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actke311 Author

Level 1

8 points

Can you use the WD - My Passport 5TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 10, 2021 10:36 AM

Top-ranking reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

72,398 points

Posted on May 10, 2021 10:52 AM

Welcome!

You can use it; it is just not the best for critical backups. All "name-brand" external drives like the Passport seem designed more to go on sale every other weekend rather than to provide reliable, trouble-free service. WD make very good bare drives; it isn the enclosures that use that seem lacking.

I suffered with most of the name-brand externals including WD for a long time before snapping to the above fact. Most of the senior contributors including me now recommend OWC Mercury Elite drives. They make both full-sized, self-powered drives for desktop use:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-mercury-elite-pro

and compact bus-powered drives for on-the road use:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-mercury-elite-pro-mini/usb-c

I use the later on my MacBook Pro but have the optional external AC power supply to use when the MBP is tethered to my desk at home.

The extra cost of these was more easy to understand when I asked myself, "What is my data worth?"

I've had no issues with any of our OWC externals, and we have five active ones.

If you are not in the US, OWC has international partners and resellers:

https://www.owcdigital.com/reseller/resellers

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Can you use the WD - My Passport 5TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive?

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