WD's My Passport 5TB USB hard drive review

WD’s My Passport external 2.5-inch USB 3.0 hard drive is now available in up to 5TB in capacity, which means you can stuff even more data in your pocket than with the last iteration. At $150 retail, you pay $30 more than the previous top-capacity 4TB unit, but that’s the same price as its Seagate Expansion rival, as well as one-fifth the price per gigabyte of SSDs. Design and specs The 5TB My Passport measures 4.22 x 2.95 x 0.75 inches and weighs 0.46 pounds. It’s also available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, with the 1TB and 2TB versions being thinner at 0.44 inches and weighing only 0.27 pounds. All capacities carry a three-year warranty. (Note that if this drive is like other WD My Passports, you’ll likely find a decent discount if you shop around.) The My Passport ships in three hues: black, blue, and red. That’s three fewer than the last iteration, which also came in white, orange, and yellow. I miss the other colors, and so will anyone who was rotating them daily for backups. That might actually be no one, but... WD includes a nice suite of software tools for backing up, encrypting data, and taking care of formatting and other drive-related chores. Performance While the WD My Passport is affordable and offers lots of capacity, it’s not a top performer. CrystalDiskMark rates it as improved over the My Passport X, but that didn’t bear out in our real-world copies. Overall it was average at these, but for some reason, the drive was very slow in the small file and folder write test. A worthy choice for most users The WD My Passport now offers as much capacity as its leading competitor, is attractive, and comes with a nice software bundle. If speed is paramount, buy something else—ideally an SSD. If it isn’t, then the My Passport is a more than worthy product for the average user. Abigail Smith is an inventive person who has been doing intensive research in particular topics and writing blogs and articles on Hp Printer Support and many other related topics. He is a very knowledgeable person with lots of experience. If you’re not running A/V protection right now and you want more than what Windows Defender offers, this is a great buy.