The good The new and compact My Passport Ultra portable drive offers up to 1TB of storage space, delivers fast performance and comes in many color options. The drive works right out of the box, features hardware encryption and includes helpful backup software.
The bad The WD Backup software can’t backup the entire system as an image and won’t backup based on changes in real time. The new drive’s performance, though quite fast, was a bit slower than the previous version.
The bottom line The WD checks the boxes on everything you’d want in a portable storage drive, and with a stylish multiple color option, it’s a easy recommendation.
The new WD My Passport Ultra is one of the most compact storage device that can give you up to 3TB, but that’s not the only thing cool about it.
Available in black, white, berry and blue - with an option for up to 20 mix-and-match colors via WD Grip Packs - the drive can fit anybody’s style. What’s more, the new WD Backup software is one of the easiest to use to date and you will also be able to encrypt the drive to protect data without scarifying performance.
On the downside, the drive has a few minor shortcomings. Its performance, though fast, was a bit slower than its older brother which first came out two years ago, and its backup software also does away with the real-time backup option which takes place as changes are detected
The new My Passport Ultra is preloaded with WD Backup, WD Security, WD Utilities applications. You don’t need to install any of these to use the drive but they adds a lot more value to the drive, especially for Windows users.
The WD Backup software, available only for Windows, is the replacement of the WD SmartWare, normally bundled with previous portable drives from WD. WD Backup is now much more simple to use. It allows you to pick what files and folders on the local drive that you want to backup( by default the data of the current user’s profile is select), after that it will automatically perform the backup every hour, everyday or every month. Unfortunately, you can’t change the backup frequency any further and there’s no longer the option to backup each time you make changes to the computer. You can’t backup the entire system, either, to restore in case you need to replace the hard drive of the computer. WD Backup does allow for backing up data onto a Dropbox account( not included), however.
WD Drive Utilities( Windows and Mac) includes utilities that enable you to check on the drive’s status, test its functionality, or even reformat it. WD Security( Windows and Mac) lets you secure the drive’s content with a password. The drive supports strong 256-AES hardware encryption, and once you’ve picked a password, the content is completely inaccessible if that password is forgotten. Both WD Drive Utilities and WD Security are available for both Windows and Mac.
WD manages to make portable drives interesting again with the new My Passport Ultra. The drive inherits the fast( though not quite as fast) performance and ease of use from previous generations and now adds the top 3TB capacity plus the multitude of color options. On top of that, its backup software is more straight forward than the one bundled with previous drives, making it suit home users even better. And the security feature means that you can have the piece of mind about your privacy in case you misplace the drive.
So if you’re looking for a full-feature drive with all the bells and whistles, the new Ultra is a great buy - if not the most inexpensive on the market. On the other hand, if straightforward storage space and fast speed are all you want, bare-bone drives, such as the WD Elements or the Seagate Expansion are better choices.