Western Digital My Passport SSD 1TB USB 3.1 Review

TweakTown's Rating: 92%

The Bottom Line

WD's My Passport SSD is the next step for this lineup and this solution does it perfectly with a custom blend of high capacity and small form factor.

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With the acquisition of SanDisk, Western Digital now has access to years of knowledge and significant IP in the NAND flash market. With that in place, it was only a matter of time before they would dream up their own portable solid state solution. That time has come, and they have coined it the My Passport SSD, adding to a lineup that is a market leader in portable solutions.

The My Passport SSD is a small form factor custom design that WD says can withstand a drop from 6.5 feet. Features of this solution include 256-bit AES hardware encryption via WD Security software and automated backup running through another software application from WD.

It's a USB-C device that maintains backward compatibility with Type-C and USB 3.0 via the included cable. Capacity options are 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB with compatibility reaching both Windows and MacOS platforms.

The MSRP of the 1TB WD My Passport SSD comes in at $399.99 with a three-year warranty.

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The packaging is quite colorful. The yellow and white certainly make it stand out while on the front we have an image of the SSD with a block of marketing at the bottom right.

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The back has a few features and box contents listed out on the left with the right mentioning Type-C and C support and platform compatibility.

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The My Passport goes up against the Samsung T3 as one of the smallest portable SSDs to date. The scope of delivery includes the drive, reading materials, and cable.

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The drive has a two part enclosure - the top being a matte black plastic and the bottom a textured plastic.

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On the end, we have the USB-C connection.

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The back houses model number and regulatory stamps.

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Internally, WD leverages what appears to be a SanDisk X400 SSD.

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Looking into it further, this is indeed a SanDisk drive with the information above.

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I started off by running the My Passport through Flash Benchmark. The drive reached 465 MB/s read and write 16M to 1M before performance tapers off.

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CDM gave us 446 MB/s read and 472 MB/s write.

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I tossed in a run with Anvils just for old times sake. The performance was similar here too, reaching 464 MB/s read and 428 MB/s write with 6600 IOPS 4K QD1 write.

The My Passport SSD is a testament to the m.2 form factor and the doors it has opened to vendors. Using the m.2 form factor as many others have done, WD has created a solid device that can surely withstand the ins and outs of everyday life. The 1TB capacity allows ample room for weekly or monthly backups and being an SSD you natively get shockproofing. In taking this unit apart, I found it held together quite well and in fact, I had to break the enclosure to get a peek at the drive.

In testing the performance of the drive, I found nothing out of the ordinary. Read numbers were hitting 460 MB/s independent of the benchmark used and write performance was right up there as well at 460 to 475 MB/s. Anvils in addition to its sequential testing did touch a little on 4K QD1 where we saw 6600 write IOPS.

Taking a quick look at the market for 1TB small form factor portable SSDs, we have Samsung with the T3, and SanDisk with the 500 and 900 from the Extreme family acting as competing solutions to the My Passport. WD has done itself a favor pricing this solution competitively at $99 for the 256GB model, $199 for the 512GB model, and $399 for the 1TB model reviewed.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IX Hero (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: Intel Core i7 7700K (buy from Amazon) / (Read our Review)
• Memory: G.SKILL TridentZ DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Hybrid (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Intel 730 480GB SSD (buy from Amazon) / (Read our Review)
• Secondary Storage: MyDigitalSSD BP5 512GB SSD (buy from Amazon)
• Case: EVGA DG-86 (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750 P2 (buy from Amazon)
• Networking: ASUS PCE-AC88 AC3100 (buy from Amazon)
• Networking: ASUS ROG 10G Express
• Networking: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)