WD My Passport Edge 500GB Portable Hard Drive Review

Free Space and Final Thoughts

Taking a look at the capacity of the WD My Passport Edge 500GB USB 3.0 portable hard drive we see that in Windows, there is 465GB available to the user as reported by Windows. This is with the applications and folders that WD shipped with on the drive. The WD software and users guides take up about 176 MB of space.

The Western Digital My Passport Edge is an easy to use portable hard drive that also happens to look good and is affordable. Backing up your data is a must in this day and age and the the WD My Passport Edge for PC makes what can be a painful task very easy! Having a ready-to-go pocket hard drive is nice for backing up files!

When it comes to performance the WD My Passport Edge is quicker than the WD My Passport Essential that we reviewed in 2011. The My Passport Essential 500GB drive had 71MB/s read and 49MB/s write speed averages in HD Tune. The new My Passport Edge 500GB drive has 92MB/s read and 88MB/s write speeds thanks to the updated notebook hard drive being used inside the plastic housing. This is a significant performance increase and a welcomed one as we all like things to get done quickly!

When it comes to pricing the WD My Passport Edge 500GB USB 3.0 portable external drive can be found for $89.00 shipped. This breaks down to about 18 cents per GB for those that like to factor in cost per GB. Not a bad price for a 500GB drive, external USB 3.0 housing, a USB 3.0 cable and the backup software. A Western Digital 500GB Scorpio Blue 2.5″ notebook hard drive runs $69.99 shipped, so you are getting quite a bit more for an additional $19. The WD My Passport Edge comes backed by a 2-year warranty that covers both parts and labor.

The Western Digital My Passport Edge is a great portable drive and we found no flaws with it. The My Passport Edge, like pretty much every new product, was found to be faster and thinner than the product it replaces. You usually can’t go wrong with that model and we can easily recommend this product for any user that wants to backup their files.

Legit Bottom Line: The WD My Passport Edge is a great portable hard drive that quickly backs up files and is small enough to fit in your pocket!