WD Elements Portable 4TB External Hard Drive

Specifications

Capacity

4TB

Interface

USB 3.0

Form Factor

2.5-inch

Read Speed

130 MB/s

Write Speed

120 MB/s

Endurance

—

Warranty

2 years

Brand

Western Digital

Price / TB

$41.54/TB

Value Score Breakdown

Our Verdict

The WD Elements Portable 4TB is a plain, pocket-sized backup drive with a long track record: more than 40,000 Amazon ratings at 4.6 stars. It draws power from a single USB cable, works with Windows out of the box and with a Mac after reformatting, and Amazon sells it directly. Like every portable hard drive, it is slow next to an SSD, at roughly 130 MB/s, so it is meant for backups, photo archives and media libraries rather than running games or editing projects from it. It has a 2-year warranty and no backup software or password protection, which the My Passport adds. Choose it for cheap, high-capacity backup space; pick the My Passport if you want encryption and a longer warranty, or a portable SSD if speed matters more than capacity.