WD 2TB My Passport Ultra Portable HDD USB-C with software
WD 2TB My Passport Ultra Portable HDD USB-C with software for device management, backup and password protection – Works with PC, Xbox X, Xbox S, PS4 and PS5 – Silve
USB-C ready, USB 3.0 compatible
Featuring the latest in USB-C technology, the My Passport Ultra portable drive delivers quick and easy storage for your PC, while the included USB 3.0 adapter makes sure it’s compatible with older machines.
High Capacity
With capacities up to 5TB(2), you have the space to keep your photos, videos, music and documents with you.
Comparison Metric
 My Passport Ultra |  My Passport SSD |  My Passport Go |  My Passport Ultra-Mac |  My Passport HDD | |
| Technology | HDD | SSD | SSD | JDD | HDD |
| Interface | USB-C/A USB 3.1/2.0 | USB-C 3.2 Gen2 | USB 3.0/USB 2.0 | USB-C/A USB 3.1/2.0 | USB-A 3.0 |
| Password Protection | 256-Bit Encryption | 256-Bit Encryption | – | Hardware Encryption | Hardware Encryption |
| Auto Backup | WD Backup for PC | WD Backup for PC | WD Backup for PC | Time Machine Ready | WD Backup for PC |
| PC/Mac Ready | PC (Mac w/ Reformat) | PC and Mac | PC and Mac | Mac Ready | PC (Mac w/ Reformat) |
| Shock/Drop Resistant | – | Up to 6.5 ft (1.98m) | Up to 6.5 ft (1.98m) | – | – |
| Great for | Backup w/metal design | Accelerated Backup | On-the-go Storage | Backup w/metal design | Backup & Storage |
(1) Download and installation required. Terms and conditions apply. User account registration may be required.
(2)1TB = 1 trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment.
Product specifications subject to change without notice. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Western Digital, the Western Digital Logo, WD, the WD logo, My Book, and My Cloud are registered marks or marks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
2022 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
| Weight: | 132 g |
| Dimensions: | 11 x 8.15 x 1.27 cm; 131.54 Grams |
| Brand: | Western Digital |
| Model: | WDBC3C0020BSL-WESN |
| Colour: | Silver |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | Western Digital |
| Dimensions: | 11 x 8.15 x 1.27 cm; 131.54 Grams |
Used with high end gaming laptop to store large games. A little slow as are all disc storage devices. Any games that need faster access go on my SSD drive or cards. Genuine storage capacity for a good price. Recommended.
Having just lost a tremendous amount of Data from a failed MyCloud device. I had too find a way of storing my Data in a more practicable way. This way I can remove and backup my Data and not have it running 24/7 with the potential of loss..
Just bought 4th WD usb drive – this time it is 5TB, already got 2x 2TB ( for over 3 yes ) and 4TB ( 1 yr in service ). Used mostly for storing drone, DSLR and GoPro materials. Never encountered any problems. Quick ( as for usb drive ), easy to install ( just plug and play ) and causing no problems even when all of them are connected to the same USB hub.
Super good value for money.
A 5tb storage device will hold a lot of files. I have come to rely on these WD devices particularly for holding images and other information. In fact I’d recommend having more than one and backing up both regularly in order to ensure your information is held safely. Just don’t keep them with or near your computer in case of a disaster.
I have had this for a few months now and used up about half of it. It does come with its own lead and a converter to USB so no need to buy a separate converter if you are not planning on using its own connection. No problem uploading or retrieving data or pictures. I got this for a good price and I am happy with my purchase. I would buy it again. I have not needed Tech Support so I have not rated the service but the drive is so easy to set up (plug and play) and works so well that Tech Support was not needed.
For real world use I found this gave me transfer speeds of around 25Mb/s
The usb C cable and adapter are super cheap and bulky connectors, add a decent quality cable onto your order. However these are only free extras so I haven’t deducted any stars
I bought this to offload a number of videos, photos and phone backups from my windows PC.
simply plug it in, wait a few moments and it’s ready to use – super simple!
