Adata's drive is the toughest one, Hitachi's is the fastest, and Western Digital's submission turned out to be the largest, setting a new capacity record for external 2.5” drives with 2 TB of space.
In order to fit 2 TB on a 2.5” drive, Western Digital's disk consists of four 500 GB platters. This leads to a slightly thicker case (0.83”). But, all things considered, the chassis is still smaller than the ruggedized Adata drive, and only marginally heavier, weighing in at 0.5 lbs. Like its storage capacity, the My Passport's price is hefty at $200. When you divide capacity into cost, though, this model is actually pretty comparable to the competition.
If the 2 TB model is too rich for your blood, Western Digital also sells 500 GB, 750 GB, and 1 TB versions of the My Passport.
Western Digital's drive features a 5400 RPM disk drive able to achieve maximum sequential read rates of 83.5 MB/s and maximum sequential writes as high as 83.3 MB/s. That's slightly faster than Adata's DashDrive Durable HD710, but it can't come close to Hitachi's Touro Mobile Pro.
The bundled software, SmartWare 1.5.4.5, is an all-around tool for backing up, restoring, and erasing data. It features a timer function that can turn off the drive, along with a diagnostic utility. Each software feature is accessed via a separate tab, aiding ease of use.
Although auditioning the software didn't reveal any amazing innovations, there is a handful of features we liked. For instance, SmartWare can execute a backup after an idle timer triggers the action, which should minimize the impact on productivity after someone steps away from their machine. The backup tool supports versioning; it keeps a user-configurable number of older file versions.
Another integrated tool, WD Security, allows you to enter a drive password. The My Passport only appears as an accessible drive after the password is entered.
- Outside The Box: Three USB 3.0-Based Hard Drives
- Adata DashDrive Durable HD710 (750 GB)
- Hitachi Touro Mobile Pro (750 GB, HTOLMNA7501BBB)
- Western Digital My Passport (2 TB, WDBY8L0020BBK)
- Technical Data And Test Configuration
- Benchmark Results: Throughput And Interface Bandwidth
- Benchmark Results: Access Time And I/O Performance
- Benchmark Results: Real-World Copying
- Picking The Right External 2.5" Hard Drive






The theoretical bandwidth of USB 3.0 is roughly 625 MB/s, but this speed is rarely achieved -- even with the fastest hardware -- because the bus relies on a protocol for transferring data which is poorly optimized and eats up a chunk of the bandwidth.
The theoretical bandwidth of USB 3.0 is roughly 625 MB/s, but this speed is rarely achieved -- even with the fastest hardware -- because the bus relies on a protocol for transferring data which is poorly optimized and eats up a chunk of the bandwidth.
I get like 70~140 MB/s (copying from WD my passport 1TB to my WD HDD (7200rpm black))
and I get 30~40 MB/s copying from USB 2 WD my book 2TB to ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
USB 3 is more than twice as fast as USB 2.
Yeah but you're still limited to both the source and destination drive's read/write speed. So when copying from a HDD to an HDD, you're unlikely to exceed 140 MBps.
If you're copying from a SATA 3 SSD to a USB 3.0 SSD, then yes, you could see much faster speeds.
USB 3.0 in most instances isn't ready for prime time for external HDD's, and without UASP the queuing is too slow; UASP solves this problem. Otherwise without UASP IMO use eSATA or a backup internal SATA HDD.
More info see TH article June 20th, 2012 - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3-uas-turbo,3215.html
Note: The Hitachi Touro fails (BSOD) in Windows 8.
Yes.
that 1tb is in a better case than the 2tb
what i have noticed with usb 3 is that, yes while its theoretical max is higher than current hdd and ssds should achieve, the fact of the matter is they never hit that peak.
thats why im wondering, with an ssd, what is the best we can get usb3 to.
you proved that current normal hdds in a good case do not have a problem in usb 3, and for that i thank you.
Well Yes and No... It really depends on your application, eSata may be faster, but USB is still more usable/universal.
If you're planning on using the drive for back up purposes eSata and know all the devices you are going to use it with support eSata, then it is probably the better solution.
If you want it for mobility purposes, transferring files to various destinations, USB is more reliable. First these usb3 drives are self powered, meaning no AC adapters to worry about, the PC provides the power, also since its backwards compatible with usb2.0 100% of the devices you want to plug into will work, eSata is great but its not nearly as widely adopted as usb... I'd rather transfer my files slowly at usb2.0 speeds to my destination system, than not at all due to a lack of eSata ports.
from what i understand.
a usb3 case that takes full advantage of the harddive is hard to find, much less cheap
how ever a esata case can be found for under 30$
so really it comes to how you are going to use the hdd...
personally i want to take all moving parts out of my computer besides fans, so i could go with esata and be happy, but if you want more or less a guarentee that you will be able to hood that drive up to almost anything you can think of, even a bad usb3 case would be better.
You probably have USB 2.0 devices, paired with a motherboard with a not really good (or without proper drivers) Chipset. Most USB 2 can reach up to 30 to 40, as stated earlier, but this is with higher tier chipsets.
even when i plug the hdd into my usb3 slot
anyone can help me?