Western Digital offers its first portable SSD

Western Digital has unveiled its first portable solid-state-drive (SSD) just months after finally releasing its first Desktop / internal SSD.

My Passport SSD comes with either 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of solid state storage, priced at $100, $200 and $400 respectively. It is compatible with USB Type-C and USB Type-A (via adapter) ports, reaching speeds up to 515MB/s.

For the security and privacy conscious, My Password SSD features password protection thanks to 256-bit AES Hardware Encryption with WD Security software. It's also built to be tough, with WD claiming it could survive a fall from up to 6.5 feet (1.98 meters).

See more: Western Digital

via: Engadget

Written by: James Delahunty @ 6 Apr 2017 20:51

hearme0

WD is a day late and dollar short on SSD manufacturing.

Samsung has this market........period. Intel and Toshiba and Sandisk have some trickle down events but nothing to sustain.

Even though I absolutely hate Samsung, because they make shit products with subpar QC, they do excel at SSDs

7.4.2017 13:07 #1

Bozobub

Considering I'm using a 500GB ADATA 2.5" SATA SSD right now; your statement that Samsung "has this market" is somewhat...suspect.

Nor does Samsung take top honors even close to all the time, especially regarding price/value:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ssds,3891.html
https://www.cnet.com/topics/storage/bes...nd-storage/ssd/
http://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-ssd-for-gaming/

Tl;dr? Samsung SSDs rate quite well but are MUCH more expensive per GB than many perfectly acceptable (and similar-performing) options.

8.4.2017 11:34 #2

mukhis

Originally posted by hearme0: Samsung has this market........period.
Even though I absolutely hate Samsung, because they make shit products with subpar QC, they do excel at SSDs

Yes, Samsung IS the largest manufacturer of SSDs now, but they are not free of defect always. On the other hand, Sammy is a very high quality electronics and electrical manufacturer, I don't find any reason not to consider Samsung. I have Samsung AC, tab...
As Bozobub correctly said, some other manufacturers are good as well (ADATA may not come into your mind in the 1st place, but they are doing well). I do have an SSD from OCZ as my OS drive since 2011, so...

12.4.2017 05:56 #3

KillerBug

Originally posted by mukhis: Originally posted by hearme0: Samsung has this market........period.
Even though I absolutely hate Samsung, because they make shit products with subpar QC, they do excel at SSDs

Yes, Samsung IS the largest manufacturer of SSDs now, but they are not free of defect always. On the other hand, Sammy is a very high quality electronics and electrical manufacturer, I don't find any reason not to consider Samsung. I have Samsung AC, tab...
As Bozobub correctly said, some other manufacturers are good as well (ADATA may not come into your mind in the 1st place, but they are doing well). I do have an SSD from OCZ as my OS drive since 2011, so... I have three brands of SSD right now and none are Samsung. I'm about to buy another SSD because my laptop supports two at once...and that probably won't be Samsung either. BUT WD is reeeeaallllllyyyy late to the party; at this point any other brand I might consider has huge numbers of devices that have been used for a couple years at least so I can look at failure rates, complaints, etc. WD is a blind bet...even with RAID 1 it isn't worth the risk to me.

12.4.2017 11:39 #4

Bozobub

The main thing to tell you the quality of a given SSD is to look up who made the controller chip, that simple; there are only a few manufacturers of them in the world.

12.4.2017 11:43 #5

hearme0

Originally posted by Bozobub: The main thing to tell you the quality of a given SSD is to look up who made the controller chip, that simple; there are only a few manufacturers of them in the world. Agreed..........but...........my statement was generalized for the most part and you're all picking it apart like it was categorically stated in fact.

"Market cornered" always means "for the vast majority". You all picking apart what I said is like truly thinking that a statement of "All blacks do this..." or "all white people are like that...."...........CLEARLY NOT ALL OR EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS INCLUDED IN THIS.

Use your heads.

As for ADATA........OMG........you picked a straggler manufacturer to make your case........SAD!

12.4.2017 14:23 #6

KillerBug

Originally posted by hearme0: Originally posted by Bozobub: The main thing to tell you the quality of a given SSD is to look up who made the controller chip, that simple; there are only a few manufacturers of them in the world. Agreed..........but...........my statement was generalized for the most part and you're all picking it apart like it was categorically stated in fact.

"Market cornered" always means "for the vast majority". You all picking apart what I said is like truly thinking that a statement of "All blacks do this..." or "all white people are like that...."...........CLEARLY NOT ALL OR EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS INCLUDED IN THIS.

Use your heads.

