This review started off in a weird way. A client of mine bought this at Best Buy because he saw some of the marketing claims on the box and figured that the Western Digital My Passport SSD in the 1TB size must be fast. But when it didn’t “feel” fast to him, he asked me to look at it because he figured that it was him and not the drive. Well, the short answer is that it’s the drive. But before I get to what I mean by that, let me give you a look at the drive in question:
In the box you get the drive (you do get to choose between 5 colours), a USB-C cable, and a USB-C to USB-A adapter. This is a good start as USB-C is used on the drive which means that getting replacement cables will be easy. On the drive itself is backup software which is likely more useful for PC users than Mac users who should use Time Machine instead. Though they will have to format the drive before that as the drive comes out of the box formatted for ExFAT. The drive itself is light despite being made of metal and feels solid enough. It claims to be shock resistant up to a 6.5 foot drop. Though I did not test that. And when I tried transferring files to it, it got warm to the touch. Which is fine as I have seen SSD drives get hot to the touch. This drives also supports 256-bit AES hardware encryption for those who are paranoid about keeping their data safe.
Now over to the testing part. Here’s a picture of the box that it came in so that I can show you the speed claim that Western digital makes:
Note the part that it says “Up to 1050 MB/s”. Flipping the box over and reading the fine print, they’re referring to read speed. And looking at the Western Digital website the company also says that it has up to 1000 MB/s write speeds. Those are very bold claims. But here’s what I got when I plugged the drive into my M1 Pro MacBook Pro which has Thunderbolt 4 via the included USB-C cable:
So I was able to confirm that Western Digital was correct on the write speeds as it hit 967.38. But the read speeds was significantly slower than what Western Digital claims. As in around 25% slower. I repeated this test on a PC with Thunderbolt 3 via the included USB-C cable and got similar results. So that suggests that it’s not the computer or the cable that’s responsible for those read speeds. Or lack thereof. It’s the drive that’s responsible. But to be fair to Western Digital. They did say “up to” so just like ISP’s who use that term to cover themselves when the Internet connections aren’t up to the speeds that they advertise, Western Digital has covered themselves. But this explains why the client felt the drive was “slow.” A 5% or even a 10% difference in read speed would likely not have been noticed by most people. But 25% will be noticed by most people. Also to be fair to Western Digital, this speed doesn’t suck. But it doesn’t measure up to the claims on the box.
Now does that mean that you should not buy this drive? As long as you’re not expecting the drive’s read speed to match what’s on the box, go ahead. It’s MSRP is $100 CDN so it’s not a lot of cash to spend. Just make sure you buy it direct from Western Digital or shop around as buying it from Best Buy will cost you $30 more for no good reason.
This entry was posted on June 27, 2024 at 9:03 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Western Digital. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Review: Western Digital My Passport SSD 1TB
This review started off in a weird way. A client of mine bought this at Best Buy because he saw some of the marketing claims on the box and figured that the Western Digital My Passport SSD in the 1TB size must be fast. But when it didn’t “feel” fast to him, he asked me to look at it because he figured that it was him and not the drive. Well, the short answer is that it’s the drive. But before I get to what I mean by that, let me give you a look at the drive in question:
In the box you get the drive (you do get to choose between 5 colours), a USB-C cable, and a USB-C to USB-A adapter. This is a good start as USB-C is used on the drive which means that getting replacement cables will be easy. On the drive itself is backup software which is likely more useful for PC users than Mac users who should use Time Machine instead. Though they will have to format the drive before that as the drive comes out of the box formatted for ExFAT. The drive itself is light despite being made of metal and feels solid enough. It claims to be shock resistant up to a 6.5 foot drop. Though I did not test that. And when I tried transferring files to it, it got warm to the touch. Which is fine as I have seen SSD drives get hot to the touch. This drives also supports 256-bit AES hardware encryption for those who are paranoid about keeping their data safe.
Now over to the testing part. Here’s a picture of the box that it came in so that I can show you the speed claim that Western digital makes:
Note the part that it says “Up to 1050 MB/s”. Flipping the box over and reading the fine print, they’re referring to read speed. And looking at the Western Digital website the company also says that it has up to 1000 MB/s write speeds. Those are very bold claims. But here’s what I got when I plugged the drive into my M1 Pro MacBook Pro which has Thunderbolt 4 via the included USB-C cable:
So I was able to confirm that Western Digital was correct on the write speeds as it hit 967.38. But the read speeds was significantly slower than what Western Digital claims. As in around 25% slower. I repeated this test on a PC with Thunderbolt 3 via the included USB-C cable and got similar results. So that suggests that it’s not the computer or the cable that’s responsible for those read speeds. Or lack thereof. It’s the drive that’s responsible. But to be fair to Western Digital. They did say “up to” so just like ISP’s who use that term to cover themselves when the Internet connections aren’t up to the speeds that they advertise, Western Digital has covered themselves. But this explains why the client felt the drive was “slow.” A 5% or even a 10% difference in read speed would likely not have been noticed by most people. But 25% will be noticed by most people. Also to be fair to Western Digital, this speed doesn’t suck. But it doesn’t measure up to the claims on the box.
Now does that mean that you should not buy this drive? As long as you’re not expecting the drive’s read speed to match what’s on the box, go ahead. It’s MSRP is $100 CDN so it’s not a lot of cash to spend. Just make sure you buy it direct from Western Digital or shop around as buying it from Best Buy will cost you $30 more for no good reason.
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This entry was posted on June 27, 2024 at 9:03 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Western Digital. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.