Western Digital Crams Two-Disk RAID Into Portable Thunderbolt Drive

Western Digital Crams Two-Disk RAID Into Portable Thunderbolt Drive

The new MyPassport Pro from Western Digital is the world’s first bus-powered portable hard drive to offer two disks with RAID capability for blazing fast, grab-and-go storage.

Available in a 2-terabyte model for $US300, or a 4-terabyte model for $US430, the MyPassport Pro offers speeds up to 233 MB/s. That should be a boon to those doing heavy video or graphics work, or anybody needing to transfer large files super-duper fast.

The real wow-factor lies in the combination of true portability, meaning no power-cable, and dual-disk RAID 0 or RAID 1 functionality for a mirrored backup of your precious data. Previously you would have to plug a hard drive like this into the wall, and we could all do without the tangled cables and misplaced AC adapters.

Western Digital Crams Two-Disk RAID Into Portable Thunderbolt Drive

Adding to the convenience is an integrated wrap-around Thunderbolt cable design, and an aluminium enclosure tested for shock resistance. Bear in mind, the drive might be a bit chunky due to the stacked 2.5″ drives. There’s no solid-state action here. Also a drag is that Thunderbolt is the one-and-only interface featured on the MyPassport Pro. There is no USB port to fall back on when faced with an older system lacking Thunderbolt ports.

The MyPassport Pro is available now from the Western Digital store.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.