WD’s My Passport Ultra Focuses on Performance and Security

When I took a look at WD’s My Passport last summer, I was left impressed with its performance, its form-factor and overall design. But while a solution like that is great for those who are not too concerned about what’s on their drive, it can leave a bit to be desired for those who need to make sure that their data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. With its just-announced My Passport Ultra, WD helps take care of that.

The biggest difference between the original and Ultra is that the latter includes WD’s SmartWare Pro backup software and integrated Dropbox support. You’ll be able to sync without a problem and make sure that your data always has some redundancy. Further, the drive includes hardware encryption and password protection to make sure the data cannot be accessed by anyone who happens to stumble upon it, and further, WD even includes a protective pouch to help protect it from real-world threats as well.

At the moment, WD offers both a 500GB ($99.99 USD) and 1TB ($129.99) model of the Ultra, with a 2TB entry to come in Q3. All of the drives carry a three-year warranty.