WD My Passport Wireless SSD 500GB Review

TweakTown's Rating: 79%

The Bottom Line

WD has put together a great travel companion in the Wireless SSD with solid features including a UHS-I capable reader and USB 3.0 connectivity.

WD is no stranger to storage and continues to add new pieces and companies to its portfolio. With the acquisition of SanDisk in early 2016, this opened up most of their portable solutions to a much-needed upgrade. Launching their Portable SSD last year, this year we have an update to their My Passport Wireless lineup in the form of the Wireless SSD model.

This solution uses the same enclosure and overall design with new aesthetics to set it apart from its rotating drive counterpart. Capacity options include 250 and 500GB solution along with high capacity 1 and 2TB drives as well. Connectivity is quite broad with the Wireless SSD as this solution includes 802.11ac as a wireless method of transfer as its name would suggest, along with a SD 3.0 card reader and USB 3.0. In addition to these, the WD includes a Type-C port from which you can charge mobile devices with the devices integrated 6700mah battery.

Compatibility includes Windows 7 through 10, macOS 10.11 and above along with Android and iOS with the WD My Cloud app. MSRP of the My Passport Wireless SSD in its 500GB capacity comes in at $299.99 with a one-year warranty.

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Packaging offers an image of the drive centered, below we have connectivity and capacity of the drive listed.

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On the backside, we have more detail on the compatibility of the unit and a diagram of the enclosures inputs to the right.

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Included in the box, we have the drive itself, USB 3.0 cable and power adapter.

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The top of the unit houses two activity LEDs one for being for Wi-Fi.

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The top edge of the enclosure offers access to the power button, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports and the switch for one-touch copy via SD.

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The SD 3.0 card reader can be found at the top left of the device.

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Disassembling the My Passport Wireless SSD, we found two LG 18650 cells powered the device underneath a black wrapping. The SSD used in this device is the SanDisk X600 2.5" drive.

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The WD My Cloud app aides in setup of the device, we are using it on the iPhone X for this review.

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As you can see, the My Cloud app supports a good number of devices including our My Passport Wireless SSD.

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Once connected and setup is complete, you have the option to enable automatic backup for USB and SD devices once they are plugged in.

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Once you are within the app, you have the option to look at everything on one page or at the bottom WD has categorized data tabs.

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In the settings menu, you can change the cache size along with failsafe settings for moving data on your mobile plan. At the bottom you can edit your auto backup settings and update the firmware of the device.

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In the My Passport menu from the previous screen, here you can see the layout of data used on your device along with the battery level and Wi-Fi network setup.

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The only real performance test we could show with the My Passport Wireless SSD was its USB 3.0 performance. That said, we were able to reach 343 MB/s read and 337 MB/s write.

Durability of the My Passport Wireless SSD is quite good, natively because of its internal SSD and additionally, because of its silicon sleeve, WD has added to soften the blow when this device inevitably hits the pavement. Capacity options are perfect, encompassing both the low-end of 250GB and the top tier of 2TB that professionals crave.

Performance over USB 3.0 is on par with expectations reaching right around 340 MB/s read and write. I did test the SD 3.0 port with an Extreme Pro UHS-I 32GB card I had lying around and the copy speeds were good and similar in length to a PC copy process.

That said charging via the USB 2.0 port seemed to be quite slow, likely because I'm used to the speed of USB Fast charge on my devices and the integrated solution here tops at 1.5A.

Overall, the update to SSD is a perfect fit for the Wireless lineup of My Passport as these drives are on the go needing every bit of reliability. The move to SSD also consumes less power from the unit itself leaving more for you to charge your mobile devices, the SD 3.0 port makes sure you have plenty of throughput for clearing your memory cards quickly while you are on scene shooting video or photo.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z370 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: Intel Core i3 8350K (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB 4x8GB DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Air 540 (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)
• Wi-Fi NIC: ASUS PCE-AC88 (buy from Amazon)
• 10Gbe NIC: ASUS XG-C100C (buy from Amazon)
• Thunderbolt 3: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)