Good value for storage capacity. Plenty fast enough for recording on LG TV and TV had no problem with the 2TB size or identifying and saving directly. Cable short for TV but 3m cable purchasable via amazon meaning it can be stored on floor and still cabled to TV. Will leave others to comment on the speed and technical aspects, but if you looking to record an LG TV this works well
Good value and price
A good unit, does what it says on the box
Great compact design. Very stable
WD have the best customer service. They helped me set it up as i had a few issues, mostly my inability to set it up. They were great and it works a treat.
Pretty fas
When plugged into a USB-C port on my motherboard, I got around 100MB write rate on in my experiance is pretty good for a mechanical external HDD.
I’ve been using WD portable drives for several years. You can set password protection via the WD Security utility which gives peace of mind. The drives are generally reliable, but I’ve had the odd failure over the years. It’s always sensible to use more than one drive and back-up frequently.
Superb, robust piece of kit that can be password protected.
Good value for money too.
Always sceptical when reading the reviews but so far using this 5T WD device has been really easy. Watched a video on youtube first about backing up with Time Machine: @TechandDesign, formatted the disk and ran first backup no problems. I found the drive to be quiet and unobtrusive, very pleased with this purchase.
5TB of storage, fast enough to run (most) games on, nice and quiet, solid build quality, no complaints!
It is just a case of plug in and go
Does exactly what it said in the description, you open it up, plug it in and automatically it connects with my Mac and starts backing it up. Great piece of kit and with a warranty if it crashes. What more could you ask for.
just read back other reviews and see others have complained about it being noisy. it really is. you can hear the disc spinning inside. I’m using for Time machine and some extra storage space for my new M2 Mac Mini. set up/formatting and partitioning was easy. Would recommend but be aware of the noise thing!! just have to play my music even louder now!!
I use it my PS4. It is doing the job well.
I purchased this as a Time Machine for my M1 MacBook Pro and haven’t been disappointed. Though this isn’t the ‘Mac’ version that WD sells, the only (official) difference is that products are formatted differently out of the box. Well, that’s what Disk Utility is for! So save yourself some money.
The Ultra version of My Passport features a half metal enclosure (though to be frank it’s like tin) and USB-C cable with USB-A adapter, making it convenient for any modern Mac. The drive is much smaller than I anticipated and could easily fit in a jacket pocket! Though the lack of protection suggests this wouldn’t be a good idea…
Being sat on a desk with its rubber feet, quiet operation and sleek design, I think this makes the perfect Time Machine companion. A general rule of thumb is that your Time Machine should be at least twice the size of your Mac’s drive, so 2TB seems to be the sweet spot for most people. Also keep in mind that the 4TB model is not only a lot more expensive but also twice the thickness.
No issues!
I’ve owned many WD Passport external hard drives. This time I bought an SSD for backing up my laptop. The first one failed when I started the second backup. It was promptly replaced and the second one is working well. These initial failures do happen and I would buy another one in the future.
It was a necessary purchase to backup existing files and appears to do the job despite an initial report by windows that there was errors on the disk. Although a very expensive item I was amazed the driver just left it on the doorstep of the wrong property so nearly did not get i
First delivery of this was a dead disk. The device light comes on when connected but no further interaction – all manners of connection failed across multiple desktops and laptops. Nothing audible nor any signs of movement. Got on to product support and they agreed disk is faulty and sent out a replacement.
The replacement works fine – connects first time. So now I got 5TB in a single disk, hurray. Noted what other reviews said about the connection cable, I will try get a better quality one to try – speed is poorly. Between another USB 3 disk (“X”) via the desktop to this 5TB disk (type C), over the same USB powered hub (100w), the speed maxed at 30MB/s, with a bit of 31. Slightly slower speed, averaging about 22MB/s when copying from same 5TB disk to itself. Maybe 5400rpm answers it.
