Bought a 4TB drive on Feb 26th had been working great until yesterday when out of no where it stopped working and my computer wont recognize it anymore. The light is on and I can hear the drive spinning but several computers wont recognize it. I contacted Western Digital and a new was being sent however data recovery is not normally part of the warranty. I called Western Digital back the next day to talk about the data recovery and why this isn't covered on a device that is 2 months old.
My Passport hard drive not recognized by Mac problem can be caused by many factors, such as bad sectors, corrupted file system, virus infection, hard drive damage or corruption. But whatever reasons behind the problem, our first priority is to find method to fix it, especially when there are important files on the drive.
I spoke to Eunice (A service) she talked to her supervisor, because my device is only 2 months old Western Digital stepped up and did the right thing and is allowing me to send the device back to them to have the data recovered and placed onto a new 4TB My passport drive at no charge. It was going to cost me $400-$900 from a 3rd party company if Western Digital did not allow me to send it back to have the data recovered. Thank you for standing behind your product and doing the right thing I will purchase more drives from you in the future because of your actions today. Thank you SO MUCH Eunice from Western Digital and your supervisor your understanding and doing the right thing is much appreciated you now have a loyal customer for life. The drive stopped being detected in under three months.
It spins and sounds fine, but Windows does not see it, nor does the WD software, and neither does the Linux kernel via lsusb. Therefor, I conclude that the internal bridge adapter (which converts USB to SATA) has failed. One can't even dismantle the enclosure and connect the drive to SATA, because the bridge is integrated onto the drive, which is a very consumer-hostile thing to do. I don't particularly want to send WD the data on this drive, so I'm screwed. Buyer beware, Avoid this product. This little external hard drive is unbeatable for the price. I had my doubts, but after months of heavy use I can attest to the functionality of this very well designed product.
Survived drops, splashed with water, and it's perfectly fine. This HDD has an insane 4TB of space and is so tiny you can easily carry it in your pocket and forget that it's there. The sleek and metallic body has a hefty feel to it despite its slim profile, rubber bottom provides a reliable grip to surfaces. The overall look and feel of this device just screams quality. Affordable, durable, and reliable, the WD 4TB My Passport HDD is quite simply the best bang for your buck when it comes to external hard drives.
I purchased Five WD 4TB Passport drives to back up a WD MyCloudPR4100 24TB (w/ Raid 5) NAS. Unfortunately, the 4TB Passports seem to have a write rate problem. I use a Robocopy batch file with 8 threads running on a windows 10 pro (i5 with 16GB RAM) desktop to back up the MyCloud. I am using a USB3 interface.
Backup starts just fine and for the first 2TB, write rates are 80-100 MB/s with an average response time of 1500 ms. After that, write rates fall precipitously and ultimately drop to 2-3 MB/s with an average response time of 4500-5500 ms by the time the drive has 2.5 TB transferred. After that, the write rate seems to be stuck at a low rate. Disk shows mostly 100% active time. Things I have tried: 1.
Quick format the drive: Write rate remains stuck at 2-3 MB/s 2. Full drive format (takes 12 hours): Write rate is again good for the first 2TB. Halt backup script and just let the drive stay powered up for 8 hours: Partial write rate recovery for a very short time.
Switching to performance write (enables cache): no effect as compared to cache disabled. Checking fragmentation: windows says the drive is not fragmented.
Altering the back up script to write large files first (PLEX.mkv.mp4 mp3) and then the user files: No difference from writing small user files first. Disable password protection: no difference.
Backup directly on the MyCloudPR4100 by defining a backup plan on the MyCloud: still degraded write rate. Used a powered USB3 Hub in case the drive was getting power starved: no difference 10. Disable Anti-virus SW: no difference 11. Run CHKDSK: no errors found 12. Change default allocation unit to from 4k to 32k: No difference There is no way to disable windows write caching on the WD Passport.
