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The My Passport is part of the new 6TB HDD lineup unveiled by Western Digital and SanDisk earlier this year. Notably, this is the highest storage capacity offered in an external hard drive at this point. The last major leap in portable drive capacity came in 2016, when the first-ever 5TB portable drives were launched. Strangely enough, there had been no progress on that front for years — until now.
As someone who frequently switches between smartphones, tablets, and other gadgets, transferring data between devices is one of the biggest challenges I face. That’s precisely why I was curious to test out the newly launched WD My Passport (6TB) HDD to see if it could solve some of my data transfer woes. I used the My Passport (6TB) HDD for around a month, and here’s my take on the new drive.
Design:
Inside the box of WD My Passport you get an USB-A to USB Micro-B connector. There is also a USB-C adaptor bundled with the device to help with connectivity across smartphones and tablets.
While the new My Passport does reinforce the idea of HDDs being bulky, one does soon start to grow admiration for the product upon realizing that this around 210g of device boasts a massive 6TB storage space. As for other specifications, the HDD comes with a thickness of 0.81cm, 4.2 inch length and 2.95 inch width. In case, like me, these numbers confuse, here’s a side by side image of the new WD My Passport alongside the Indian Passport to give you a better idea (seriously no puns intended).
In terms of in hand feel, the new My Passport acutually invite a bit of confidence with a smooth plastic finish on the front with the trademark WD logo at the the top and diagonal lines going towards the centre. The device isn’t as easy to grip fully with one hand as some of its predecessor but I had no trouble in carrying it with me in my backpack. I actually feel pretty confident about carrying the My Passport even in my waistbags during those long vacations.
However, there are two major cons with the design for me. One, the front plastic is prone to easily getting scratches and smudges and does not leave very good impression for a device priced at around ₹15,000. Second, while the My Gate comes in 4 colour options (white, red, blue, and black), only the top lid is customizable and the bottom dark Greyish covering remains the same.
Functionality:
While I do not personally know many people who could pent up 5TB of storage in a HDD, if you are one of those people you now get 1 more TB of storage with the new My Passport drive. After plugging in the drive, you get an actual storage space of 5.45TB which can be used for storing photos, videos, softwares, and you get the gist.
Being an HDD, the new My Passport drive does not deliver blazing fast speeds akin to SDDs but Western Digital does claim a transfer speed of up to 5GB/s with this drive, which should be good enough for most people.
The My Passport HDD comes pre-formatted in NTFS format, meaning you don’t need to download any additional softwares to use is with your Windows laptop. However, if you own a MacBook, you might have to jump through a loops in order to set it up for the first time.
The My Passport HDD comes with a bundled Windows and Mac installer which brings with it support for 3 additional softwares. The standout features for me was the ability to protect the data in the drive with 256-bit AES hardware encryption through a password which is one of the most secure encryption methods available on the market. Another nifty addition is the support for Acronis True Image software, that can come in handy for backing up your Windows or even another drive.
And for the small minority of people, who plan to use this HDD for majorly storing data from their Android phones, I am happy to report that the drive is ready to use on most phones by connecting with the USB-C adapter provided inside the box. For the small portion of smartphones that do not support the My Passport drive by default, I was able to get it working by formatting from drive from the phone itself.
In my almost 1 month of use, I did not encounter any functional issues withe drive. There is a little bit of vibration that goes on while the drive is in use but it isn’t accompanied by any weird sounds, making for a very quiet and smooth experience.
That being said, the one thing that I don’t like about the My Passport is that WD is still stuck with a Micro-B port which is a little dated for a product coming in 2024 and should at least in theory be restricting a little bit of speed. I do hope that WD works on bringing a USB-A port (if not USB-C) on the next generation of the product.
Verdict:
Priced at ₹15,499, WD My Passport 6TB HDD and for that price it offers an attractive design, ample storage, additional security with 256-bit AES hardware encryption and ease of backing the whole system with Acronis True Image software.
There are a few downsides with the product as well, including the older USB Micro-B port and lack of customization options for the bottom half of the drive. Despite that, I believe that the latest My Passport HDD from Western Digital is a very tempting option for someone looking to buy an external drive around the ₹15,000 price bracket.
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Published: 16 Nov 2024, 12:57 AM IST
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