This is copying 120GB folders and files.
I am after the capacity, much less about the speed.
Further tests, copying from X drive to internal SATA disk on another computer over the same LAN, the speed peaked about 40MB/s, mostly in the region of 32MB/s. Copying back to the same SATA disk peaked at 82MB/s, mostly 45MB/s. The SATA disk is for storage rather than speed, 5400rpm.
While writing this, I also discovered that using my alternative type c cable (not sure if it is better or worse than the supplied short cable), along with the type c – A adaptor, has been stable, compared to (a) the same cable and adaptor to the usb port on the front panel (motherboard header), and (b) the same cable on to the type c, front panel on mb header. In both cases of (a) and (b), the drive “disappeared” / disconnected when not in use for say 2-3 minutes. I assume that’s because of the quality of the cable and lack of power. Using the powered USB hub solved the problem. But next on shopping list is a good quality type c cable.
Happy to give 5 star however for many people speed will be important. In longer term with larger capacity, this disk with its speed will quickly rank near bottom. When I start using this for live reading and writing video processing and scratch temp it will struggle to keep up. So, 4 star.
–Update–
With a new 100w type c cable :
— On type c header on motherboard,
– copying from from the X drive to the 5TB, this peaked at 40MB/s, with a bit of 41,
– writing back to the 5TB (copying) peaks at just over 13MB/s (didn’t achieve the 22MB/s above)
— On type C with USB adaptor into the 100w powered USB hub
– copying X to 5TB: surprisingly, this time it is peaking 20MB/s (second test, same outcome)
– copying 5TB to itself: also just over 13MB/s
Rather confused with the lower speed with the new type c cable. Is it doing some load balancing / queueing.
I then tried copying one file 565GB from same X drive to the 5TB (over 100w hub), peak is 20MB/s. Copying the file to 5TB itself, same as above, just over 13MB/s.
Not sure what to make of it. A big tanker indeed but not sailing in a rush.
I was running out of space on the 4TB I was travelling with & really happy to find a drive with that extra TB – always a good idea to future proof with drives. I’ve been buying WD exclusively for many years now & they’re totally reliable – this one is as cheap as their basic elements drives but comes in a nicer case & as stated, has that extra TB. Don’t rely on them for tech support in the UK though – pretty bad but shouldn’t be needed anyway.
I had problems previously with using this as a back up disc and storage disc it would not back up always and eventually it caused an internal disc failure. I am trying again to use for one or the othe
I bought this to help me keep a common data source between my various devices. I wanted to password by protect the drive to prevent accidental deletion or editing by one of my super helpful kids. The password protection works on Windows platforms but does not work on Chromebooks. I have to use a Windows device to remove password protection before I can access files via a Chromebook, then use a Windows device to put the password protection back on. It would have been better if the description & marketing information made this clear before purchasing. The software that came with the drive doesn’t work, tech support didn’t have this covered in an FAQ despite it being a well known issue. If you download the latest version of the free software from their site, you’ll be up & running immediately, if you wait for an answer from their tech support, you may be waiting a long time. Hardware good, software & support need to improve.
I find the western digital 5TB is recognised via my humax recorder & sony blu-ray player which is a bonus because the seagate 5TB is not recognised, excellent value for money but I think this is a 1 off so I got 2
Bought this to use as my Time machine for my MacBook Pro has I needed to do a full system back up before upgrading the SSD. Worked straight out of the box, installed the WD software that is on the drive and then straight into backup mode. This HD is whisper quiet, so small and half the price of the last one I bought with twice the storage, highly recommended for any Mac users.
I needed a small backup device for photos which I could switch between various computers. This seems to do the job. Had to return the first unit I bought because my computer would not recognise it when it was plugged in. Tried to fix the issue myself by following the advice on the WD website but I still couldn’t get it to work. Thanks to Amazon’s easy return policy I was able to send it back and obtain a replacement which so far is working as it should.
