Western Digital’s external drives are favourites (and have been for a while) for performance, storage, reliability and price — and today the company unveiled whole new line that packs more storage into the same portable form factors, as well a speedy 1TB SSD.
Among the announcements are new My Passport drives that come with built-in 256-bit encryption and up to 4TB of storage in a drive that will fit in your pocket. Western Digital’s My Book line got a storage bump and design shift as well (the new glossy black top and textured bottom looks sharp but will probably attract a few fingerprints) and now comes with up to 8TB of space in a single drive. Both new models connect easily to your computer via USB 3.0, and the My Passport drives don’t require additional power, like any good portable external drive.
The new My Passport drives will set you back $US79 ($104) for the 1TB version, and $US150 ($197) for that flagship 4TB version, with stops in between for 2TB ($US109 [$143]) and 3TB ($US149 [$196]). They also come in a variety of colours. You’ll need to shell out $US129 ($170) for the 3TB version of the new My Book, and $US299 ($393) for the massive 8TB model, with 4TB ($US149 [$196]) and 6TB ($US229 [$301]) in between.
WD also took the wraps off of a new line of SSDs under the WD Blue and WD Green banners, with the former designed for performance and multitasking and the latter designed for power efficiency and longevity. The new WD Blue SSDs run from $US79 ($104) for a 250GB model, $US139 ($183) for a 500GB model and go up to $US299 ($393) for the 1TB SSD that WD sent us to try out. The new WD Greens will be smaller, 120GB and 240GB, and pricing hasn’t been announced yet. Pricing hasn’t been announced for Australia yet either.
If you’re the type who uses a ton of external storage (like I do, even though I have a pair of NAS units for the same purpose), they may be worth a look, and as always, make sure you keep external drives backed up. Hit the links below to learn more.
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