In today’s digital world, where the volume of data is growing exponentially, the issue of reliable storage and convenient transfer is becoming increasingly acute. High-resolution photos, 4K videos, large projects, and games require significant space. The Western Digital My Passport 4TB (WDBPKJ0040BBK-WESN) external hard drive is one of the most popular solutions on the market, offering huge capacity in a compact body. High-resolution photos, 4K videos, large projects, and games require significant space. Let’s take a closer look at it.

Appearance

The first thing that catches the eye is the minimalist and stylish design of the device. The body is made of high-quality matte plastic with a glossy diagonal texture, which not only gives it an elegant look but also makes it resistant to fingerprints. Thanks to its compact size (107.2 x 75 x 19.15 mm) and weight of only 210 grams, the drive easily fits into a jacket pocket or laptop bag, making it an ideal companion for travel.

What’s in the box?

Typically, the WD My Passport drive package is standard and includes everything you need to get started:

• The WD My Passport 4TB hard drive itself.
• USB 3.0 cable (compatible with USB 2.0).
• Quick start guide.

WD My Passport 4TB – unboxing

WD My Passport 4TB – package

WD My Passport 4TB – cable

Key Features

The main advantage of this model is the combination of large capacity and reliable data protection functionality. 4TB of space allows you to store hundreds of thousands of photos, thousands of hours of music, or dozens of modern games and movies in high quality. The drive comes with proprietary software, which is the control center for your data.

WD My Passport 4TB – WD Discovery

WD My Passport 4TB – encryption

• WD Backup: An easy-to-set-up utility for automatic scheduled backup of important files.
• WD Security: Allows you to set a password and activate 256-bit AES hardware encryption. This means your data will be reliably protected from unauthorized access, even if you lose the drive.
• WD Drive Utilities: A tool for diagnosing the drive’s condition, formatting it, and setting a sleep timer.

Performance and Speed Tests

The WD My Passport is equipped with a USB 3.0 interface. The most interesting part of any drive review is the speed tests. The device was connected to a laptop via a USB 3.0 port to obtain objective data. Testing was performed using two popular utilities: CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 and HD Tune Pro 5.75.

CrystalDiskMark Test

This test shows the peak sequential read and write speeds of large files. The results demonstrate excellent performance for its class:

• Sequential read speed: 130.95 MB/s
• Sequential write speed: 121.41 MB/s

HD Tune Pro Test

This program allows you to evaluate the speed across the entire surface of the disk. Your test results were extremely high for a portable HDD, indicating excellent performance of this particular instance.

• Minimum speed: 122.3 MB/s
• Maximum speed: 223.7 MB/s
• Average speed: 219.1 MB/s

In practice, speed depends on many factors, including the size of the files being transferred and your computer’s configuration.

Compatibility

The drive is formatted out of the box in the NTFS file system, making it fully compatible with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10/11 operating systems. For use with macOS, it needs to be reformatted to HFS+ or APFS, which is easily done using the standard “Disk Utility”. After formatting, it will work perfectly with Time Machine for backup.

Conclusions

Western Digital My Passport 4TB is an excellent choice for those looking for reliable, capacious, and portable storage. It is ideal for students, photographers, travelers, and ordinary users who need to expand their laptop’s memory or create a reliable archive of their data. In summary, the WD My Passport 4TB is a balanced and time-tested solution that offers an excellent combination of price, volume, and reliability.

This is an ordinary hard drive of the basic series. It doesn’t have any special technology or features. Made and assembled in China. The official warranty for it is 2 years, although I think that for an external drive it is not enough, usually a warranty of 3 or 5 years.

Let’s start unboxing:

• In the box, the drive is additionally placed in a protective plastic packaging
• There is documentation upstairs: terms of use in Australia, warning and compatibility information
• In the upper section of the tray there is a Micro USB 3.0 cable about 30 cm long
• HDD itself is in a protective film.

Unlike the BackuPlus version, it is made of black plastic. The difference between the BackuPlus series is most likely in the material of the case, because it is aluminum there.

HDD has a straight brick-like shape. The basic information is indicated on the sticker:

• Model name
• Capacity
• Serial number
• Place of manufacture and date

I should note that the case is very delicate, and any movement instantly leaves a micro-scratch, even due to jostling on the table, I’m not talking about transportation in a backpack without a fabric case, that is, the case is quite vulnerable.

Before starting the testing, I want to note that with a view to the year 2024, its physical dimensions are too large, I expected that it would be smaller in thickness, but there is something, because the model itself was announced in 2021.

Ok, let’s go to the connection and testing. The connection is made via a Micro USB cable without additional power. To achieve the maximum speed, you should use the USB 3.0 port

For testing, I will use the Crystal Disk Mark program. Using the default settings, we start the test. The results of reading and writing correspond to the declared manufacturer, so the result can be considered positive.

Also, I decided to repeat the test only in another HD Tun program, where the graph and data transfer speeds and access time are displayed in the benchmark section, in general the result is also satisfactory. This is the end of the testing.

This drive now costs around $120. Today, for such money, you can buy an external SSD with a capacity of 1 terabyte. I’m currently using it as an external drive to back up home content, so speed isn’t the most important thing for me.

My unboxing video available on YouTube (Ukrainian langiuage)