WD My Passport Ultra 2TB - Share your experiences please!

[shioriharu]

Hello, today i bought a WD My Passport Ultra 2TB external drive, i've been to multiple review sites, and this was in the top 8 most reliable external hdd's of 2016.

I started to copy very important data on it, cause i'll need to swap some of my older HDDs for a new one soon (in 2-3 months) and i use this My Passport to keep & transfer those files.

I could afford the monthly fee for Dropbox's cloud storage, but i didn't do it, since it takes 4 hours for 200 mb mp4 to upload, and i have 1,5 TB to store, so...hence i bought this HDD instead.

I am looking for people who have experience with similar, or same product, to share their 2 cents, how long did they external drive survive until the USB port, or some mechanics inside failed. (Excluding physical shock here)? I need to fill this baby up and keep it for at least 2 months with all the data intact.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, shioriharu.

First - congrats on the new drive!

I just wanted to clarify one thing. If you are putting all of your important data on the external drive and not keeping it on the internal HDDs as well, this makes the external drive a regular storage drive and not a backup, since you don't have another copy of that data stored somewhere else. This is never safe no matter how reliable a drive might be. So keep in mind you should always have at least to copies of your valuable data stored on two separate locations in order to be classified as a backup.

As for my experience with WD Passport. I bought one passport way back in 2007 (long before I joined the WD team). It is a 120GB Passport drive and it still works. It has a lot of bad sectors now, but after all - it's 9 years old and it's still usable to some extend (even though I wouldn't trust it with important data).
However, as mentioned above, you should always keep a backup of your data, as HDD's could always fail at some point unexpectedly. It's not very likely, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Cheers!
Boogieman_WD

 

[shioriharu]

Hello!
Thank you, i do have another copy of the MOST important files (cant keep 2nd copies of everything though). Bad sectors and such are not gonna be a problem i think, i have a history with WD internal HDD's and they're sturdy as hell, for example one survived a nice dose of static energy discharge.
I am more concerned about the "box" parts, the USB port and whatnot, as this is my first external HDD ever i have little to no experience. I am handling it with the utmost care, but would like to know what can i expect. I use it daily, in short periods, when the temp reaches 35-36C i disconnect it and wait until it cools down, before using again.
I never pull out the cable, or move the drive, so physical pressure is almost nonexistent, but i've been hearing gossips and rumors, that these parts can "melt down" or such.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Yup, I understand, it's not always possible to fit everything on a backup drive, but the most important (irreplaceable data) should be there, so good job!

I'm really glad that you are happy with your drives. The External HDDs are just as good, however they are a bit more prone to failure due to the fact that people often carry them around, bump them, drop them, spill stuff on them, etc. However it does sound like you're being pretty cautious with your new drive and those risks might not apply to you.

As for the enclosure, you shouldn't have issue like melted ports or anything. Besides you should have no trouble using the drive even if it's 50C although this could be a bit concerning if it constantly stayed at such a high temperature. It's operating temperature is up to 60C.

You can keep taking good care of it as you've done up until now and always click on the eject drive icon before you disconnect it.