I use this one as a TimeMachine drive on my new iMac and it does a great job. It’s plugged into the USB3 port and it is fast. I have another one of these drives for my samples libraries for Logic, Spitfire and EWQL. Again, plugged into USB3 port. The drive keeps up with the demands of Logic Pro X no problem.
Very happy with these drives.
Does what it’s meant too, decent enough as a backup drive. Good enough speeds, it does warm up over use but it doesn’t get hot, other reviews exaggerate. Overall I recommend.
A solid HDD made by a reputable firm…which is why I paid slightly more for a WD one. The downside is that it’s actually a 3.6ish GB HDD. A lot of HDD’s always have a little less but this amount is a bit of a kick in the teeth as we use it for storing our raw and completed vlogs on for YouTube, so every bit of storage matters. Anyway, I wouldn’t say that I’m not a fan, as I am. I just wish that there would be more usable room on it or at least you had prewarning as to its ‘real’ capacity.
Bought for use with Time Machine back-ups on my Mac, plugged in and tucked away behind the Mac.
No issues so far, small compact unit, easy to tuck away out of sight and leave to do the job of holding back-ups for the computer. I’ve attached a pic of the unit to show size in relation to keyboard and trackpad. It’s normally tucked away out of site at the back.
HARD DRIVES are advertised in Bytes so 4,000,000,000,000 bytes looks like 4 terabytes
divide by 1024 for kB and 1024 for GB and 1024 for TB. = 3.725 teraBytes & subtract a bit for disk info.
hope this helps explain the disk size.
I had a 2TB Passport drive but that just filled up so bought this 4TB model. So small and light and powered off the Mac USB-C port. Really quick to copy nearly 3TB of data (4 hours !) . Always bought WD disks and have only ever had 1 disk failure and that one was over 5 years old. I use it as an offsite backup for a NAS system so it is perfect for this. Also great it’s preformatted for a MAC and includes the USB-C converter so that saves 10.
2Tb drive, used with Macbook M1 with 256Mb internal storage. Comes with USB-C to USB-C connecting cable with an adapter to connect to standard USB port.
Nice size. Lightweight and easily carried in a sleeve or case, with a Macbook.
I have this unit formatted into two x 1TB drives. One for Time Machine backups, the other as external storage, which is quickly necessary on a laptop with only 256Mb of internal storage. Set-up as a Time Machine drive was straight forward, as was formatting and partitioning the drive, after looking online for instructions first!
So, why only 4 Stars?
There are two reasons, the first of which is quite minor but irritating. As can be seen, the case colour doesn’t match the Macbook colour.
Secondly, and most importantly, the drive comes loaded with bloatware from Western Digital. A 2Tb drive is down to around 1.8Tb out-of-the-box with the excessive amount of unnecessary software that Western Digital try forcing on people. Personally, I paid for storage, not second-rate software. Luckily, a quick format gets rid of the unwanted software.
I bought this to download all my xbox games and i am very pleased with the hard drive its a nice little portable hard drive not heavy and would fit in your pocket easily without discomfort. Very pleased with the price and its great that they offer a pay monthly system. Would definitely reccomend
This drive was initially installed by my Windows 7-running desktop but it stalled before completing and was then not recognised so unable to use it with that machine. It did work with my W10 laptop, which was the intended use, so all was not lost. Other than that, no problems to date [approx two weeks].
Excellent product. Worked out of the box (good for non-tech types). Lots of storage. Drag and drop files to the Passport with ease. Works perfectly with my 2018 MacBook Air. Would recommend. Haven’t needed tech support so far so couldn’t rate that feature.
Not sure why the headline says USB-C ready, the 5TB in the blue enclosure has a USB-C interface and transfers at USB-C speeds. Drive feels good, but oddly the two I’ve bought so far have been exceedingly noisy compared to the 4TB. Noise rarely travels alone, so I worry a bit about longitivtiy, but so far they have been OK and are frequently connected for days at a time (they do spin down). I wish there was a way to configure them to present 4K blocks to the O/S, but so be it.
