WD My Passport SSD (2020) Review

WD’s latest round of redesigns has spread throughout its portable storage lineup, replacing the bold, bright, sharp design-led identity with rounded edges, muted colours, and simpler plastic bodies. Whimsy has given way to practicality, which you might or might not be in favour of. The latest reimagined storage device is the WD My Passport SSD (2020), but in this case, the changes aren’t solely cosmetic. You get a huge bump in hardware specifications and speeds, keeping WD’s portable SSD lineup current and competitive. Here’s a review of the brand new WD My Passport SSD (2020).

WD My Passport SSD (2020) design and features

The older two-tone metal-and-plastic design might have been slightly impractical with its sharp corners and overall bulk, but it looked and felt very modern and premium. Now, you get a much more organic body, shaped somewhat like a thin bar of soap. It’s much flatter than before, with rounded sides and corners that make for an easy grip. This device will be comfortable in your hand as well as your pocket. It weighs only 45.7g.

The body is made of metal and there’s a swirly ridged pattern on the front as well as the rear. The USB Type-C port is off-centre on the bottom and there’s no activity LED. The raised WD logo feels rough and looks rather garish, but otherwise this is a simple, sober design that will fit in anywhere. You have a choice between Space Grey, Midnight Blue, and Gold. A red version appears to be available in other countries, but isn’t listed here.

The WD My Passport SSD (2020) weighs 45.7g

Unlike some other portable SSDs (including models from Western Digital’s other brands, SanDisk and G-Technology), there’s no waterproofing or other form of protection from the elements. WD does mention shock and vibration resistance, which are inherent to SSDs, plus drop resistance for falls from up to 1.98m in height.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the My Passport SSD (2020) is very similar in shape and size to the SanDisk Extreme V2 portable SSD, but doesn’t have an integrated handle, ruggedised coating, or IP rating.

You get a very short USB Type-C cable in the box, with a Type-C to Type-A adapter for broad compatibility. As we noted with the previous incarnation of the My Passport SSD, such an adapter is technically outside the official USB specification and so the cable and adapter both have notches to make sure they’re used with each other. That doesn’t physically stop you from using the entire cable, plus adapter, with another device though. This should be avoided, because some devices need to negotiate things like how much power is sent from one side to another, which cannot happen through a legacy USB port when such an adapter is used.

WD My Passport SSD (2020) price, specifications and performance

The biggest upgrade comes from the use of an NVMe SSD and bridge rather than the older SATA protocol. WD claims read and write speeds of 1050MBps and 1000MBps respectively – exactly the same as the Samsung SSD T7 Touch, and in line with the Sandisk Extreme Pro. You’ll need a PC with a USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) or Thunderbolt 3 port to be able to harness such speed.

The new My Passport SSD (2020) is available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, priced officially at Rs. 8,999, Rs. 15,999, and Rs. 28,999 respectively. They are exclusive to Amazon during the festive sale period, and actual prices are quite a bit lower. They will be available offline from mid-November.

There’s a USB Type-C port on the bottom but no status LED

WD has implemented 256-bit AES hardware encryption. The company offers quite a lot of free software that you can download, including the capable Drive Utilities for general maintenance, WD Backup to set up simple backup routines, and WD Security to set up encryption with a password. You’re also encouraged to install WD Discovery, which is completely unnecessary and only exists to serve up ads and promotions for WD.

The 1TB review unit we’re testing today was formatted to exFAT by default. This works cross-platform, but if you’re planning to use Time Machine on a Mac, you’ll need to reformat the drive to HFS+ (or at least partition and format some of it). Windows’ Disk Management console reported 931.48GB of usable space.

All tests were run on an HP Spectre x360 13 laptop because of its Thunderbolt 3 ports. CrystalDiskMark 6 reported sequential read and write speeds of 913.9Mbps and 924.9Mbps respectively, which is not too far below WD’s official claim. More realistic random read and write speeds were 154.1Mbps and 163.8MBps respectively. While good by portable SSD standards, the My Passport SSD (2020)’s scores lag quite a way behind what the Samsung SSD T7 Touch and SanDisk Extreme Pro were able to achieve. The Anvil benchmark managed read and write scores of 2,186.6 and 1,921.12, for an overall score of 4,107.72.

The shell of the WD My Passport SSD (2020) did get quite warm when benchmarks were running and when large batches of files were being copied up and down in testing. This shouldn’t be much of a problem in everyday use, and there’s nothing else to complain about.

You get a small USB Type-C cable with a Type-A adapter

Verdict

If you like bold, edgy design and products that make a statement, the new WD My Passport might be a bit of a disappointment. It looks unassuming and pedestrian compared to its predecessor; more like a bar of soap than a high-end tech product. Perhaps this is a signifier that portable SSDs aren’t just lifestyle accessories for only those who can afford them anymore, but are now perfectly mainstream commodity products.

The emerging new class of NVMe portable SSDs brings nearly twice the speed of previous-gen SATA models. Samsung still has the performance advantage, but WD isn’t too far behind now. Other than speed, you should choose your SSD based on whether you prioritise features such as AES encryption and ruggedisation. SSDs are also routinely discounted below their official MRPs, so if you do find a great deal on the WD My Passport SSD (2020) and it meets your requirements, you shouldn’t hesitate to pick one up.

WD My Passport SSD (2020)
Price (MOP):

Rs. 6,999 (500GB)
Rs. 12,999 (1TB)
Rs. 24,999 (2TB)

Pros