Review on 💾 WD My Passport SSD Portable Storage - 512GB - USB 3.1 - Black/Gray - WDBKVX5120PSL-WESN by Israel Thurow

I bought this WD My Passport SSD to use as a boot drive for my 2012 Apple Mac Mini. Basically, cloning an existing hard drive to an SSD was very easy (just google it) and worked flawlessly with macOS High Sierra. This 512GB SSD is almost the same size as the drive I already have in my Mac Mini. Because it's ready to use as an external drive, you don't need to buy any cables or cases to use it. It works with both Mac (High Sierra and El Capitan) and PC (Windows 7, 8 and 10). The drive comes with USB-C and a USB-C to USB-A adapter. Backward compatible with USB 2.0 conforms to the USB 3.1 compatibility rating. WD Discovery backup and security software is installed on the drive. To use it as a boot drive, users must format (erase) the drive before installing their computer's operating system on the drive. The disc is very small and light. It's housed in a shock-resistant case that will likely be okay after being dropped from 3-4 feet a few times, but I didn't expect it to be worthy of rough handling. It gets warm on the silver portion of the drive case, but doesn't feel hot. It is powered by connecting to your PC or Mac - no external power supply is required to power the drive. The drive comes with a 3 year Western Digital warranty with a serial number on the back of the drive required for registration. The drive can reach up to 540Mbps, but this depends on how the drive works with your existing system. My Mac Mini couldn't match these data transfer speeds with a Core i5 (2.1GHz) processor and 16GB of memory, but I wasn't expecting that. I was pleasantly surprised by the increase in speed compared to the internal hard drive. Using the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test app, I got 71 Mbit/s writing and 73 Mbit/s reading from the internal hard drive. With a WD My Passport SSD, I was able to achieve write speeds of 370 Mbit/s and read speeds of 420 Mbit/s. Awesome jump to 5x to 6x overall speed when using a WD SSD! Even when using an SSD connected via USB (USB 2.0 port), the boot times are halved compared to an internal drive. I am very happy with this drive. Its compact size, speed, and the ease with which I could upgrade and breathe new life into an aging Mac made me praise this drive and buy a new one. I would highly recommend this drive to anyone looking for a fast connection or a way to boost their Mac Mini's performance.