The bottom and sides of the drive are black with the only features being the USB 3.0 connector on the left side and the small product label and information printed onto the plastic. The top also features the WD My Passport Ultra branding. The top cover features the designated color which can be titanium, red, blue or black, in our case red, with a silver outline as an accent. The overall look and feel is comparable to prior WD portables designed for the PC market. The exterior shell is composed of plastic that feels sturdy enough for home use and other applications outside of the house.
The WD My Passport Ultra has a standard portable storage device design, as there is little room aside from dimensions and weight at this price point to stray too far from convention.
System Compatibility: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP.MSRP pricing is $99.99 for the 500GB model, $129.99 for the 1TB model, and the 2TB is set to release in Q3 2013 with pricing to come. Our review drive is the 1TB model in a red enclosure. The WD My Passport Ultra is available now and comes with a three year warranty and a variety of enclosure colors. These drives have strong value as stand-alone drives which is accentuated by the included backup software.
WD has done this on previous iterations and continues the paradigm with the WD My Passport Ultra which offers WD Drive Utilities, WD Security, and WD SmartWare Pro (the Pro version is typically around 20 bucks for use on up to 3 computers).
Yet there are also brands that now offer software packaged with the drives to not just allow users to manage the drive, but to also provide significant backup features that enable users to gain even more security for the important files and content. This can come in the way of high-end premium enclosures or super-slim designs. Lately, we've been seeing a shift in the portable storage market as more manufacturers look to separate themselves from the large group of makers who pump out portable HDDs with special enhancements (and sometimes not so special) to their products. Cosmetically-focused, the WD My Passport Ultra is available in four different colors (titanium, red, blue and black). The Ultra, WD's latest My Passport iteration, also enables users to setup password protection and hardware encryption to keep data stored on the device secure from unauthorized access. The My Passport Ultra includes software for automatic backups to the host system or to the My Passport Ultra as well as the ability to use Dropbox to backup to the cloud. The WD My Passport Ultra, announced today, is a USB 3.0 portable storage device with capacities from 500GB up to 2TB that features local and cloud backups.