Seems to work well my only concern is it tends to get hot and I’m hoping this doesn’t effect the life spam of the device but given the 5 year warranty only time will tell
Ordered this as emergency backup after my WD MyBookLive NAS drive sent out a “Critical–unable to mount drive” warning! It arrived very promptly, thank you, and I connected it immediately to my Lenovo A-I-O PC’s USB port and it started copying files with no hassle. Very fast when copying from the SSD drive and adequate from the old NAS.
There was no adaptor nor user manual in box but Amazon offer a hot link for a downloadable PDF. There was a completely unreadable multi-language sheet and I discovered that someone at WD decided it was a good idea to put a black label on the case with black lettering so trying to register the device on their website was fun!
Also this has a mechanical drive so it does not appear on various WD product options, just the solid-state configuration.
However for 4Tb storage under 80 this is a cheap option to give me time to figure out what caused the original error message
I use the storage device as a portable backup for all my devices, it is fast & even though I sometimes throw it around in my bag it has not degraded at all. Really happy with the purchase & would recommend if you are looking for a high capacity, reliable, fast drive.
Wanted to use it as a time capsule back up. It did back up the data but won’t work as a time capsule to back up data daily It is very small in size and very portable, just dissappointed I can’t use it for my back up.
I want to correct the false information left in many reviews from people that simply don’t understand what they have bought or how to use it. There is nothing wrong with the speed or size of this hard drive, let me explain.
A common complaint is that they have bought a 5TB drive and only got 4.5TB. That’s how hard drives are made and it has been for decades since they were first designed. Yes, a 5TB drive will only have 4.5TB in the same way a 32GB memory card will only have around 27GB. It isn’t a rip-off or a con, that’s how they’re measured. I’ve seen ludicrous things like people asking Amazon to send them the missing 0.5 TB in the post (?) or complaining that if they bought 6 apples then they wouldn’t expect to only get 5. True, but would you eat ALL of each apple? Even the core? No, there’s nearly always a bit of waste in anything you buy.
As for the speed, it transfers data at the rate of a steady 121MB per second as you can see from the image I have uploaded. The reason people get lower speeds is that they’ve plugged it into a USB 2.0 port instead of a USB 3.0. Look for a blue USB port, plug it in there and the speed will be fine! If you have a green port then that’s fast too. I’ve had no issues at all with speed at all, despite this drive drawing all of its power from the PC.
People complain about how slow it is when it’s plugged into USB 3.0 because it has very low speeds when they’re copying lots of files. Again, this is the user not understanding how hard drives work. They will always copy big files faster than lots of small files. Think of it like me tasking you with carrying a big box from one side of the room to another. It may be heavy but it’s just one thing to move. Now imagine me tasking you with carrying 100 tiny boxes from one side of the room to the other, being able to only carry one box at a time. It will take you longer because you have to keep going back and forth – just like a hard drive does!
There is nothing wrong with this drive at all. It’s fast and so small it fits in a shirt pocket. I didn’t have to do any set-up at all, just plug it in and off I went. There was the usual Windows error message saying the drive had errors but then when you click to repair the drive” it says it doesn’t need repairing because there are no errors! That’s a quirk of Windows 10 that I have with every drive I ever plug it.
Buy it and enjoy it – it’s great!
Although it states this as 5TB, that’s a bit cheeky. It’s 5,000,945,201,152 bytes, but this is actually 4.54TB – so it’s a bit misleading to call it 5TB. That being said, you get a heck of a lot of storage for the money. Great that the port on the drive is USB-C too. Yes, it’s never going to be as fast as an SSD, but then again it’s a fraction of the cost. Still pretty pleased with the purchase.
I’ve tried most of the main brands for external storage devices and found WD to be the most reliable… in fact I’ve never had a WD drive fail.
