According to storage industry experts, there's still be a
long way to go before flash-based hard drives completely replace the mechanical
hard disk drive. As it is, flash memory is still much too costly for purposes
which require high capacity. Furthermore, worldwide production of flash memory
is still a long way from satisfying global demand for storage, which is growing
exponentially every year.
Apart from ever-increasing capacities, traditional hard disk
drives are also getting slimmer. In fact, Western Digital just launched a new
series of ultra-slim 2.5-inch hard disk drives that are just 5mm thick earlier
this year.
Slim is certainly in, and Western Digital has just bolstered
its offering of slim drives with their new My Passport Slim. Ultra-slim
external hard drives are not entirely new, but Western Digital is the first to
offer them in both 1TB and 2TB capacity points. The 2TB SKU is particularly
impressive because most ultra-slim drives from competing brands top out at 1TB.
Western Digital My
Passport Slim
The drive itself is just slightly over 12mm thick and weighs
around 134g. In truth, it is not the slimmest external hard disk drive
available in the market, and it is only marginally slimmer than most “regular”
2.5-inch external hard disk drives. However, considering it can offer up to 2TB
of storage, we are willing to overlook this.
The drive itself is simply designed with a metallic front
panel and a mostly plastic enclosure. It feels solidly built and the chassis
exhibited little signs of flexing. There is also a tiny LED indicator besides
the USB 3.0 micro-B port to let users know that the drive is functioning.
As for performance, the Slim performed favorably against the
Seagate Backup Plus, the winner of our Best 2.5-inch Portable External Hard
Disk at the 2013 edition of HWM/HardwareZone.com Tech Awards. Sequential read
and write speeds were 113MB/s and 104MB/s respectively, which is comparable to
the Seagate's 110MB/s and 109MB/s.
Random read and write performance was pretty impressive. It
managed 0.56MB/s random read speeds and 1.41MB/s random write speeds,
appreciably better than the Seagate Backup Plus, which recorded 0.42MB/s and
0.61MB/s random read and write speeds respectively.
The WD Smartware
Utility is decent, but some features, such as backups to Dropbox, require
payment to unlock
Additionally, it only took 26.48 seconds for it to transfer
a 1.72GB movie file, which is almost a second quicker than the Seagate Backup
Plus which took 27.3 seconds.
The Slim also comes with a revamped version of WD's backup
utility. Smartware now features an updated user interface and is
straightforward and easy to use.
It offers scheduled backups and can also be configured to
backup only selected files and folders. It even categorizes your file types to
show what file types - music, movies, documents or pictures - are taking up the
most space.
And if you upgrade to the Pro version - $20 for a
three-computer license - you can use Smartware with Western Digital's no-frills
Elements drives and other third party USB drives. The Pro version also lets you
configure backups to your Dropbox account. Also, Smartware only runs on Windows
for now.
All things considered, the new Slim is a competent drive
that offers good performance and comes bundled with a decent backup utility.
That said, it is not very much slimmer or lighter than existing 2.5-inch
portable hard disk drives and we would rather much the Pro version of Western
Digital's WD Smartware utility be free from the get-go, instead of being a paid
application.
The new Slim is a
competent drive that offers good performance and comes bundled with a decent
backup utility
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Specs and price
·
Price: $149
·
Capacity: 1TB, 2TB
·
Rotational speed: 5400 rpm
·
Interface: USB 3.0
·
Warranty: 3 years
·
Dimensions: 110 x 80 x 12.3 mm
·
Weight: 134 g
Verdict
·
Design: 8.0
·
Features: 8.0
·
Performance: 8.5
·
Value: 7.5
·
Overall: 8.0
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