/s you need over to another drive beforehand, if you need it.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

7200 RPM??? I doubt it... Any clues?

 

[tribalhere10]

Copy the old backup/s you need over to another drive beforehand, if you need it.

Ok. Thanks for the advise.

 

[BrettArchibald]

I actually had TWO WD Drives for backing up my Mac – one 1TB Pocket Drive to back up the Mac and another 2TB Desktop Drive to back up the Pocket Drive, just in case – and they both failed within about a week of each other! Luckily my Mac has been running fine, so no data lost. I've now taken to backing up everything online instead. Bit more expensive, slightly more hassle, but so much more worth it.

I disagree.

What exactly are you disagreeing with? The irrefutable fact that both drives died? Or my own personal experiences I have with backing up online that are unique to how I feel about it?

 

[CalMin]

Great! Now I can have 5TBs of data get lost forever when the drive invariably dies on me after a month, instead of just 2TBs!

You might want to give your backup strategy a bit of thought. These drives should never be the only source of important data. They are good for backup when the primary data resides elsewhere. Whether it's SSD or spinning platters know that any drive can and will fail given time, so plan a backup strategy accordingly.

 

[nutmac]

The My Passport for Mac option, which is formatted for macOS Mojave and features a USB-C connector, comes in a Midnight Blue color option. Mac users who have a USB-C machine and are looking at WD hard drives will want the Mac version so it will work out of the box without an adapter.

According to the product spec:

• Portable hard drive
• USB-C to USB Micro-B cable
• USB-A to USB Micro-B cable
• WD Discovery™ software
• Quick install guide

I don't think the Mac version has USB-C connector. It's USB Micro-B like almost all portable hard disks.

 

[JustSomeInfo]

It has a USB-C connector, just on one side of the cable. It's just not a pure USB-C cable.
In short, for the extra $10 the Mac version costs you, you get two different connectors (A & C) to make sure it works out of the box. Windows version only gets one cable.
If you don't need USB-C, you can get the Windows one (USB-A) and just reformat the drive and save $10.
Or if you have a USB-C to USB Micro-B kicking around, you can buy the Windows version and use that. Saving $10.

 

[nutmac]

It has a USB-C connector, just on one side of the cable. It's just not a pure USB-C cable.

USB Micro-B is a horrible connector. I would've much preferred USB-C connector on the drive itself. WD could've bundled USB-C to USB-A cable for PCs.

 

[ateslik]

I disagree.

everything lives on the server

the server is backed up to external drive monthly.

the external drive is backed up to LTO tape twice a year and sent offsite.

there is way too much data for cloud. I’m not paying for ingress/egress

 

[Avenged110]

That's funny, I just bought another 5TB Seagate version a few days ago, but I also have the 4TB WD myPassport. Based on my use, the WD has a greater tolerance for heat, but the Seagate has much better sustained performance when encrypted as well as more detailed SMART reporting. Nice to have both though. Wish WD had matched Seagate on the capacity a while ago.

 

[Doctor Q]

I see some negative comments above about the WD My Passport line.

I'll add my 2 cents. I've had nothing but bad luck with their reliability. Now I know to stay away from them.

 

[anshuvorty]

I think the author of this article got the headline wrong. When I visit the official WD Store webpage, I only see a max capacity of 4 TB for this specific model of drives. I don't see a 5 TB capacity anywhere.

Edit - I was looking at the wrong product. My mistake!