Western Digital My Passport Pro 2TB review

Serious storage goes portable with this tiny RAID drive

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Western Digital My Passport Pro 2TB
Recommended
RAID performance goes portable

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The Western Digital My Passport Pro is one of those marginally exciting devices. On the one hand, you could say it's just a faster, spacious portable drive. On the other hand, you might be a creative pro looking at a bus-powered portable striped RAID and thinking "I need this in my life!"

And you probably wouldn't be wrong. The My Passport Pro is really nicely made, offers impressive transfer speeds in its striped configuration (and respectable ones otherwise) and isn't a bad price.

We liked

Getting over 200 MB/s on a portable drive that doesn't contain an SSD is something pretty new, and very nice indeed. Even in mirrored mode, performance-wise it's no slouch.

It's an impressive size and weight considering the amount of storage on offer, and the price is reasonable considering the whole package.

We disliked

It's a bit of a shame there's only a Thunderbolt version of this drive – we hope a USB-powered version will be possible in the future.

And while we like the balance of space and speed from its two hard drives, it's a bit of a shame there's no SSD option at all for those who can afford the highest speeds out there (this is no surprise here, though – WD only makes hard drives).

The loud whirr of the fans might be difficult to avoid given its size and components, but that doesn't make it any more welcome.

Verdict

The My Passport Pro is smart, fast and very desirable for portable working. It's the fastest possible storage, but it's still pro-level, and offers true portability with terabytes of storage for under £250. Not a bad deal at all.

Matt Bolton
Matt Bolton
Managing Editor, Entertainment

Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Entertainment, meaning he's in charge of persuading our team of writers and reviewers to watch the latest TV shows and movies on gorgeous TVs and listen to fantastic speakers and headphones. It's a tough task, as you can imagine. Matt has over a decade of experience in tech publishing, and previously ran the TV & audio coverage for our colleagues at T3.com, and before that he edited T3 magazine. During his career, he's also contributed to places as varied as Creative Bloq, PC Gamer, PetsRadar, MacLife, and Edge. TV and movie nerdism is his speciality, and he goes to the cinema three times a week. He's always happy to explain the virtues of Dolby Vision over a drink, but he might need to use props, like he's explaining the offside rule.