As for ADATA........OMG........you picked a straggler manufacturer to make your case........SAD! You said "Samsung has this market........period". Of course you got all sorts of replies. It's not like nVidia GPUs or Intel CPUs where the competition seems to be fighting just to keep up either (Sorry AMD fans...I was looking forward to Zen as well but you can't get it in a laptop and AMD refuses to release Windows 7 drivers...at least Intel 'leaked' drivers for Kaby Lake)...other companies are beating Samsung in speed and price (sometimes at the same time). The OEMs don't all use Samsung either...that's the 'average user' and Toshiba is actually doing really well there just because of the price.

13.4.2017 02:47 #7

Bozobub

You caught yourself up in over-generalization again, nothing more. Either stop doing so or complain less.

As for "straggler manufacturer", sorry, you have very little idea what you're blithering about, as usual. "Smaller"? Certainly.

13.4.2017 10:27 #8

ddp

hearme0, watch it!!

13.4.2017 23:46 #9

Bozobub

Holy {censored}, ddp LIVES!

Good to see you.

14.4.2017 00:51 #10

ddp

I'm always around but you won't know til I strike like a lightning bolt.

14.4.2017 11:07 #11

Bozobub

ADATA has been "vetted" plenty. What exactly are you on about..? My 500GB ADATA SSD performs quite well, thank you, their service has been decent, and it cost way less than the Samsung offering. Their MTBF is excellent and access times are good.

Furthermore, Samsung's SSD offerings are focused on the enterprise market, not so much consumer use, hence their high cost and customer service chops. I don't find it makes much sense to pay for crap I don't need, that simple. I care about MTBF, access speeds, and most of all, value, which is the price relative to the quality. I also don't buy server-farm-scale storage, FFS.

Overpaying for products is NOT "common sense". Nor is piddling on the mods' boots.

Edit -> I guess that post was nuked, but I'll leave my response ^^' .

17.4.2017 14:34 #12

ddp

hearme0 had 3 other nics that I got rid of. he'll be back pissie as usual till he cleans up his mouth & attitude as i'll keep banning him.

17.4.2017 14:42 #13

DarthMopar

Originally posted by ddp: hearme0 had 3 other nics that I got rid of. he'll be back pissie as usual till he cleans up his mouth & attitude as i'll keep banning him. THANK YOU!!!!

19.4.2017 19:31 #14

Jemborg

Originally posted by KillerBug: Originally posted by hearme0: Originally posted by Bozobub: The main thing to tell you the quality of a given SSD is to look up who made the controller chip, that simple; there are only a few manufacturers of them in the world. Agreed..........but..........

As for ADATA........OMG........you picked a straggler manufacturer to make your case........SAD! You said "Samsung has this market........period". Of course you got all sorts of replies. It's not like nVidia GPUs or Intel CPUs where the competition seems to be fighting just to keep up either (Sorry AMD fans...I was looking forward to Zen as well but you can't get it in a laptop and AMD refuses to release Windows 7 drivers...at least Intel 'leaked' drivers for Kaby Lake)...other companies are beating Samsung in speed and price (sometimes at the same time). The OEMs don't all use Samsung either...that's the 'average user' and Toshiba is actually doing really well there just because of the price. Originally posted by Bozobub: ADATA has been "vetted" plenty. What exactly are you on about..? My 500GB ADATA SSD performs quite well, thank you, their service has been decent, and it cost way less than the Samsung offering. Their MTBF is excellent and access times are good.

Furthermore, Samsung's SSD offerings are focused on the enterprise market, not so much consumer use, hence their high cost and customer service chops. I don't find it makes much sense to pay for crap I don't need, that simple. I care about MTBF, access speeds, and most of all, value, which is the price relative to the quality. I also don't buy server-farm-scale storage, FFS.
It's true about the controllers, or used to be. Pretty sure SATA3 read speeds are saturated and access times are so fast as to make defragging redundant (avoiding excess wear). The differences seem to be write, MTBF and longevity. Write is not as big a deal to an ordinary PC user as it's quick enough already and you don't do it that much anyway. It's more relevant to servers/farms etc.

You pay for longevity. For instance, there is a big difference in the longevity of a Sammy Evo compared to a Pro. It's up to a user how important that is.

It's great to hear about ADATA's MTBF I'll make sure I check them out.

PS: I like my AMD Graphics. It can look really good. Unfortunately, the last driver update really screwed with my installation. Even the restore points. I'm looking to get an old backup image going but am having issues with that too :-/

Cheers

Its a lot easier being righteous than right.

