Review Western Digital My Passport (6TB) review: spacious and stocky

[Admin]

WD bumps its My Passport gets bumped up to a 6TB top capacity. But the extra terabyte comes with a steep price hike. The drive is thicker than the 5TB model, and of course it's much slower than portable SSDs.

Western Digital My Passport (6TB) review: spacious and stocky : Read more

 

[PEnns]

$66(1TB), $85(2TB), $116 (4TB), $127 (5TB), $179.99 (6TB)

Funny how the jump from 1 to 2GB is $19. From 4GB to 5 GB is $11.....but from 5 to 6 is $52!!

Ah yes, the law of "new" and its obscene markup is alive and kicking.

 

[Notton]

I wonder if they are reusing the PCB from 1/2/3/4/5TB model. It would explain why it still uses a micro-B connector.

It would also mean the drive can't be shucked, as there is no bridge chip and no SATA connector inside.

 

[8086]

$66(1TB), $85(2TB), $116 (4TB), $127 (5TB), $179.99 (6TB)

Funny how the jump from 1 to 2GB is $19. From 4GB to 5 GB is $11.....but from 5 to 6 is $52!!

Ah yes, the law of "new" and its obscene markup is alive and kicking.

Considering that 1tb flash drives can be had for $80, the only reason to buy the 1tb hard drive is because data recovery on a HDD is much easier to do than on a failed Flash Drive or SSD. And as long as manufacturers can keep the cost per unit of storage at a better price than flash based devices, the HDD will soldier on for many years to come as they are still some of the most effective back up devices available; everyone should have at least 1 jumbo HDD in their system for that very purpose.

If you've priced 8tb Sata SSDs lately, they are close to $1,000. For half that these days, I can buy a hard drive in the 30tb range.

 

[CmdrShepard]

I wonder if they are reusing the PCB from 1/2/3/4/5TB model. It would explain why it still uses a micro-B connector.

Very likely.

It would also mean the drive can't be shucked, as there is no bridge chip and no SATA connector inside.

Old Passport drives didn't have a SATA connector at all, probably the same here.

If this was 2014 I'd advise people to get a 2.5" USB 3.0 enclosure and stick a 2.5" HDD in it.

Nowadays, just get Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB and stick it in M.2 enclosure, don't waste money and time on spinning rust and crappy slow products like this.

 

[jlake3]

Nowadays, just get Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB and stick it in M.2 enclosure, don't waste money and time on spinning rust and crappy slow products like this.

Really easy advice when you're spending other people's money.

I've got a need for portable external storage greater than the 3.6TB of formatted capacity that yields, which doesn't require high-end performance. Replacing a 5TB external HDD with 990 PROs comes out to $520 for 4TB + 1TB + a two-drive enclosure that allows spanning, or $590 to replace a 6TB drive.

It might not be your niche, but there's certainly a niche for cheap, portable capacity.

 

[NedSmelly]

Agree with @jlake3 , the 5TB portables have worked well for my freelance work as on-the-go backup and mobile file sync in terms of dollar per byte. Not sure if it makes sense for the 6TB though, with how it’s been priced. 8TB would be more convincing, given current SSD pricing (and lack of QLC performance and endurance) at that capacity.

 

[lemongrassgarlic]

I have several of these passport drives (up to 4 TB). What irritates me is that as soon as their 1 GB buffer is filled (at very high speed), the speed drops to mere MB/sec to slowly get back to around 100MB/sec.
I suppose here that WD has a 1 GB buffer , or is that w11 that absorbs this first GB and then has to wait untill the drive has recorded this ?
On my old computer the speed is a constant 20 MB/sec with USB2 of course.

 

[NedSmelly]

the speed drops to mere MB/sec to slowly get back to around 100MB/sec.

I get around 85-90MB/s sustained on video file transfers with Seagate Expansion Portable 5TBs. I guess we can’t expect much more from low power SMR spinning glass drives.

 

[lemongrassgarlic]

I get around 85-90MB/s sustained on video file transfers with Seagate Expansion Portable 5TBs. I guess we can’t expect much more from low power SMR spinning glass drives.

I expect more constant speeds when writing a big video file , like a constant 90 to 110 MB/sec , not 500-600 MB for the first GB , then dropping to 0 to 20 MB and then the normal 90 to 110 MB/sec. Reading from passport is constant 100-110 MB/sec. This is for both the 2TB and 4 TB passport drives.

 

[t3t4]

This is not a good deal, at all!

It's god awful slow and just way too expensive per TB. I bought their 16 TB 'Elements' drive just last year for $215.00 and they go on sale frequently. Prime day is right around the corner, again, so expect the same or similar deal, again.

 

[CmdrShepard]

Really easy advice when you're spending other people's money.

I am not spending anyone's money but mine, and I am giving a free advice. What's not to like?

I've got a need for portable external storage greater than the 3.6TB of formatted capacity that yields, which doesn't require high-end performance.

And what, pray tell, you have stored there that doesn't require read/write performance better than this pitiful piece of junk WD is selling?

3.6 TB = 3,686.4 GB = 3,774,873.6 MB

I'll be generous and give it average 50 MB/sec read speed -- that's 75,497 seconds to access all 3.6 TB of data stored on it. So either you don't need all that data at the same time but a much, much, smaller subset of it, or if you really need it all then such a slow speed can't possibly be acceptable for normal use.

Replacing a 5TB external HDD with 990 PROs comes out to $520 for 4TB + 1TB + a two-drive enclosure that allows spanning, or $590 to replace a 6TB drive.

It might not be your niche, but there's certainly a niche for cheap, portable capacity.

Well you certainly get what you pay for.

 

[graveller39]

I can't help but wonder why the reviewer would bother comparing the HDD against four SSDs. Of course its a whole lot slower, so that's mostly meaningless. I'd much rather know how it fares against other comparable portable HDDs. And what exactly is the problem with the micro-B USB? The reviewer clearly has no use for HDDs, so perhaps he should stick with reviewing SSDs.