The latest one I bought is also a bit slimmer than previous versions, so it’s nice and handy to slip into a pocket for portability.
I got this primarily for a MacBook and it took a little setting up but works very well, both on that and with Windows. I can’t find a way to stop it disconnectingfrom the Mac after a while when running on battery power, but having accepted this (which I believe is a problem with the MacBook not the drive) I can work around it.
Very fast ssd extra storage. Bought at 500gb as a trial and I’ve been amazed at how small this unit is. Speed I think is limited by USB 3 connection, even so its quick and plug and play to use
Bought for a ps5 although I believe it can only hold ps4 games. This isn’t an issue as the majority of the games are from the ps4. So far so good, we moved all the games from ps to this drive, moved all the games from an older smaller drive to the ps then swapped the drives and moved them all back to this one and there is still a lot of room left. Hopefully between the console and this drive, there won’t be any more ‘no space to update’ notifications!!
Its really fast if you connect it through provided USB cable. No problems with loading times even the most demanding games etc. Only if the cable was a little bit longer. Another small issue that the case seems to unseal a bit. So far it doesn’t cause any problems but makes you worried about the durability.
Wanted more mobile storage and this drive fitted the bill. Always used WD drives for many years. The down side to this purchase was when registering the drive with WD I had an email back from WD saying that my drive was more than 5 years from the manufacturing date to being registered. So it seems that I have unknowingly purchased old stock.
I bought this to act as a video editing store and in this it works well. I use it with DAVINCI RESOLVE so I can scroll video like a pro even using a PC. Not sure how long solid state drives work but at the price I am happy so far.
Worked without trouble on my older macbook (2011), but as expected at the speed of the older USB connection. I cannot speak for the full speed of copying until I upgrade my computer.
It is useful as it has a new/old usb convertor on the power line. It bridges the time whenI am using the older larger USB connection and the time when I will be using a newer computer with the newer smaller usb connector.
Works well so far. Just using this as a backup solution so not carrying it around. The only thing is that the Mac cable didn’t actually fit into my Mac, so I ended up using the USB cable and one of my converters.
fits in pocket and also pc drawer.
has password protection if needed
very fast
arrived next day and i put it to the test straight away
wish id bought a couple at this price (48) but next day i looked at it it was 76
This SSD is used for backup. This is only the second external SSD that I have used so it is early days to assess reliability. However it is a WD product and I have used their external hard drives for many years without experiencing problems so am not expecting any problems with this unit.
Very light, I use it plugged into my Xbox One S and it works perfectly for games. Good price.
It does get a little warm but that’s fine with the type of storage this uses.
Massive storage for a reasonable price. Can’t rate Tech Support as I have had no problems, which is nice. If you need a lot of storage and don’t need the speed of an SSD you can’t really fo wtong here.
My Xbox One is always running out of storage, and my traditional USB HDD was messing around, so thought i’d invest in an SSD, as i’d read good things about them.
This thing is tiny compared to a external 2.5″ HDD. Like a quarter of the size.
I’m amazed at the difference. Slow games like Forza Horizon load soo much quicker, i swear changing cars is almost instant, compared to what feels like forever, with the standard xbox HDD.
I would recommend one of these whole heartedly, over a cheaper HDD storage solution. Just wish i’d gone bigger than 500gb. Should have gone for the 1TB.
WD My Passport 5TB: Actual size is 4.54TB. Speeds for transferring files via usb 3.0 vary between 70MB/s to 115MB/s. I am not sure what factors affect this but it’s still very fast. The drive itself is of good build quality and is small and compact. I have not used the encryption software as I simply just reformatted to exFat so it works both on my Mac and Windows laptop. (Format to exFat via Mac first)
Having used a larger western digital backup for photos on desktop and laptop, my laptop was still running out of space and slowing down… Hense the smaller western digital 2TB now used as a second hard drive… my laptop is now twice as fast with no clutter… All good…
The cable supplied with this drive is ridiculously short. 150mm including the C type USB plugs. Any one buying will need to factor in buying a sensible length of cable as this is unusable.
