WD 256GB My Passport SSD External Portable Drive, USB 3.1, Up to 540 MB/s - WDBKVX2560PSL-WESN

This review was written from the perspective of professional photographers who use the unit for Lightroom catalogs/retouching while traveling using a Surface Pro 4. The unit we purchased is the latest iteration of their portable SSD and is slightly more expensive than the other unit we were considering, the Samsung T5. The WD unit is slightly smaller and lighter, but only by a tiny amount. The main difference beside the price point is the latest version of the WD drive boasts that it is USB Type-C and USB 3.1 Gen 2 ready and does include the type-c cord which has type-c connectors on both ends. But it also includes and adaptor for the standard USB 3.0 connector, which is what the Surface Pro 4 has. The read and write times are about 4X as fast as our previous HDD and it is able to keep up with Lightroom to the point where I cannot tell a real difference between using the internal or external (WD) SSD. Read and write times run in the 400 Mb/s range with no hiccups noted. One thing I did notice is the case does heat up under heavy use, but it is just warm to the touch. Not hot at all. The unit itself feels well built but I do recommend getting the case for it as it is so small and light I do worry about it getting lost! In conclusion, if you are needing a portable external storage solution with fast read and write times, it is well worth investing in the WD My Passport SSD.

Extremely lightweight and compact. I needed more memory for Photoshop and Liggtroom, the 2TB version was on sale for $299 and I couldnt pass it up. So far so good I partioned the drive (1.86TB available) for Storage, Camera Raw cache and a Photoshop Scratch Disk. Working like a charm so far. Appearently this is made by SanDisk which is where you register the product for the warranty. Its so light I can keep with my laptop at all times plugged in. Perfect for my needs and the price made it a no brainier.

Nice and will buy again. I bought three and use them often. great quality. Imp Tru !

This solid state drive greatly increased the storage capacity of my laptop and allowed me to keep GIS projects stored on an external drive that was fast enough that geoprocessing operations did not bog down excessively.

No matter how small you think it is, it’s smaller. It’s a solid value for the speed and convenience. This wouldn’t be the right drive for primary storage, but as a portable backup or for a road warrior with tons of extra data to carry around, the drive is perfect. Get a little case for it to keep it with the cable, or just stick an elastic band around both, and you’re ready to go.

I bought one of these three years ago, to use as a backup drive. Its fast and reliable, and I can store it in a small space. Im about to order another, because have a need for more backups.

I bought this drive on Sept 2019 and immediately connected it to my Raspberry Pi 4. I transferred my root file system to it and made it the root drive from my sd card on the Pi 4. It has worked flawlessly every day. It was powered down less than 5 times since then for hardware maintenance. It does not get hot, reads and writes fast, has never had an error or lost bit. It is used daily. If it does fail, I would buy one again. Very happy with this purchase.

Most fastest file transfer with SSD with low price but, its little bigger than I thought. Its size as same as small internal hard drive from a laptop and although it came with USB C to C / A. Just little over sized!

Seems to work just fine. Definitely gets warm (hot) if you leave it plugged to computer long.

I wasnt expecting this thing to be as fast as it was on reads and writes. If your main drive is SSD-based, youre in for a treat. Transfers files pretty much as fast as your USB port will send them out.