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Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB HDD First Impressions

External hard drives are becoming more of a necessity nowadays than an option. With the increase in file size of games and media content, you’ll be hard-pressed to look for a storage option other than your PC or laptop’s main hard drive. Luckily we have a lot of choices out there with storage capacities ranging from 500GB up to a staggering 5TB. What we’re taking a look at here is a 1TB hard drive, which is now the minimum recommended capacity, from manufacturer Western Digital. Say hello to the Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB Hard Drive.

Western Digital Utility Apps

Western Digital was kind enough to include installers of their utility apps and program in the portable drive. These apps include WD Security, WD Back-up, WD Drive Utilities and WD Discovery. Here’s a quick rundown of what each app and program does.

  • WD Discovery – Western Digital’s main proprietary program for their portable drives. It is a tool to easily access and operate your Western Digital hard drives, it also includes WD Back-up, WD Drive Utilities and WD Security shortcuts and update buttons on its dashboard for easier and centralized access.

  • WD Back-up – A quick one button back-up and restore tool for your Western Digital portable drives. Users could either back-up their files to a Western Digital drive or to a cloud-based storage, apart from that you could also set-up a backup plan where your files will be stored automatically depending on your chosen schedule. The app is only available on Windows, Mac users are advised to use Apple’s own backup program.

  • WD Drive Utilities – An app for drive diagnosis and easy reformatting.
  • WD Security – An app for setting up passwords and hardware encryption to your portable drive.

Performance

Now on to the crucial part, the Drive’s performance.

Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.4

Sequential Read: 147.0 MB/s
Sequential Write: 133.5 MB/s
512kb Random Read: 48.40 MB/s
512kb Random Write: 121.4 MB/s

These are average numbers for an external 7200rpm as the standard speeds nowadays are between 80-160Mb/s. We tested the real world performance of the device by checking the transfer times of a 13.4GB folder to and from the PC and portable drive. The drive was connected to a USB 3.0 port, expect lower speeds when connected to a 2.0 port.

It took exactly 4 minutes and 59 seconds to copy the 13.4GB folder into the device and 2 minutes and 19 seconds to copy the same folder from it. The transfer times when copying from the device are good, but the same could not be said when transferring files to it as it took almost double the time. For better visualization, a drive should, theoretically, take at most 20-30% longer when copying files to it compared to copying files from it. Nevertheless, these are still respectable transfer speeds.

Western Digital’s My Passport Ultra 1TB is certainly a good hard drive, not to mention it has a slim design and a very appealing look. It will fit in any small sized bag or even a small purse as it has a very small footprint and weight. Although the drive’s gray brushed metal finish portion is a smudge and fingerprint magnet, so it is recommended to either have a microfiber cloth ready at all times or get it a pouch or case.

We’ll also give Western Digital plus points for including the installers to most of their assistive apps and programs out of the box. If you’re in need of an elegant looking portable hard drive then be sure to check this one out. Also, the portable device has three other storage options (2TB, 3TB, and 4TB) in case you need more than 1TB.

Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB specs:
2.5-inch Drive
USB 2.0 & 3.0 support
1TB, 2TB, 3TB, or 4TB storage options
Black-Gray and White-Gold colors
110 x 81.5 x 13.5mm (1TB variant)
110 x 81.5 x 21.5 (2TB, 3TB , 4TB variants)
140g

The Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB is available at Lazada (See listing here) for Php 3,990.

Speaking of, we’re also giving away this hard drive to one lucky reader, read below for instructions:

1. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

2. In this YouTube video, leave a comment: Why do you deserve to win this WD MyPassport Ultra?

 

The last day for entries is on December 1 and the announcement of the winner will be on the following day (December 2), so join away!

Special thanks to the folks at Lazada for providing this for our readers!

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Avatar for Zen Estacio

Zen Estacio is a Multimedia Producer for YugaTech. He is the team's laptop guru and one of their resident gamers. He has a monthly column compiling the latest and greatest the Nintendo Switch has to offer. Aside from that, he regularly writes gaming news, reviews, and impressions. You can hit him up at @papanZEN

17 Responses

  1. Avatar for Earl Earl says:

    Hi Yugatech! Do u still remember yung merchant ng My Passport Ultra? (Broken link)

  2. Avatar for Kaaaaat Kaaaaat says:

    My wd passport doesnt have any wd discovery etc. No intallers ?

  3. Avatar for Docalfred Docalfred says:

    I have been using WD My passport for a long time now. And all my data is still there and secured.

  4. Avatar for Angelito De leon Angelito De leon says:

    Finally, commented on the videl already. Hope to win this ???

  5. Avatar for Mics Mics says:

    Ayoko umasa sa wala. Penge na lang po ng Isa ?

  6. Avatar for Cecilo Bayang Cecilo Bayang says:

    I’ve been longing to have a portable hard disk drive and I never been become a winner to any competition I think its now time to break the curse.

  7. Avatar for Rence Rence says:

    Gusto ko matry tong wd, halos seagate plang natry ko and un ang tingin ko pnakareliable kaso last 4 months ngkaproblem 2tb ko nagcorrupt tas naplitan n kso pansin ko nababa ang health kaya prang nag iba tngin ko s seagate.. :( sna manalo ako at matry tong wd if mas mgging okay

  8. Avatar for DANIELYN CAZAS DANIELYN CAZAS says:

    sana manalo ako pra pang gift ko sa asawa ko gsto kasi niya ang ganyan kso hndi nmin afford kulang sa budget.. pang gatas lang ang meron.. sna manalo sigurado magugustohn nya yn lalo na kng e susurprise ko sya nyan..

  9. Avatar for Mark Jayson Deri Mark Jayson Deri says:

    I can’t seem to find the video on Youtube. Can you please help my by providing the title of the video so I can leave a comment? Thanks!

    • Avatar for Zen Estacio Zen Estacio says:

      Is the embedded video at the end of the video not working? In any case here’s the link to it.:)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=PIJbRtTboS4

    • Avatar for Carl Lamiel Carl Lamiel says:

      It’s an unlisted video, and it’s embedded here on the article itself.

  10. Avatar for Ricarido Ang Lasquety Jr. Ricarido Ang Lasquety Jr. says:

    ngayon lang ako magkakameron ng ganto sana manalo para mas madami pang picture at video nmin ng asawa at anak ko ang mailagay ko at xempre ng mga movies at music :)

  11. Avatar for Marlon Serquiña Marlon Serquiña says:

    I badly need this Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB, I’ve been saving for a portable storage since my cp can’t handle all the movies and TV series for a movie marathon when I will be going home in the province for the long Christmas holiday vacation. # Yugatechwinit #ChristmasGift.

    • Avatar for Louie Diangson Louie Diangson says:

      Hi Marlon,

      Thanks for joining, but as mentioned in the article, you have to comment on the YouTube video. :)

  12. Avatar for Angelito De leon Angelito De leon says:

    I truly deserve to have this Western Ultra Digital Passport 1 TB because I love to download HD Movies and having this on my side, I can now store all of them and easily play it on my TV..

    • Avatar for Louie Diangson Louie Diangson says:

      Hi Angelito,

      Thanks for joining, but as mentioned in the article, you have to comment on the YouTube video. :)

  13. Avatar for Jericson Caday Jericson Caday says:

    Joined! Hoping to win. I want to have one, it will be my first. It would be a great help for my studies.

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