Absolutely brilliant. I bought one from curry’s and it stoped working so I found this one and this is absolutely amazing! I couldn’t recommend it enough. When using this if something happens to the storage. The storage will automatically repair itself. So no need to do anything! I used this for my PS4 currently now using this for my PS5
As a dj I need storage so I’ve condensed my collection to 5tb , I was sick of carrying usb drives for someone to request something I didn’t have now I have most of it , might buy another as these are better than the Seasalte ones
A handy little boon to all those who need trustworty and transportable document storage! You have a massive four terrabites of memory which, once you’ve downloaded all your files you can free up lots of memory on your mainframe and speed up your PC or laptop. Its simplicity itself to use, just plug in to your USB port and start downloading. I had huge lots of photofiles from digital cameras back to 2006 with literally hundreds of thousands of images and it took all of those with still huge memory stores remaining. A superb little external memory, which is super fast and is only 10X7 cm’s and 1 1/2 thick. I commend one to all you folks, especially photographers, who need big storage!
I purchased this external drive as my existing 1tb one was getting a bit full. Although I had only purchased my WD 1tb drive 2 years earlier, the cost of the equivalent 4tb drive was almost identical. It is amazing how the cost of storage has come down over the past few years. My first pc purchased in 1997 had an 8gb capacity. It was straightforward to set up with the software required already stored on the drive itself and it is easy to use. To date I have experienced no technical issues with it and have already started transferring files from my old drive without encountering any problems. It is great value for money and I can recommend it as a cheap and no nonsense storage solution.
Surprised that this drive failed only after two months and little usage
I had a Seagate drive that failed before this and after reading reviews thought I’d try this one and now this one has
So will try the replacement drive and see how that performs
This sleek and colourful WD drive just arrived …and it initially ‘looks’ promising and seems fast at ‘write speeds’ when copying single files ( Multiple files… and like every other drive, it slows down considerably ) Heft is sometimes thought of… as a barometer of quality. This feels plasticky, but that could also be considered a benefit, as it’s exceptionally lightweight. I’m not sure how long the very striking ‘plasticky’ body of this so-called ‘metallic’ drive will last, or how it might look after a couple of months in back pockets and of day to day use? I’ve photographed it ( upside down for some reason? ) next to the Sandisk Extreme and you can see that the Sandisk is marginally smaller and not as bulky as the WD drive. The Sandisk also has a rubberised coating, that looks like it might withstand a drop. Can’t imagine the WD surviving a similar drop as well as WD says it will? In summary, the drive looks good, performs OK, but is plasticky in a way that says ‘cheap’. Purchased on a ‘special deal’ and I’m not sure I’d chose this option again, over the Samsung ‘T’ range or the Sandisk if it weren’t.
Good and working on PS5.
I store my PS4 games on it and now you can move PS5 games to this storage to make room for the PS5 storage , that’s much faster then re downloading the game.
I was surprised by the pocket size. It formatted to X-fat quickly and is an ideal companion to the Mac & Windows machines. I bought the 4gb version in blue. File transfer feels fast compared to the 2gb drive that it supplements. I will buy another in six months.
Probably one of the best ones out there. I purchased a 2TB one. It is slim, lightweight, with an elegant design. On UBS 3 it achieved a a write speed of 100Mb/sec. One of my main reasons for buying this one was the Password security it offers for my personal files. So while there may be other good ones out there such as Toshiba or Seagate, few offer password protection like WD does (and then at such a brilliant price)
I have two computers. One has Windows 7 the other Windows 10. The Windows 7 computer WOULD NOT download the security et.al. programmes beyond 18% using the WD Discovery provided with this HDD. However it did already have an older version of the security/partition etc. programmes from a few years ago. The new WD Discovery worked fine on Windows 10. I found that the password I installed on the Window 10 computer then worked well with the older already installed Discovery on the Windows 7 computer.
