Western Digital My Passport SSD Grabs An NVMe Boost

Western Digital announced a new addition to its lineup of My Passport external SSDs today. Simply called the My Passport SSD from WD, it might be somewhat easy to confuse this new SSD with other ones, but it seems the hardware inside will be the real difference maker. WD's My Passport SSD uses NVMe drives, which promises solid read and write speeds in an external drive that has a smaller footprint than previous models.

According to Western Digital's own stats, the new My Passport SSD can achieve sequential read speeds of up to 1050MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 1000MB/s. The drive itself clocks in at 3.94 inches long by 2.17 inches wide and has a total thickness of 0.35 inches, so it's a fairly compact drive.

It'll connect to your computer with USB-C 3.2, though in the box you'll get a USB-C to USB-A adaptor to use with older hardware as well. The drive is compatible with machines running Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and macOS Catalina, Mojave, or High Sierra. The drive also features password protected 256-bit AES hardware encryption to keep your data safe in the event that the drive goes missing.

All in all, it seems like a pretty straightforward external SSD, though NVMe hardware is indeed a nice touch. The drive is available today from Western Digital's website in two configurations: 500GB and 1TB. For now, the My Passport SSD is only available in gray, but Western Digital plans to launch more colors and a 2TB capacity later this year.

The 500GB model will set you back $119.99, while the 1TB drive has been priced at $189.99. Though it isn't available yet, Western Digital has priced the 2TB drive at $359.99, so if you're going to hold out for that one, you might want to start saving now.