5TB Portable (2.5") comparison/specs?

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
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I actually opened a ticket with WD to ask this and got a pretty bad cut and paste reply 11 days later with about zero useful information so I turn to the WD Forums!

I currently own a very old WD 1TB External and a newer 2TB My Passport Ultra. They’re both in perfect working condition as I only seldom use them for file/phone/system backup (Like once every 6mths. I know, terrible).

That said I have like 4 internal drives and backing up is turning into a headache trying to manage the space and two drives. The externals are also getting old and I’m worried about failures. I’d like to consolidate into one 5GB 2.5 (self powered) quality drive.

The question is, what are the exact specifications/differences between the WD 5TB 2.5" HDD externals? Specifically:

WD 5TB Elements Portable Storage USB 3.0 Model WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN
WD 5TB My Passport Portable Storage USB 3.2 WDBPKJ0050BBK-WESN
WD 5TB My Passport Ultra Portable Storage USB-C WDBFTM0050BGD-CESN
WD Black 5TB P10 Game Drive Portable WDBA5G0050BBK-WESN

I’ll assume the Elements is the budget, Passport next tier, then the Ultra and Gaming. But has anyone ripped these apart? Noted specs and/or tested? Is there a thread I cannot find with all the gritty details?

The WD site provides next to zero actual info on the drives or the differences.

Things I care about:

  • Quality hardware/drive
  • Capacity
  • Durability

Things I do not care about:

  • Included software
  • Encryption
  • Formatting (as long as I can format to whatever I need)
  • Gaming interfaces or whatever.

I’d rather pay a few bucks more for a Gold/Enterprise level drive than end up with a ‘Green’ or ‘Blue’ drive. That said these are 2.5" drives and choices are slim.

Any help appreciated!

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Hi @MisterKat009,

Have you opened a Support Case? If not opened, for more information, please contact the WD Technical Support team for the best assistance and troubleshooting:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/ask

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Hi Keerti,

The very first line of my initial post was:

I actually opened a ticket with WD to ask this and got a pretty bad cut and paste reply 11 days later with about zero useful information so I turn to the WD Forums!

…and then you…respond with a cut and paste reply asking if I’ve opened a support ticket. Not only repeating the mistake of the person who responded to my support ticket (cut and paste response with zero usable information), but also showing that you obviously didn’t even read my post.

Nice.

Anyway, can anyone please provide specifications for these drives? Read/write speeds, MTBF, error rates, work load ratings, read/unload cycle ratings, etc?

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Alright, here’s what I was able to find, since I like talking to myself:

WD 5TB Elements Portable Storage USB 3.0 Model WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN
WD 5TB My Passport Portable Storage USB 3.2 WDBPKJ0050BBK-WESN
WD 5TB My Passport Ultra Portable Storage USB-C WDBFTM0050BGD-CESN

The above use the SAME drives, model: WD50NDZW (that said, the Ultra is WD50NDZM-59A8KS1 wheras the Elements is WD50NMZW-11A8NS1 so, there might be slight circuit board differences, like for encryption)
They use SMR platters.
5400 RPM disk
128MB cache
Still hunting for other stats and ratings…

More on this here: What is Inside a WD Portable USB Drive - Cross Reference

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Thank you for this comparative work and your concern for precision. One difference between the ‘My Passport’ and ‘My Passport Ultra’ models stands out: the case of the former has a micro USB port, while that of the latter has a USB-C port. This alone will probably be enough to guide buyers towards the one most appropriate for the micro USB or USB-C cables they already have in their drawers. These are all USB 3.0/.1/.2 Gen 1 interfaces (i.e. with a nominal speed of 5Gbit/s).

The P10 model dedicated to the gaming console is probably a simple rebranding of one of the other existing models, sold at a higher price, with the target being customers who base their choice on titles written in large print. It probably doesn’t deserve to be included in the comparison. A mere hunch, drawn from a long observation of marketing practices in the consumer electronics industry.

It’s harder to decide between the ‘Elements’ and the ‘My Passport’. One main difference, the warranty period of 2 or 3 years respectively, would suggest that one mechanism is more reliable than the other; but here again, this difference may just be a marketing choice. No specifications, no certainty.

You really have to look to confirm another difference: all the drives in the ‘My Passport’ range are SED, while those in the ‘Elements’ range are not. On a SED disk, it will be more expensive, if not impossible, to recover lost data in the event of disk failure. In my opinion, it is more dangerous to entrust your data to a medium that is encrypted by default (SED), when you have no intention of defining a password to really block access to the disk.The mechanical reliability of the two models has yet to be confirmed, which prevents me from preferring the ‘Elements’ to the ‘My Passport’.

It’s worth noting that all 2.5’ external drives, whatever the range, have recently been downsized from 5400 rpm to 4800 rpm. This change was introduced in total hush, even on the P10 drive ‘for gamers’. The product references themselves have remained strictly the same. We’re talking about the WD50NDZW model you mention. It was users on the forums who highlighted this change in rotation speed. It’s hard to say who benefits most from this lower speed: the manufacturer, thanks to a mechanism with relaxed tolerances, or the user, thanks to a mechanism that wears less? Once again, no specifications, no certainty.

You’re so right. It’s hard to say whether these representatives are scatterbrains, but at least they’re real people, or LLM bots set up to ‘look after’ customers more cheaply. The conclusion is the same: for the issues we are interested in, they are useless.

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More on this here: What is Inside a WD Portable USB Drive - Cross Reference

Amazing link, thank you!

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Thanks for this additional info!

It’s been 2 years so I’ve long since bought a drive, but I think this thread will be a great reference point for future consumers looking for a portable drive. :slight_smile:

I ended up getting a regular boring 5TB Elements for a few reasons:

  • Considering all the drives were the exact same internally, I went with the best Sale price I could find at the time.
  • As you mentioned, the PORTS were a factor too. All are USB Gen3 but in different connector formats. Forget which one I went with.

I’m really annoyed WD doesn’t break this comparison down on their site more properly. Probably so that they can control the sales of old stock easier and make it harder to find the pros/cons. Thanks WD Marketing!

Cheers

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I’ve shy away from WD the last few years due to the Mystery behind what’s inside the enclosure. 5 or more years ago they tried to convince the world that RPM doesn’t matter anymore, but it is easy to prove this “fake news”. Cracking open these FAT enclosures you are likely to find 2X 250 HDD’s, taped together with silver tape and discover they are using RAID 0 software on the chip to = 500 GB. Never ever was a fan of RAID 0. If one goes bad you lose half your stuff which may be a benefit for some. I have no place in my data world for 4800 or 5200 rpm drives no matter how cheap they are. SSD’s are so cheap now-a -days anyhow, my only reason for a spinner drive is for mass storage of seldomly used files. The fact they do not clearly publish the RPM and you have to digging around to find the right spec sheet or come here to ask the community makes me run away.