
- #HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP FULL#
- #HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP PORTABLE#
- #HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP PRO#
- #HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP PC#
- #HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP MAC#
Generally speaking, the 512GB drive can hold more than 128,000 12-megapixel photos or 1,000 minutes of 4K content.
#HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP PRO#
The variant of the Extreme Pro SSD you choose will determine how much storage space you’ll get. We also tested speeds with a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 and a Surface Laptop 3 and found similar time frames.
#HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP MAC#
This is, of course, after the Mac had indexed with Time Machine. We were also able to do a rapid export of 15 RAW images from Lightroom in about 10 seconds My Passport accomplished this in about a minute.īackups from a MacBook Pro with 512GB internal storage to the Extreme Pro SSD happened quickly, with daily updates of around 2GB to 5GB taking just under a minute. The My Passport, by comparison, took closer to 35 seconds to complete this same transfer. But what does this mean in everyday use? You can render and save a 6.5GB 4K video file to the Extreme Pro SSD in about 12 seconds. That trumps nearly every other drive we tested. In terms of speeds, Sandisk notes that the Extreme Pro SSD can hit 2,000Mbps on read and write.
#HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP PORTABLE#
If you’re someone who routinely works with large files - 4K or 8K video files, RAW images and large image libraries - and you’re willing to pay more for the quickest experience during everyday backups, then the SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD is the external drive for you. The premium pick: SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD (Starting at $209, originally $309.99 ) For a PC, you can utilize the preloaded simple backup software, which makes it easy to start backing up your data.įrom our testing, the My Passport SSD is the best hard drive for most people and should set you up for many years of backing up files with a fast experience, quality build and space to fit every last shred of data. With a Mac, you use it with Time Machine, Apple’s built-in backup program, or opt to use it as a big drive and just drag files to it.
#HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP PC#
The My Passport SSD is plug and play with a PC or Mac out of the box. This way, it still works with older laptops that still feature the classic USB port. There’s also an included USB-C to USB-C cable in the box, along with a USB-C to USB-A adapter. The drive features a modern port - a USB-C - for faster transfer speeds, a welcome feature, as most laptops now opt for this port. Those files are well protected on the My Passport, as you can password-protect all your data behind 256-bit AES encryption, though that was a standard feature of all the drives we tested. Its handling of JPEGs was on par with a Mac’s performance, but RAW and larger file formats caused a bit of a slowdown. In our testing, we opened a photo off the My Passport SSD in Photoshop, made our edits and saved it back to the drive without issue. Not only can you store photos, videos and music libraries on this drive, but real-time changes are pretty seamless. So if you have 256GB internal storage, getting a 512GB drive is ideal for higher capacities of storage, and 512GB internally means a 1TB is the best option. A rule of thumb: You want to choose an external drive that’s at least twice the size of the laptop you want to back up. On the 1TB model, we were able to fit more than 250,000 photos onto the drive, more than four times the contents of our nearly-55,000-photo library on a 512GB model we could hold two backups of our library. The SSD will give off some heat, and the My Passport SSD does feel noticeably warm during long backup sessions.
#HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WD MY PASSPORT IS BACKING UP FULL#
Backup times on Mac and PC were commendable, taking about an hour for a full backup of a 128GB drive via Time Machine. Those are speeds you’d normally get on your internal drive. To put that in real terms, we were able to move a 4.5GB HD video file in about 15 seconds and a 6.5GB 4K video in about 30 seconds. While the drive did at times peak at the manufacturer’s claimed 1050Mbps for read times and 1000Mbps for write times, speeds of 700Mbps in either direction were more typical. In our testing, we dropped it on carpet, wood flooring, fake wood flooring, tile and concrete and noted only faint scratches on the outer shell without any damage to the actual function of the drive.


Though a compact beauty, it still handles drops of up to 6.5 feet, as stated by the manufacturer. You can also easily tuck it into a sleeve holding your laptop. The WD My Passport SSD is an easily portable drive and fits in front or back jeans pockets or even a shirt pocket. To that end, we think you’ll be more inclined to keep a drive with a slim build in a fun color out and accessible, rather than stuffed in a drawer and forgotten.

Half the battle with getting in the habit of backing up your computer is plugging in the drive and actually doing the task.