I have already returned one drive to Amazon, but the replacement drive has the same characteristics. In fact, all of my 4TB drives have the same issue. It is interesting to note that I have a 3.5 inch 3T WD MyBook and a 3.5 inch 3TB Seagate Backup Plus both with external power and usb3 and neither seem to have the problem. Since write rate does not reset to near 100MB/s unless a full format is done on the drive (quick format does not help at all), and the problem has duplicated itself on 5 of 5 drives that I purchased, I suspect there is something fundamentally wrong with the 4TB Drive. WD, Fix your drives!
March 11, 2018 I edited this review on Feb 26, 2018, but the update was not posted. I have reposted my update. UPDATE Feb 26, 2018 I have completed a much further examination of the 5 4TB Passport Drive I still have. WD suggested using their disk tools to validate the drives are good. All 5 drives passed all tests when using the WD Data Lifeguard tool.
When I attempted to erase the drives with the tool, the erase failed. I then used the WD drive utilities to rerun diagnostics (all passed) and then the tool was used to erase the drives. From the messages that pop up on WD, it appears that the erase/wipe tool deletes the partition and then creates and formats a new partition. After using the WD drive utilities to wipe the drives, I reran my drive performance check which was composed of transferring 2.7 TB (185k files)from my MyCloudPR4100 via my 1Gb/s LAN to a Dell Latitude 3470 laptop with the drive plugged into a USB 3 input. The transfer was done using a.bat robocopy with 16 threads and no directory or file listing.
Files were mkv, mp3, and misc (mostly jpg). The laptop had no other activity running. The WD MyCloudPR4100 was connected to a Netgear ProSAFE GS108 gigabit switch which was also connected to the Dell Latitude 3470. Drives were set to use the default profile (safe removal, no caching) and indexing of file contents was disabled. The windows performance monitor was used to log the write performance of the drive each minute. All 5 drives were tested and the results are summarized in the attached.jpg.
Initially, write performance on the mkv files was approximately 70GB/s and degraded slowly as seen in the attached graphic. Mp3 and jpg write performance was approximately 43 MB/s. As a further test, I erased the 522GB of the 'mostly jpg' workload and then proceeded to write 924GB of mp4 files to the drive. Write performance was 27-34 MB/s. I should note, the MyCloudPR4100 is used as a Plex server and is also used as DVR storage and backup for PCs on the network, so some occasional performance degradations could be attributed to other network or server traffic. So in conclusion, I have upgraded my rating from a 1 to a 4.
WD did not get the 5 rating because of my out of the box experience noted above on all 5 drives. The is no reason I should need to use the WD tools prior to using each drive. They should work well from the factory. Hi Roger, We’re sorry to hear your My Passport did not perform as expected and appreciate your time providing this review.
Best practice is to run diagnostics with WD Drive Utilities when a drive does not perform as expected or is behaving abnormally. We recommend avoiding USB hubs for external hard drives; and, therefore connect the drive directly to a USB 3.0 port on the computer. We have placed a few helpful links below providing more information for your convenience. 'Setting up and using WD Security and WD Drive Utilities': 'How to physically connect, disconnect, and install a WD external drive on a Windows PC or Mac': All our products must pass our stringent quality standards before leaving our factory to be free from defects in materials and craftsmanship. We stand behind our products throughout the device's factory warranty period; and would be happy to help determine the root cause of this behavior and help you further.
We would like to work with you directly and assist you with your drive to provide a positive outcome, please contact us and reference the case number below. Case Number: 03224 Need Help? Please contact us at 1 (800) 275-4932. It requires several command line tools to make it work on a Mac. With 1TB and 2TB drives, I've always been able to just use Disk Utility to erase the partition and re-initialize it as an HFS+ filesystem.
That didn't work with this 4TB drive (and also with a 4TB Seagate drive). After getting an unhelpful error message from Disk Utility about 'not enough space', and trying lots of things to get it to work, and then doing research, here's what finally worked for me: 1. Use gpt to remove the 2 existing partitions 2. Use gpt to destroy and re-create the GUID Partition Table 3.
