WD My Passport For Mac Portable Hard Drive Review

The WD MyPassport For Mac Portable HDD is a dependable, value-for-money external hard drive that works with Macs right out of the box. It can’t compete with Solid State Drives in terms of speed and durability, but it’s still one of the best external hard drives for Mac users on a budget.

WD My Passport For Mac Portable Hard Drive

We named the WD My Passport For Mac Portable Hard Drive the best external hard drive for Mac because of its dependability, Mac compatibility, and value for money.

In this WD My Passport For Mac Portable Hard Drive review, we look at what it can do and why it’s such a good option for backing up your Mac or adding storage space to it.

This review covers the 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB WD My Passport For Mac Portable versions, as well as the HDD and SSD versions.

Note that the WD My Passport For Mac Portable hard drive is available in both HDD and SSD (Solid State Drive) versions but here we’ve looked at the mechanical HDD version which is cheaper and offers the most storage space for your money.

Recommended Product:WD 5TB My Passport for Mac, Portable External Hard Drive with backup software and password protection, Blue – WDBA2F0050BBL-WESN

WD My Passport For Mac: HDD vs SSD

The WD My Passport For Mac Portable external hard drive comes in HDD or SSD configurations. In this review, we examined the HDD version, which provides the most storage space for the money.

HDDs are mechanical drives with moving parts inside that are more prone to breaking if they are dropped or moved while in use.

They are, however, easily the best cheap external hard drives for Mac users, with the WD My Passport For Mac Portable HDD going up to 5TB for just over $100, whereas the SSD version only goes up to 4TB for nearly $500.

SSDs have no moving parts, are faster and quieter, and represent the future of external storage drives. For good reason, all new Macs’ internal drives use SSD technology.

The disadvantage is that they are more expensive than HDDs, and the WD My Passport For Mac SSD only comes in capacities of up to 2TB.

If your budget allows, we recommend purchasing the SSD version of the WD My Passport For Mac Portable, which is faster, more reliable, and quieter.

WD My Passport For Mac Portable 5TB HDD Specifications

Manufacturer	‎Western Digital
Series	‎My Passport
Color	‎Blue
Hard Drive Size	‎5 TB
Hard Disk Description	‎Mechanical Hard Disk
Hard Drive Interface	‎USB 3.0
Hard Disk Rotational Speed	‎5400 RPM
Hardware Platform	‎Mac
Are Batteries Included	‎No
Item Weight	‎209 g

WD My Passport For Mac Portable Features

One of the things we’ve always appreciated about WD My Passport For Mac products is that they’re designed specifically for Mac users.

That is, in fact, the only distinction between the standard WD My Passport Portable and the WD My Passport Portable For Mac versions.

This means it’s already formatted in HSF+ format (also known as Mac OS Extended Journaled) and ready to use on your Mac.

The WD My Passport For Mac Portable Hard Drive is thus ready for a Time Machine backups as soon as you plug it in.

You can also easily reformat the drive to Apple’s more modern APFS format, which is more secure and used in all Mac internal hard drives nowadays, using Disk Utility in macOS.

Alternatively, you can use Disk Utility to partition the WD My Passport external hard drive so that you can use Time Machine on half of it while dragging and dropping files such as videos onto the other half.

You can also reformat the drive with the WD Discovery software that comes with it. The WD Discovery software is compatible with macOS High Sierra and later, as well as Mojave, Catalina, and Big Sur.

However, while Rosetta allows it to work on M1 and M2 Macs, it is not natively designed for Apple Silicon Macs, and some users have reported problems installing and using the WD Discovery app on M1 and M2 Macs.

WD My Passport For Mac Speed

The USB-C and USB-A ports on the WD My Passport For Mac Portable Hard Drive are both compatible, and the USB-C port can be connected to a Mac’s Thunderbolt port.

The USB-A port is available for those with older Macs, and it also includes a USB-A cable that supports USB 2.0 on even older Macs.

As a result, the WD My Passport For Mac external hard drive is also an excellent external hard drive for older Macs.

The maximum read speed from the WD My Passport For Mac USB-A ports is approximately 120 Mb/s, and the maximum write speed is approximately 130 Mb/s with an RPM of 5400.

This is quite slow by modern data transfer protocol standards, but the price is the trade-off.

This is quite slow by modern data transfer protocol standards, but the price is the trade-off.

