Review on 💽 WD 500GB My Passport Go SSD Cobalt: Portable External Storage with USB 3.0 - WDBMCG5000ABT-WESN by Timothy Louis

Hi folks, this is Johnny. I specialize in technical reviews and I strongly recommend getting a portable SSD hard drive. These drives are fast and much more reliable as there are no moving parts to damage the drive. However, this new Western Digital portable SSD hard drive has the dumbest and baddest hard drive design I've ever come across! Read on to find out more. The small size of SSD drives makes them ideal for travel, whether it's a long drive or just a trip to the local office. I also have perfectly excellent versions from Sandisk and Samsung. I also recently reviewed LaCie and found it impressive as well. So what's SO WRONG about a WD drive, especially one from a typically good and reliable brand? INCREDIBLY POOR CABLE DESIGN: Western Digital decided to permanently attach a tiny USB cable to the bottom of this SSD hard drive. At first glance, this looks awesome. The cable is always in its place and neatly tucked away on the underside of the small hard drive. As we all know, USB CABLES ARE COMING OUT! If that expensive hard drive's fairly thin, permanently attached cable fails, the drive fails. USELESS! Will it really happen? Unfortunately yes it is. Additionally, competing SSDs offer you adapters or additional cables to fully adapt a standard USB cable to today's new USB-C laptops and other devices. With this Western Digital - if you're lucky enough to have a working always-on cable - it's useless for new devices unless you shell out another $10 for a USB-to-USB-C adapter out. Not to mention that the included USB cable is ridiculously short. So you also need an adapter to extend it to a longer USB cable to get to your computer. GET AN SSD. NOT THIS, SORRY: Check out my photo comparing three SSDs. They're all tiny, and any differences in their read and write speeds are minor, although I find this WD to be slightly slower than the Sandisk Extreme and Samsung T5 I compared it to. All of them are lightning fast and barely larger than flash drives. If you don't already have a portable SSD, it will quickly become your best friend. Of these, the Sandisk is the most durable thanks to its rubberized casing. However, the Samsung is a bit smaller and really elegant. Like the other two, the WD has its own unique look and squat shape. I don't expect any of these to fail, so a stronger Sandisk case isn't necessarily a major benefit. What a crap! The drive is unlikely to fail, but cables always fail! WARRANTY: What about the warranty? Western Digital offers an amazing three year limited warranty. It is somewhat reassuring to know that cables typically fail in less than two years. Let's hope "limited" doesn't include a vulnerable cable. The Samsung warranty is also three years. Sandisk Guarantee. . . you guessed! 3 years. WHAT TO BUY: I have owned many great Western Digital portable drives over the years. Unfortunately, this one is a complete shambles. Of the other competing drives, I pick Samsung the most. It's just because I think it's the coolest design. In my opinion the prettiest of the three. Feel free to look at speed tests, but if you're used to flash drives or old mechanical hard drives, you'll probably find that any portable SSD absolutely shines!