Western Digital has unveiled the latest version of it WD My Passport SSD portable hard drive – and it boasts ludicrously fast read and write speeds of 1,050MB/s reading and 1,000MB/s.
The new WD My Passport SSD doubles the speed of its predecessor, which we already rank as one of the best portable SSDs (opens in new tab) – and the non-SSD version of the WD My Passport is one of our top picks for best portable hard drives (opens in new tab), so the product family enjoys a very good lineage.
Where the latest edition takes a huge lead on the rest of its siblings, however, is in the lightning-quick read and write speeds. This is made possible due to the NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) protocol, which employs parallel, low latency data paths to offer markedly higher performance than SAS and SATA protocols (using high speed PCIe lanes, it can double the transfer speed of a SATA interface).
On top of those 1,050MB/s read and 1,000MB/s write speeds, the new My Passport SSD also features 256-bit AES encryption, along with shock and vibration resistance – and it is also drop resistant up to 6.5 feet (1.98m), so it won't smash to smithereens if you knock it off the table while backing up your files at Starbucks.
That kind of 'coffee shop workflow' increasingly used by photographers and content creators is definitely something that WD is targeting with the new drive. These increased transfer speeds will be a boon to those working with hi-res images and 4K video – and for those oversized files, it comes bundled with software for easy backups to your drive or cloud storage service.
WD My Passport SSD is initially available in grey, in 500GB and 1TB capacities for $119.99 / £136.99 and $189.99 / £221.99 respectively. Blue, gold and red versions will be available later this year, along with a 2TB version for $359.99 / £ 372.99.
Read more:
The best portable SSDs (opens in new tab)
The best portable hard drives (opens in new tab) for photographers
The best online photo storage (opens in new tab) options: cloud storage for photographers