Despite the fact that the drive port supports USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds of up to 1000 Mb/s, mechanical limitations of the drive prevent it from reaching the maximum speed that the USB 3.2 port interface is capable of.

This is due to the mechanical HDD version of the drive having moving parts that cannot deliver the data read/write speeds offered by USB 3.2.

To take advantage of the maximum transfer speeds provided by USB 3.2, you must purchase the Solid State Drive (SSD) version of the WD My Passport for Mac, as SSD drives have no moving parts and are much faster.

The My Passport For Mac SSD drive also has a stronger metal design that is shock and vibration resistant, with a drop resistance of up to 6.5ft (1.98m).

It should be noted that the WD My Passport For Mac HDD does not support the faster USB 3.2 Gen 2 or USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 speeds that can reach up to 2000 Mb/s, although USB 3.2 Gen 2 2×2 does not work on Macs due to technical incompatibilities with Thunderbolt.

If you require these speeds, we strongly recommend using a dedicated Thunderbolt external hard drive, as they are the only ones optimized to deliver the speeds Thunderbolt is capable of.

If you wanted to install Windows on an external drive, for example, you’d need an SSD with a USB-C or, better yet, a Thunderbolt connection.

Design & Power Supply

The WD Portable My Passport does not need its own power supply because it is powered by the USB cable connected to your Mac.

This eliminates the need to carry an external power supply when using the WD My Passport Portable drive while on the go.

Blue, Silver, Sky Blue, Red, Midnight Blue, Gold, and Grey are also available for the WD My Passport For Mac.

Most external hard drives are only available in one or two colors, so this is a good color selection.

We also like how WD included an LED light to show when the drive is reading or writing, which is something that many external hard drives still lack.

Social Media Integration

One of the unique features of the WD My Passport For Mac is the way it can download and save all your social media photos, videos and other data.

The WD Discovery software that comes with the drive allows you to connect to social media and cloud storage services like Facebook, Dropbox and Google Drive.

It then automatically imports, organizes and shares your photos, videos and docs to the WD My Passport for Mac Drive.

Note that this requires using the WD Discovery software and this feature is unstable on M1 & M2 Macs.

WD My Passport For Mac: Portable vs Desktop

The WD My Passport For Mac Portable is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

The downside is that it only goes up to 5TB, which is more than enough to backup the average Mac hard drive.

The size difference between the 1, 2, 4, and 5TB models is minimal, and they all fit in your pocket.

The 2 TB model weighs 0.27 lbs, while the 4TB and 5TB models are slightly heavier at 0.46 lbs.

Because these are mechanical portable drives, they are more prone to damage when carried around, so a carry case is highly recommended.

If you need more storage space than the WD My Passport for Mac’s maximum 5TB, you’ll need the WD Elements Desktop External Drive version, which goes up to 20TB but is much larger and less portable.

WD My Passport For Mac Security

My Passport for Mac includes 256-bit AES hardware encryption with password protection, allowing you to password-protect the contents of your hard drive.

You must create your own personalized password with the included WD Discovery software and keep it safe because if you lose it, you may never be able to access your data again.

If you set a password, you’ll also have to use the WD Discovery software to access the hard drive every time you use it, and it won’t work with Time Machine with the security features enabled.

Because of the ongoing WD Discovery issues on Apple Silicon Macs, it is recommended that you disable this password protection on M1 and M2 Macs.

WD My Passport For Mac Downsides

The main issue we have with the WD My Passport For Mac Portable external hard drive is that the WD Discovery software is incompatible with M1/M2 Macs.

While the WD Discovery software works well on Intel Macs, it does not perform as well on Apple Silicon M1 and M2 Macs.

This appears to be primarily due to macOS and WD updates, which indicate that the software conflicts with macOS security software.

You don’t have to use the WD Discovery software unless you want to download your social media data and backup to the WD Cloud.

You must also use it if you want to add a password to your drive and check the health of your drive.

There have also been some issues with WD drives not working properly with M1/M2 Macs running macOS Monterey, though these have been fixed in Monterey updates, according to WD.

The HDD version of the WD My Passport, unlike the SSD version, is not shock resistant, so be cautious when dropping or moving it, especially when it is turned on.

Finally, a general disadvantage of all HDDs in comparison to SSDs is that they are not as fast, with data read/write speeds significantly slower than SSD or Thunderbolt drives.