WD My Passport SSD 2020 1TB Portable Drive Review

WD My Passport SSD Gets NVMe Technology For 2020

When the WD My Passport SSD was introduced in 2017 it was one of the fastest SATA-based portable SSDs on the market. It received a slight hardware update in 2018, but after that it remained unchanged. It was a solid drive for those needing an external storage solution with SATA III SSD speeds of up to 540 MB/s. With NVMe-based SSDs becoming pretty much standard here in 2020 it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that WD is overhauling their My Passport SSD for 2020!

The new My Passport SSD (2020) features an all new enclosure with an internal NVMe SSD capable of reaching up to 1050 MB/s read and 1000 MB/s write speeds over the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface (10Gbps). These speeds are nearly 2x the sequential read/write performance of the original WD My Passport SSD!

The Western Digital WD My Passport SSD External Portable Drive Series is available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities with pricing being $119.99, $189.99 and $359.99, respectively. You also get to pick between having a blue, gold, gray or red drive. WD placed a 5-year warranty on each drive for peace of mind.

Our review sample that Western Digital sent over to review was the 1TB model in gray that is sold under part number WDBAGF0010BGY-WESN. Inside the box you’ll find a USB Type-C to Type-C cable, USB Type-A adapter, instruction pamphlet and of course the drive itself.

This drive does feature 256-bit AES hardware encryption, so that is a big feature for those that want to keep their data safe behind a password. It also has backup software that you can download to backup your critical files to the drive itself or a cloud service account. Apple Time Machine will also run just fine on this drive after a quick reformat.

The My Passport SSD (2020) measures 3.94″ x 2.17″ x 0.35″ and our 1TB model weighed in at 54 Grams without the cable. The drive is extremely comfortable to hold in your hand as this is one of the best feeling drives that we have used in recent years. It has no sharp points thanks to the tapered ends and the textured pattern on the enclosure keeps it from slipping out of your hands.

The top of the enclosure it metal, but the bottom is plastic. WD says that the new My Passport SSD for 2020 is tough enough to handle drops of up to 6.5ft (1.98m) as well as being shock and vibration resistant.

The USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C connector is located on the end of the drive and this model has no LED activity/power light.

On the back of the aluminum enclosure you have the capacity, model number, place of manufacturer and the usual regulatory markings.

The drive comes formatted in EXFAT and the only software included on the drive is WD Discovery. WD Discovery allows you to download and keep up to date other WD Apps such as WD Security app, WD Backup and WD Drive Utilities, and learn about software from WD partners. This utility also allows you to set a password.

WD doesn’t disclose what hardware they use inside of their consumer solutions, but we took a look inside of ours to find out. Inside you’ll find a WD blue SN550 NVMe SSD with customized firmware along with the ASMedia ASM2362 bridge chip that supports the PCI Express Gen3 x2 10Gbps interface. So, you have a standard M.2 2280 slot in this enclosure, which is nice as if the drive ever fails you can easily replace it.

Let’s move along and see how this drive actually performs!