DSE VZ300-
Zilog Z80 CPU, 32KB RAM (16K+16K cartridge), video processor 6847, 2KB video RAM, 16 colours (text mode), 5.25" FDD

20.4.2017 04:34 #15

KillerBug

Originally posted by Jemborg: Originally posted by KillerBug: Originally posted by hearme0: Originally posted by Bozobub: The main thing to tell you the quality of a given SSD is to look up who made the controller chip, that simple; there are only a few manufacturers of them in the world. Agreed..........but..........

As for ADATA........OMG........you picked a straggler manufacturer to make your case........SAD! You said "Samsung has this market........period". Of course you got all sorts of replies. It's not like nVidia GPUs or Intel CPUs where the competition seems to be fighting just to keep up either (Sorry AMD fans...I was looking forward to Zen as well but you can't get it in a laptop and AMD refuses to release Windows 7 drivers...at least Intel 'leaked' drivers for Kaby Lake)...other companies are beating Samsung in speed and price (sometimes at the same time). The OEMs don't all use Samsung either...that's the 'average user' and Toshiba is actually doing really well there just because of the price. Originally posted by Bozobub: ADATA has been "vetted" plenty. What exactly are you on about..? My 500GB ADATA SSD performs quite well, thank you, their service has been decent, and it cost way less than the Samsung offering. Their MTBF is excellent and access times are good.

Furthermore, Samsung's SSD offerings are focused on the enterprise market, not so much consumer use, hence their high cost and customer service chops. I don't find it makes much sense to pay for crap I don't need, that simple. I care about MTBF, access speeds, and most of all, value, which is the price relative to the quality. I also don't buy server-farm-scale storage, FFS.
It's true about the controllers, or used to be. Pretty sure SATA3 read speeds are saturated and access times are so fast as to make defragging redundant (avoiding excess wear). The differences seem to be write, MTBF and longevity. Write is not as big a deal to an ordinary PC user as it's quick enough already and you don't do it that much anyway. It's more relevant to servers/farms etc.

You pay for longevity. For instance, there is a big difference in the longevity of a Sammy Evo compared to a Pro. It's up to a user how important that is.

It's great to hear about ADATA's MTBF I'll make sure I check them out.

PS: I like my AMD Graphics. It can look really good. Unfortunately, the last driver update really screwed with my installation. Even the restore points. I'm looking to get an old backup image going but am having issues with that too :-/

Cheers In my experience the real weakness that you need to look out for on an SSD is the small random writes and reads. Unfortunately, they don't publish this data and a lot of reviewers just test them with 1GB chunks so the information is hard to find. I've seen drives that do over 500MBPS with 1GB chunks and under 30BMPS with 4K randoms.

Good SSD's do saturate SATA3, but M.2 drives can go much faster than SATA3...at least for big files.

20.4.2017 19:55 #16

sum413

Originally posted by hearme0: WD is a day late and dollar short on SSD manufacturing.

Samsung has this market........period. Intel and Toshiba and Sandisk have some trickle down events but nothing to sustain.

Even though I absolutely hate Samsung, because they make shit products with subpar QC, they do excel at SSDs
I agree with you Samsung is much more reliable then WDD..infact, most the magazines or blogs have Samsung listed in this best SSDs articles

1.5.2017 05:04 #17

Bozobub

Sure. But they're also fantastically expensive, and you can get damn near the same performance at half the cost, or even less, with just about the same service profile/MTBF.

Unless you're running corporate-level stuff, I don't really see the point, unless you're into throwing money at e-peen xD .

1.5.2017 06:26 #18

KillerBug

Originally posted by sum413: Originally posted by hearme0: WD is a day late and dollar short on SSD manufacturing.

Samsung has this market........period. Intel and Toshiba and Sandisk have some trickle down events but nothing to sustain.

Even though I absolutely hate Samsung, because they make shit products with subpar QC, they do excel at SSDs
I agree with you Samsung is much more reliable then WDD..infact, most the magazines or blogs have Samsung listed in this best SSDs articles

Most magazines and blogs do top tens where Samsung is in the top ten with 4-5 other companies. Fact is that if money is no object and you just want crazy speed with incredible reliability, Intel has the best SSD's by far. If money does matter you can get a better "bang for the buck" from brands other than Samsung.

1.5.2017 09:53 #19

Jemborg

Originally posted by KillerBug:
Good SSD's do saturate SATA3, but M.2 drives can go much faster than SATA3...at least for big files. Unless that drive is a SATA drive using the SATA controller in the M.2 port but if it's a PCIe drive, sure.

Its a lot easier being righteous than right.

DSE VZ300-
Zilog Z80 CPU, 32KB RAM (16K+16K cartridge), video processor 6847, 2KB video RAM, 16 colours (text mode), 5.25" FDD

2.5.2017 06:43 #20

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