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  • Zak - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Awful. Looks like two boxes glued together. Absolutely ugly. I would not buy this even at 50% discount.
  • Samus - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    I've been using these for the better part of a year around offices, and they look better IRL and are built really well. Definitely preferable over Seagate.
  • Zak - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    I own 6 WD Passports of various capacities. The old design, smooth surface, I even have one red one. These new ones are really ugly. I guess they hired the same team who designed Pontiac Aztec?
  • plopke - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Ì am a very boring person when it comes styling etc. I understand many people like a nice design but I am just not getting this one. Anyone who likes these 50/50 design, just curious.
  • meacupla - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    "Nor are we able to accurately guess the number of platters in the drives, as the thickness of the external enclosures means it's impossible to determine whether the company is using 2.5”/12.5 mm or 2.5”/15 mm HDDs."

    It says right there in one of the slides."1TB / 13.5mm and 2,3,4TB / 21.5mm"
    And if you go back and look at the older models that also had a 4TB version, they have similar enclosure sizes, so it's easy to deduce what is inside the drives.
    1TB in older models is approximately 9mm tall, while the 2,3,4TB is approximately 18mm tall

    Not that it really matters anyways, because WD externals don't have a SATA port and, instead, have had USB controllers built right into the drive's PCB for a long time now. There is no point disassembling them to try and use in other things.
  • Maltz - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    I didn't know that about the lack of SATA port - and I have two of these! (The older design) That's the sort of low-level detail I come here for, but I would prefer to find it in the article rather than the comments. Especially since the article is talking about the internals in the first place.
  • Zak - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Most of these from all vendors do not have internal SATA. USB interface is built into drive directly. They're also slower. Notice how much cheaper these are than SATA model of the same capacity.'
  • DCide - Saturday, July 1, 2017 - link

    Like Seagate, WD makes 7mm 1TB drives. And they have long produced 2GB and larger capacities in 15mm 2.5" drives.

    It's reasonable to conclude each enclosure adds 6.5mm to the thickness. This seems neither mysterious, nor does it require them to be producing new, heretofore unknown sizes.

    As to whether the drives are PMR or SMR, this information is harder to find. While the 15mm drives may be PMR, as I *believe* they always have been, I wouldn't bet against the 7mm drive being SMR, such as Seagate has done.
  • WinterCharm - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    A perfect example of needlessly gaudy design.

    Keep it simple and clean... how hard is that?
  • darwinosx - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Needs a 5 GB option and the case is ugly. I don't want to draw attention to a hard drive..
  • inighthawki - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Woah man, with that kind of storage space you'd only need like 10 of them to install a new game!
  • name99 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    "the new HDDs feature automatic WD Backup software for local data and content"
    Serious question here, I'm not trying to start a fight, but what do these HD vendors imagine they are achieving by including this backup SW?

    I assume it's Windows only, and doesn't Windows HAVE built-in backup SW? They've had ten years or so to copy Time Machine, and while what MS ships may not be perfect, I assume it's adequate for most people's needs.
    So what is going on here? Is there some deep flaw in Windows' built-in Backup SW that makes it useless for large groups of users?
  • XZerg - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    so many things wrong with these drives:
    1) ugly - 2 box glued together
    2) usb micro b connection - who uses these? they never even hit 5% marketshare. so why does WD insist on using these instead of just plain old usbA or it's 2017 and why not use usb c?
    3) no sata port - if usb connector dies so does your data per se...
  • name99 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Fully agree about the micro-b. God I hate that connector with the fire of a thousand suns.

    Normal USB may not be symmetric, but you can do an adequate job of plugging it in just by feel. But micro-usb is like brain-surgery, where you have to carefully look at both sides and line them up because it feels like getting anything slightly wrong and applying force will bend something fatally.

    And what PROBLEM is being solved by using this stupid connector on a hard drive?
  • ltcommanderdata - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    If I'm not mistaken, when USB was originally defined the thinking was having different shaped connectors for hosts vs devices would be better for customers to avoid confusion. Hence, USB Type A and derivatives for host and USB Type B and derivatives for devices. So putting a USB Type A port on a external hard drive would technically be a non-standard usage.

    Of course, now the thinking has reversed, and it's thought having the same connector for host and device is less confusing to customers, hence USB Type-C.
  • name99 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Can anyone explain this to me? I've read it multiple times and it still sounds like the most stupid argument in the history of humanity.
    WTF is there to be confused about? OMG, which of the two IDENTICAL ends of this cable should I plug into the computer vs the hard drive? How can I possibly solve this baffling mystery.

    Firewire (with identical ends) had already be in production (let alone design) in two years at the point this decision was made. So I honestly don't know. The person who suggested it really seems like an idiot beyond all understanding.
  • Ryan Smith - Friday, June 30, 2017 - link

    The idea being that this way you can't plug hosts into hosts, or clients into clients. The only way you can plug something in is in a way it would work.
  • name99 - Friday, June 30, 2017 - link

    But why NOT plug hosts into hosts? FW allows that (and so gives you high-speed networking, or Apple target disk mode)? Works just fine, provides real value.

    Point is, make the controllers and the drivers smarter to handle these scenarios, don't cripple everything. This is why some of us have so much scorn for the Wintel world --- at EVERY step, they seem blind to new possibilities, or too lazy to do a job properly.
    USB has been a screwup ever since its inception because those in charge of it are idiots. Even TODAY we have all the various flavors of USB3, all the different capabilities of USB-C ports.
  • Tams80 - Friday, July 7, 2017 - link

    They should have designed USB to be able to do host-host. They didn't though and therefore they had to design the physical interface so you couldn't, as to do so without a controller in the cable...
  • PixyMisa - Sunday, July 2, 2017 - link

    Firewire could do that; USB couldn't. If you plugged two hosts together with USB, you could blow a fuse, possibly damage the motherboard. So you needed different connectors.

    Firewire was a better standard, but USB was cheaper.
  • HomeworldFound - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    You should also consider that these drives might be automatically encrypted/protected too.
  • Zak - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    1) Yup
    2) Most 2.5" USB drives I've seen use this type of connector.
    3) Yup. But I guess they're cheaper because of that.
  • Zak - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    Although to clarify: there is no "USB connector". It's built into the drive the way SATA is built into drives. So you could say the same about SATA drive: if the SATA board dies, so does your data.
  • fazalmajid - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link

    The design is an acquired taste but AFAIK this is the first 4TB USB bus-powered drive with an all-metal case for better heat dissipation and drive durability. I wish they had followed Samsung's lead and used USB-C on the drive.
  • serendip - Friday, June 30, 2017 - link

    Do these work with tablets or phones that can only supply 500 mA? The only way I can get external HDDs to power up properly with these is to use a powered hub. I'd like to go superlight and travel with just an Android phone and one of these drives.
  • snowdrop - Sunday, July 2, 2017 - link

    The biggest change here seems to be the 1TB model moving from a 2*500GB platter design to a 1*1TB platter design. The existing 1TB non-Ultra is 170g / 16.3mm height. The new 1TB Ultra is 140g / 13.5mm height.

    The 2/3/4 TB models all appear to remain complex 4 platter designs with identical heights / weights to the non-Ultra versions. This should mean that the 1TB and 4TB Ultra models (featuring the largest platters) will be the fastest drives in this series. It should also mean that the 1TB Ultra models with only 1/4 the surfaces and read/write heads of the other models will have the best reliability.

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