Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsSolid hardware, but …
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2023
Overall, it seems to be a solid piece of hardware but there are issues with the cable and especially the software.
Motivation for buying:
I have a 10 years old 2 TB Passport HDD that is still working but that I wanted to replace. Because it’s old and very slow. What I liked about the Passport was the option to encrypt the drive and run it “stand-alone” without any software on other computers (except Linux). When you plug it in, a small partition is mounted which contains the “WD Unlocker” software that allows you to mount and decrypt the drive. I was looking for exactly the same just in SSD and smaller.
PRO:
(P1) Its tiny – The drive is half an inch longer than a credit card (and of course thicker; 0.35 inch) but its really tiny compared to the old hard drive.
(P2) Speed – The speed is appropriate as you can see in the first image. It does not quite reach the “up to 1000MB/s” but it says, “up to”. The speed was tested with CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4, USB 3.2 gen 2 port and the USB C connector. If you use the Type A connector and a corresponding 3.0 port the speed is lower (see second image).
(P3) No fake – Not really a pro but with so many fake SSD with incorrect sizes worth mentioning. It was tested with h2testw 1.4.
NEUTRAL:
(N1) Disk size – Its not actually a 2TB hard disk as you can see in image 3. Yes, it does give you 2 trillion bytes but that is only 1.81 TB. Unfortunately, this is common and other vendors do the same. Just be aware that “2TB” is not actually 2 TB.
(N2) Heat – The drive gets warm when in use. That is common for SSD and it does not get dangerously hot. But it can be uncomfortable if you touch the drive during use or shortly after.
CON:
(C1) Cable – The provided cable is really short - 6.3 inch including the plugs. And while that might be nice for transport and when you connect it to a notebook, it’s terrible when connecting to a desktop computer. Your drive will literally be dangling down on the cord. Or you pile up some books in front of your computer to create a place to lay down the disk.
(C2) Software – Just a big mess. While the cable is a small issue and can be easily replaced, the provided software is a big issue. When plugging in the drive, it has two installers for WD Discovery (Windows, Mac) on it.
The Windows story: First thing after start of the installer, it asked you to be allowed to phone home (send data to WD). If you disagree it will start installation and hang at 18%. If you google it you will find it’s a well known issue and solution according to WD support is … just allow it to phone home. If you do that, the installation will finish - but it will not recognize the Passport. Even after restarting or trying different USB ports. So deinstalled and download WD Security from the western website. Installation works and it will recognize the drive. You can now set a password and encrypt the drive. After re-plugging the drive, the small partition with the WD Unlocker software shows up and … it does not work (see image 4). It complains that we should start the WD Unlocker from the partition associated with the USB drive … which we just did. It seems similar to WD Discovery the WD Unlocker does not recognize the drive. When googling you find its again a known issue and solution is … use WD Security instead. Which means you must install WD Security on each and every computer you want to use the encrypted drive. That was tested on two different Windows systems with different hardware components.
The Mac story: Using the installer from the USB drive and allowing it to phone home will actually work and it does recognize the drive afterwards. You can now set the password from WD Discovery. However, when re-plugging the drive and trying to unlock using the WD Unlocker we are running into the same issue as on Windows. Here too, you have to install WD Discovery or WD security on all computers that you want to use the drive.
SUMMERY
If you are just interested in the hardware … you are good. Don’t be surprised that it’s not actually 2TB and that the drive gets warm. That will be no different for other vendors. Be prepared to get a longer cable to fit your needs.
If you were hoping to get an encrypted drive that “stand alone” can run on any computer you will be disappointed. You will have to install WD software on each of the computers and live with the fact that they are phoning home. At that point its worth considering free software solutions (such as VeraCrypt) that also need to be installed but at least don’t send data away + also work on Linux.