Essentially what I am saying is that the Security et. al software will only download with Windows 10 using the Discovery Downloader (Orange icon) provided with this product. It will not download on a Windows 7 platform . However once a Password has been installed on the HDD through Windows 10 then this will also work on a Windows 7 computer provided a previous version (Blue icon) of WD Discovery is already installed.
Of course if you do not use Windows 7 and only deal in Windows 10 then unlike me you should have nothing to worry about. It should work straight out of the box. Finally do not expect miracles from their help desk. Everything I have written above I had to work out for myself. They did not appear to have any idea of the above basics!!!
The WD hard drive 2TB “My Passport” does exactlly as it says. Was purchase with intention of expanding my PS4 storage.
Pros
. Easy to setup (plug> format> play)
. Decent storage
. Appears to be very reliable
. Silent
. Very portable
Cons
. None at the mome
Really nice quality Hard drive, love the blue metal finish, 2TB in such a small box, USB-C connector so much better and some nice bundled software as well. Good speeds on USB3 and everything recognises it when plugged i
Amazing what you can store in such a small box. I started working with computers back in the 1980’s so I am familiar with storage devices and this product just astounds me. I have a very large collection of digital media inc music and photographs and this unit of 2TB will do me for a long time yet.
Nice small, neat external storage with connectors. Initially the icon didn’t show up on my desktop and even though the box says it includes instructions it doesn’t! I registered with the company to see if there were any instructions on the website but there aren’t and it was difficult to set up an account because when I registered the product it invited me to set up an account so the two became muddled and I gave up in the end. Eventually the icon appeared on the desktop and I was able to use it to partition the storage in Time Machine.
Fix WD My Passport Read-only on Mac
In macOS Platform
1.Connect your Western Digital My Passport drive to a Mac computer, and let macOS detect and mount the drive for use. Now, a new hard drive icon will appear on the Desktop.
2.On macOS Dock, selectFinder. Navigate toApplications>Utilitiesand select theDisk Utilityapplication.
3.When the Disk Utility opens, choose the Western Digital hard drive icon from the sidebar. Next, click theErasetab.
4.In theErasedialog window, select theVolume Formatdrop-down list and chooseAPFS(native filesystem), or ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’ orex-FAT. The ex-FAT file system is best for formatting WD My Passport on Mac.
5.Click theErasebutton. Let macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it to APFS, FAT32 or ex-FAT format. Once formatting is done, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive.
Ok, here is my review. it took me 10 minutes to figure It out. A bit disappointing, as I never had this issue for over 12 years! I bought many external hard drives and can use them right away on Mac. Didn’t think it happen on WD, and yes, this is my first WD hard drives. At first, I don’t know is a format problem. So it took me some time to figure it out and fix it. Give it 4 stars as this issue shouldn’t happen in 2021.
P.S, If you found this review of us, I’d really appreciate a helpful vote so that I know I have helped somebody out there! Thank you 🙂
I got the 5Tb version in silver. The drive itself is great, I’ve never had a problem with WD HDs. Have to 100% agree with other reviewers though, the cable that it comes with is awful, a really poor connection that means if you move your drive or laptop a tiny amount, then it gets disconnected. After trying another cable it works beautifully, it’s just a shame they don’t supply a better quality cable, I’d pay a few quid more if that would help. So this cable will sadly be added to landfill as it’s not worth anything to anyone. One last detail too, if you can, go for another colour other than silver, as the colour is cheap looking to say the least!
I have many WD external drives, all have proven reliable. easy to use .
knocked one star off because like many it plays to the lowest common denominator and wants to install the full gamut of useless (to me) software.
Takes a wee while to figure out how to simply install the password element alone.
Thicker than the previous my passport drives I’ve got, but I guess that’s due to capacity, no dramas so far – but I do believe in backing up the backup.