Hi,
Hi,
I have a WD Passport SSD 1Tb external drive I bought around November 2021. The drive is password protected (the security was the reason I bought a Passport SSD drive). I originally set it up as exFAT with 4Kb clusters, as I use this to store many small files and I need Windows and Mac support. It passed SMART tests in WD Drive Utilities (2.0.0.76) on Windows. However, if I run “Quick Drive Test” it shows 0% complete, then it shows -1% complete(!), then it eventually fails with red “Quick Drive Test failed” text. I get the same error running a scan on Mac. I also get the same result on another PC and Mac, using different connections (USB-C / USB-A). In exFAT format the drive itself is accessible and usable. I can read and write data to it. However, on Windows it is particularly slow to write small files, around ~40Kb/s. On Mac, it gets around 10x faster performance at ~400Kb/s for writing small files. Still seems a bit slow for a SSD, better on Mac, clearly not working correctly on Windows (multiple different machines). I’m using the latest WD Security and WD Drive Utilities from WD site (both 2.0.0.76 from Aug-2020).
As a last ditch attempt to figure out if exFAT is an issue I have also tried backing everything up and reformatting to NTFS using the defaults. I did a full format and I could see it was formatting at around 500Mb/s in Task Manager: This is more like the performance I would expect! But I have re-run WD Drive Utilities tests, same results (SMART pass, -1% then fail for Quick Test). I also tried clicking the button for the Full Drive Test, but WD Drive Utilities just hung as soon as I clicked that, no visible activity and nothing happening in Task Manager. The button I clicked just stayed in the clicked state and the program was completely unresponsive, couldn’t even minimize it. After ~10 minutes I killed it. (Pic attached below)
So I am thinking this drive is not working correctly. Is there anything left I can try, or does it need to be returned for a replacement?
Thanks,
Phil
Update: I forgot to add that in NTFS I can read and write data, same as with exFAT, but I have little confidence in the drive. It also disconnects every time I sleep the PC/Mac. Windows usually says the USB device failed. I works again when I reconnect.
