Western Digital WD My Passport X 2TB Review

Introduction & Closer Look (WD My Passport X Review – 2TB)

• Manufacturer: Western Digital (WD)
• Model: My Passport X – 2TB
• Price: £95 (at time of review)

Western Digital or WD as they are more widely known to those who can’t be bothered to pronounce the full name of the company (I am only pulling your legs, relax!) specialise in manufacturing and producing hard drives to a large range of cliental which include regular consumers, businesses and of course, OEM.  One field they have been pushing for a considerable while though is portable storage and their My Passport range has been a mixed bag on the whole; some great points and some really annoying negatives.

Today isn’t about the past though, it’s about the future and today we have one of their premium USB 3.0 external hard drives which is not only compatible with PC but is also compatible with Xbox One; this is nothing new though, but for those consumers confused about compatibility won’t complain when they see it written all over the packaging.  The WD My Passport X is only currently available in a straight and large 2TB capacity with a real focus on game storage; PC and Xbox One as previously mentioned.  Just imagine all those games you could fit onto a 2TB hard drive and with USB 3.0 speeds, there is no bottleneck in terms of data transfer so it should make for a seamless gaming experience.

Packaging wise?  Nothing too special really to be concerned about other than a clear marketing focus on the gaming storage aspect; not being cynical, but not sure how it makes much of a difference over any other USB 3.0 drive?  I could be wrong though!  The box is a nice grey and black throughout with much information to be read such as specification…the WD logo is on there too!

Inside the neatly laid out box is a WD My Passport X information booklet, a USB 3.0 cable to connect it to your chosen device such as a laptop, PC or Xbox One and of course the 2TB My Passport X in all its stunning glory.

Weighing in at around half a pound, it’s certainly not the heaviest 2TB portable drive on the market and with small and robust dimensions of 0.83 x 4.33 x 3.21 inches, it’s dinky enough to fit in your pocket.  The inners, of course, are sealed and even trying to get inside will void your warranty, but inside lies a Western Digital 2.5” SATAIII drive just waiting for your games to jump aboard; all aboard the game train!

Test Setup & Testing

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K @4.5GHz
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15
Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC
RAM: GSkill TridentX 2400MHz 8GB (2x4GB)
PSU: Cooler Master V1200 1200w Platinum
OS: Windows 7 Premium 64 bit

Methodology:

All benchmarks are done on a fresh install of Windows 7 Premium 64-bit that is fully up-to-date with Windows Updates to ensure that the performance reflects a real-world scenario and not that of a tweaked benchmarking system. Every benchmark runs for a total of three times and then an average is taken of those results.

Benchmarks:

ATTO Disk Benchmark – Sequential read and write speeds
Crystal Disk Mark 3.0 – Sequential read and write speeds
4.75GB Transfer Test – Time taken in seconds to transfer files from our test system SSD; fastest wins!

Results:

Results Analysis & Final Thoughts

So what’s the deal with the WD My Passport X 2TB external USB 3.0 storage drive?  Well, aside from coming in at under £100 depending on your retailer of choice, the outcome is a mixed bag really.  To explain it better, what the My Passport X drive is which every other drive on the market of the same breed is essentially an external hard drive with a USB 3.0 interface, surprised?  I hope not!  Western Digital have put a firm marketing focus on gaming storage and with 2TB of space, you will struggle to fill this which gives it a huge advantage for the Xbox One gamer looking to make sure of a 3^rd party storage device; the original Xbox 360 hard drives were horribly priced and with Western Digital, it’s now a more cost effective, but of course performance friendly option too.

Its size is a huge advantage and inside the black, shiny and patterned outer casing, is a 2.5” HDD inside ready to provide assistance to you; you know what it does, it stores files and games!  The main penchant here is, does it do anything ANY other drive can’t?  Well no, it’s marketed towards games, but any other USB 3.0 external hard drive will effectively do the same thing although not all come with software features like Western Digital provides.  The results in the aforementioned benchmarks show that USB 3.0 flash drives do offer much better performance, but good luck finding one which matches the storage capacity of the WD My Passport X!  I think the biggest benefit of the WD My Passport X 2TB drive is consistency, it consistently performs well, is good quality, feels solid and of course, Western Digital have one of the best RMA services in the industry of storage; something you should never turn your nose up at!

If you aren’t swayed by all the cheeky gaming marketing, then what you have here is a solid, good looking and average performing external hard drive.  It is easy to see WHY Western Digital have marketed the drive in this way and I think some consumers will appreciate this when in the search of Xbox One/360 storage drive which also conforms to regular external hard drives too, which surprisingly, the WD My Passport X is nothing more and nothing less than a USB 3.0 External HDD!  Would we buy one?  We would certainly consider it!

Big thanks to Western Digital for sending a sample in for review.