Western Digital Unveils Its First WD Portable SSD

[btarunr]

Western Digital Corporation, a global storage technology and solutions leader, today introduced its fastest WD brand portable drive yet, the My Passport SSD. Featuring blazing-fast speeds and award-winning design, the new My Passport SSD compliments the company's leading portfolio of My Passport palm-sized storage devices. Designed for content creators and tech enthusiasts, the new My Passport SSD combines exceptional speed and portability to manage massive files on the go.

"The WD brand is focused on delivering fresh, new personal storage devices that offer amazing performance in a beautiful, yet durable design," said Sven Rathjen, vice president of marketing, Client Solutions, Western Digital. "Our fastest portable drive yet, the My Passport SSD is a powerful solution for people who need to move content quickly and easily wherever life takes them."



A New State of Storage
Featuring speeds of up to 515 MB/s, the My Passport SSD is the fastest My Passport drive offered by the WD brand. The new, super fast drive is designed for the latest generation of computers with a USB Type-C port and is USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gb/s) ready with a USB Type-C to Type-C cable and an adapter to use with the more traditional USB Type-A ports found on many computers. Built for PC and compatible with Mac, My Passport SSD offers peace-of-mind with 256-bit AES hardware encryption and password protection, and is also 6.5-foot drop tested for shock-resistance to withstand 1500G of force, to help keep precious data safe.

My Passport SSD is the perfect storage solution to rapidly manage large photo and video libraries, quickly back up files and important documents, run virtual machines from, or expand your SSD-laptop storage anywhere you take your computer. The new drive is available in 1 TB, 512 GB and 256 GB capacities, and comes with WD Backup software that enables users to automatically back up their stuff.

Pricing and Availability
The My Passport SSD is backed by a three-year limited warranty, and is available in the U.S. from BestBuy.com, and available worldwide at select e-tailers and retailers this quarter. The My Passport SSD has a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) in the U.S. of $399.99/1TB, $199.99/512GB and $99.99/256GB USD, respectively.

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[Tartaros]

The 256 gb ssd is almost 30$ more over 256 gb 3.0 flash drives. Not sure why this would be interesting to someone apart of the built in encryption.

 

[newtekie1]

The 256 gb ssd is almost 30$ more over 256 gb 3.0 flash drives. Not sure why this would be interesting to someone apart of the built in encryption.

Speed. I doubt you'll ever see 515MB/s, or anywhere near that, with one of those cheap 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drives. And more importantly, I bet the write speed is way way way faster than the USB 3.0 Flash drives.

For example, the Corsair Voyager X1 256GB is $70. But the maximum speed is rated at 130MB/s, and the writes are about half that. Hell, the PNY 256GGB Turbo is $90 and only rated at 140MB/s read and 80MB/s write. Even the 256GB Corsair Voyager GS is only rated at 295MB/s read and 170MB/s write, and it is about $99.

 

[jateruy]

Still I would like to see manufacturers leverage more of that 3.1 Gen2 bandwidth. A custom Chinese branded USB to M.2 adapter hosting ASM1351 chipset with any M.2 SATA SSD on market could easily achieve 520MB/s+ seq r/w with similar or lower price.

It would be great if these OEM portables are going to have PCIE based USB 3.1 Gen2 (even better if TB3)bridging chip and SSD inside. Bit more premium should be fine because the gain in speed benefits will definitely justify.