Use gpt to create the 1st (EFI partition), same size as the EFI partition on my system disk 4. Use dd to copy the contents of my system disk's EFI partition to the 4TB drive 5. Use gpt show to determine the size of the remaining space on the drive 6. Use gpt to create a 2nd partition to fill the remaining space. Use diskutil verifyDisk.
It will report that the 2nd partition needs 'trailing loader space' and give you a number 8. Use gpt to delete the 2nd partition you just created 9. Use gpt to create the 2nd partition again, reducing it's size by the amount verifyDisk said you need 10. Run newfshfs to initialize the 2nd partition as an HFS+ file system and give the volume a name 11. Run diskutil verifyDisk again to make sure everything's ok Hope that helps anyone else encountering similar problems. After all this, the drive seems to work ok, I just wish it had been easier! This drive is a piece of crap.
I bought it to back up my 200GB of photos from my macbook. It ran all night to transfer all the photos. The next morning, my drive was no longer accessible from any of my macbooks. I tried on my PCs and one of them was able to open the drive, but said the drive was dirty/corrupted and would need to be cleaned/repaired. Ran this all night and nothing has worked. I put ALL MY PHOTOS on this drive, and now none of my computers can access it because it got corrupted after the VERY FIRST USE.
HUGELY REGRET GETTING THIS. Biggest waste of time and money. The worst part is that I didn't open the drive from the package until more than 6 mos after I purchased the product, so there is NO RETURN OR SUPPORT ELIGIBILITY. INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTED IN AMAZON AND WD FOR PRODUCING AND SELLING SUCH A CRAP ITEM THAT DESTROYS YOUR DATA. Hello Grace, We are sorry to hear about your experience with My Passport drive and appreciate your time providing this review.
Best practice is to run diagnostics with WD Drive Utilities when a drive does not perform as expected or is behaving abnormally. We recommend avoiding USB hubs for external hard drives; and, therefore connect the drive directly to a USB 3.0 port on the computer.This behaviour seems to be system specific which includes the permission issues on the drive by the windows 10 OS.
We have placed a few helpful links below providing more information for your convenience. 'Folders appear empty or files won't open or are read only after moving an external drive to another PC': 'Setting up and using WD Security and WD Drive Utilities': 'How to physically connect, disconnect, and install a WD external drive on a Windows PC or Mac'.
We would be happy to help replace the drive for you, or you can follow the link below to an article explaining how to replace a defective drive under warranty. 'How to Get an RMA to Replace a Defective Product, Obtain a Power Supply, or USB Cable for a WD Product': We suggest you contact our support team to get the resolution for the issue and please provide the support case number with reference to Amazon review.
Support Case Number: 06090 Need Help? Please contact us at 1 (800) 275-4932. I've had this for just a bit more than 30 days (about 40 days ago) and had a problem with it where one of the partitions did not read. I used a disk testing software crystaldiskinfo info and this brand new drive is already reporting current pending sector count errors.
I ran WD Lifeguard for about 36 hours and it reported unrepairable bad sectors. I just obtained an RMA to discover that WD has a lousy warranty, at least in my view. I have to pay for shipping back to WD, wait for them to receive the hard drive and then they will ship out a replacement. I just checked several other WD drives anywhere from 1 to 3 years old, and they are also giving error messages. I've learned to check my S.M.A.R.T. Data more frequently and will now avoid WD because I am concerned about their quality.
I have two Samsung 850 Evo 500GB SSD's and I was looking to backup my important information to an external hard drive in the 4TB-5TB range. I spent a long time debating if I should get the WD 4TB Black USB 3.0 My Passport External Hard Drive (WDBYFT0040BBK-WESN) or the Seagate Expansion 5TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STEB5000100). I looked at all the Seagate reviews stating the hard drive failing, so I decided to stick with Western Digital. I've owned many Western Digital hard drives over the years and they have always performed quite nicely. PROS: Very small and compact!
