REVIEWS / EXTERNAL DRIVES / WESTERN DIGITAL

Western Digital 500GB My Passport

13 Aug, 2011, 12:29 pm IST | by Karan Shah | External drives

External drives

WD's new 500GB HDD

WD's new 500GB HDD
Non-standard port for connectivity
Extremely portable with a size that fits in the palm of your hands
Thin and sleek

PRICE IN INDIA

4,299

TECH2 RATING

5.5

AVERAGE USER RATING

7.0

How we test

CONTACT

Western Digital

 anil.kukreja@wdc.com

 +91 9769 955175

 www.wdc.com

Electronic data storage capacities are increasing by the minute as manufacturers are struggling to keep pace. Portable hard drives make for brilliant transfer companions allowing easy transportation of data on-the-go. Western Digital has launched the new 'My Passport' which is a 500GB USB 3.0 compatible drive. Let's have a look at how this external drive fares in terms of build, features and performance.

Non-standard port for connectivity

Non-standard port for connectivity

 


Design and Features
Western Digital seems to have done a pretty neat job constraining the size of their 500 GB portable HDD. It’s slim and sleek and easily fits into one’s pocket. The HDD is available in five different colours – Black, Grey, Magenta, Blue and White. The device supports USB 3.0 and like all other USB 3.0 devices, is backward compatible too and comes with a non-standard USB cable for connectivity. The cable has a simple one-to-one connection as compared to some other larger capacity drives from other brands requiring an extra USB port for power.

The device has a usable storage capacity of 465 GB as it comes pre-installed with data backup and recovery and security lock software which takes up the remaining free space. Also, the HDD has a speed of 5,400 rpm and an 8 MB of cache memory. Our model did visibly display the slightest of scratches and fingerprints on its body. But overall, the Western Digital HDD is light-weight and looks classy with the glossy finish.

Extremely portable with a size that fits in the palm of your hands

Extremely portable with a size that fits in the palm of your hands

 


Test Rig Specifications
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40 GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte P67A-UD3R
Memory: Corsair Dominator GT 6 GB DDR3 (3 x 2 GB)
Hard drive: WD Velociraptor 300 GB
GPU:  AMD Radeon HD6970
PSU: Cooler Master 1000W

Performance
The WD My Passport has USB 3.0 support so we hooked it up to our test rig and ran a few synthetic and real world tests. First up, we ran the synthetic tests through SiSoft Sandra and got read speeds of 52.22 MB/s at a random access time of 15.72 ms. The HDTach test showed CPU utilization of 2% and an average read of 53.8 MB/s with a burst speed of 139.6 MB/s. Additionally, we also performed the CrystalDiskMark 3.0 test which gave us sequential read figures of 66.95 MB/s and sequential write figures of 66.09 MB/s. The random 4K QD32 read gave a speed of 0.55 MB/s while the write gave a speed of 0.985 MB/s. The results of the synthetic test were fair, per se, but the real world tests test the actual speeds and here’s a chart of how the Western Digital HDD fared in those tests:

Performance Graph

Performance Graph

 


For all the real world tests, we took both the random as well as sequential files at 4GB, which is the size of the average HD video file. Write speeds are almost identical in both sequential and random data transfer tests. Reading of assorted data takes a hit though. The inter-partition copy tests provided a speed of 23.01 MB/s for the sequential copy and 20.27 for the random copy. As visible from the graph, the results weren’t particularly great and the WD HDD definitely falls short on its competition, for example, the Seagate Freeagent GoFlex or the Iomego eGo Blackbelt.

Thin and sleek

Thin and sleek

 


Verdict
The Western Digital My Passport 500 GB HDD retails at Rs. 4,299. It might be small and sleek but as far as storage is concerned, it’s just 500GB. The Seagate FreeAgent 1 TB retails at Rs. 5,000 and makes buying the My Passport a bad idea. Also, it doesn’t particularly impress as far as read and write cycle times are concerned. At that price, it’s not really the best portable hard disk to recommend to someone.


Tags:

Storage , External drives , Western Digital , WD 500GB , WD 500GB HDD

Would you buy it?




 


How We Test

The Tech2 Labs receives many products every single week and each of them is tested with the utmost care and highest level of objectivity. There’s a constant effort to reduce and totally eliminate subjectivity. Each product is tested according to set test processes so the same test scenario is used.

Verdict
The ratings awarded to a product are derived from a number of tests and calculations, keeping certain important factors in mind. These factors consist of features, performance, quality and value for money. In case of software and some other categories, build quality might be replaced with ease of use or ease of installation. Products are compared with other products in a similar price range or product category.


Features
The features component of the score is rated based on the kind of features present on a particular product. Features are a big part of what people look for when they’re buying a new product such as a phone or a camera.

Performance
The performance score is derived from the benchmarks and tests run on the product. In case of the subjective scores, an average of the scores given by the group of reviewers is considered.

Build Quality
The build quality of a product is important so that it doesn’t fall apart after some use. The build quality scores from the way the product is designed and the kind of materials used in the product.

Value
Value for money comes from the fact that a cheap product is able to provide most of the performance of a higher priced product. Once again, value for money is judged by comparing pricing and performance of products in a particular price range or category. 

There are many other aspects of the product that are looked at such as the bundled software and accessories. All of these scores are aggregated together to form the final score.

What do the ratings mean?

Ratings are simple - higher the score, the better the product. A brief listing of the features and what they mean are given below.

1 - 3

The product is bad in almost every aspect. We strongly advise against purchasing this product.

4 - 6

An average product that isn't the best you can buy, but isn't the worst either.

7 - 8

Product with this rating is highly recommended because it's priced sensibly, has a good set of features and performs well.

9 - 10

Exceptionally excellent product with features and performance unlike any we've seen in the past. A must-have for everyone!

What is the Average User Rating?

We at Tech2 take product reviewing very seriously and every product is tested with the utmost care and level of objectivity. The end user who buys a particular product and uses it over an extended period of time has his own take on a product and there might be nuances that he or she can shed light on. The Average User Rating is present to help readers get the complete picture of how good or bad a product is. The Average User Rating is calculated by averaging the ratings by the thousands of readers visiting Tech2.com every single day. To record your own rating of a product, simply click on the user rating bar. If you disagree with our ratings or our community's product rating, please don't hesitate from voicing your opinion in the comments section below the review.

Leaked Images, Availability, Pricing,
Specs, Pre-order

LG X Boom CM9730 Video Review

LG X Boom CM9730 Video Review

21 May, 2013, 05:42 AM

Samsung Galaxy S4 Video Review

Samsung Galaxy S4 Video Review

14 May, 2013, 11:30 AM

4.8

HP ElitePad 900 Video Review

HP ElitePad 900 Video Review

14 May, 2013, 11:24 AM

2.5

MORE VIDEOS

Personal Data Banks – 8 Portable Hard Drives Compared

Personal Data Banks – 8 Portable Hard Drives Compared

High-capacity portable storage with super-speed data transfers at your...

By Francis D'sa

A social storage revolution: Transporter

A social storage revolution: Transporter

A privacy-centric file sharing and network storage device in the offing...

By Rohini Lakshane

Interview with Toshiba: Hard drives will remain pricey for now

Interview with Toshiba: Hard drives will remain pricey for now

Tech2 interviews Toshiba regarding the price of hard drives and their...

By Hatim Kantawalla

MORE FEATURES