Fast with decent speeds I love the black sleek case on one half with the other half featuring a rugged design Even the little white LED is pleasant to the eyes Works great on Windows 10 and Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon! Cons No cons really. The cable is a little short. I also noticed on Amazon the prices for the WD 4TB Black USB 3.0 My Passport Portable External Hard Drive (WDBYFT0040BBK-WESN) are quite sporadic in nature. I purchased this drive at a price point of $113 and after a few hours I saw the price drop to $111.
The following day the price fluctuates all the way to $119 for the black version and then drops down to $116. It's not much of a difference in price, but I found it quite odd to have prices fluctuate like you are buying stocks on the stock market. Other Thoughts: I'm very glad I went with Western Digital. I've always had great experiences with Western Digital products.
![Passport Passport](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125389853/340705902.png)
![My Passport For Mac Not Found My Passport For Mac Not Found](https://discourse-cdn-sjc1.com/wd/uploads/default/optimized/3X/1/7/17bfbc07258b260bb7f2351cc6ed840d2f14a05d_1_690x380.png)
If you are on the fence about which external hard drive to buy, I would highly recommend this drive. The performance is solid and so far I have not had any issues on Windows 10 and Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon. Buy this WD 4TB Black USB 3.0 My Passport External Hard Drive (WDBYFT0040BBK-WESN) and you won't regret it!
Update: Still working! This drive has taught me not to bother with Western Digital external drives. They don't work well and the customer service is terrible.
I purchased four of these, intending to use one as a backup, one as a standard external drive, and the other two as needed. I had trouble from nearly the first day I tried to use them. I finally got the backup working by eliminating all Western Digital drivers. Then the external drive (for normal access) became unreliable. Nearly an hour on the phone with Western Digital resulted in their statement that no company anywhere makes external drives that will work with Mac encryption. So I tried their encryption and password system, even though every reference I could find said that it is so poorly implemented that it can be defeated by a simple hacker. Now my external drive works most of the time but the backup won't work at all, since it conflicts with the Western Digital driver required to use the external drive.
And since I've been fighting with them for over 30 days-which is their warranty-I'm out of luck. I now have four lightweight boat anchors.
This concerns me as well since I recently replaced an internal drive with one made by Western Digital. No problems yet, but their lack of customer service has made me extremely unlikely to buy anything from them in the future. Old review: This is a reasonably good drive for a good price. If you want to encrypt it, however, the only way it can work is the system that is built into the drive itself. My first try at doing this resulted in a drive that didn't work because it somehow changed the password I put in (and I know I used the same password, it's stored in QuicKeys).
I got it working without any Western Digital software but with the Mac OS encryption. That worked for a while but then it stopped working and the drive could not be mounted, copied, or erased. According to Western Digital tech support, there are NO external drives anywhere that allow the use of operating system level encryption (I haven't checked this but it would be a ridiculous thing to do). I am running the Western Digital utilities now to see if it meets their requirements to be replaced. With luck I will have it working again next week. I have owned probably over 15 WD drives over the years and while they aren't without occasional issues, I seemed to have far more success with them opposed to Seagate.
Since I have been filling my other drives up and don't have anymore power outlets for My Books to plug in I decided to go with the 4TB Passport. The passports are smaller, don't require a separate power source, and with USB 3 they transfer very quickly. Everything has gone smooth so far and I've transferred about 200GB quickly and without issue. I have to say, for the price/GB these drives are great and I can easily recommend them. Don't go straight into Mac's Disk Utility just yet. Avoid major error by running WD apps first. Plug in and open the Hard drive; install the Mac driver/software (inside) and 'WD Drive Utilities'; it will prompt for latest updates-run updates.
Now run WD Drive Utilities app to Erase-must select 'HFS+J' which is Mac Journaled. Finally, it is now a Mac External HD. You can start using it, or run Mac Disk Utility if you like.I ran Disk Utility after I did it all that to make sure I don't run into future issues.:).