 "Western Digital Passport Pocket Drive 6GB")
Don’t let the size fool you—The Western Digital Passport Pocket Drive 6GB is not a flash drive! Western Digital is a hard drive making company, so its even more obvious that at the heart of the device is a hard drive. Though the hard drive’s size isn’t mentioned at Western Digital’s website, we are assuming that it must 0.8 inch. Lets dig in to know more.
Design: Its almost the size of a Zippo lighter, just a little thinner and much lighter—it weighs just 50 Grams. The external casing is made of plastic and appears to be quite sturdy. The design engineers have neatly enclosed the USB connector within its rectangular body. The connector arms out of the device when you want to plug it in. WD calls it a convenient flip-out, rotating USB connector.
Size Comparison: WD 6GB vs Nokia 3310
Rotating USB Connector
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Features: The drive is plug and play i.e. if you have Windows XP, you can plug it in and it will be detected as removable drive. It will show up as a lettered drive in the “My Computer” window and you can start using it right away—no drivers required. Though you would need USB drivers for Windows 98, since it doesn’t support USB natively. Its also compatible with the Macs, Mac OS v9.2.2 or Mac OS X v10.1.5 or later.
Rubber Cover (Very difficult to put on)
The most interesting feature is the synchronization and encryption software that comes with the pocket drive. Using that you will be able to synchronize and carry critical data on the move. You can then plug the drive into any other computer and edit files or read your e-mails. Once you plug it back into your own computer, it will sync and update all the changes made to the files. You can even save your internet browser’s bookmarks. All the data when used through the software is encrypted using 128 bit AES encryption. You access the data through a password protected profile created by you.
The package comes with a rubber cover for the drive, though we found it very difficult to put it on. It turned out to be more of a chore than a sincere attempt to protect the drive.
Performance: Not lets check out how fast the drive is!
Real World Tests
Average Read Speeds
JetFlash 8GB: 12.1 MB/s
WD 6GB Pocket Drive: 6 MB/s
Average Write Speeds
JetFlash 8GB: 9.5 MB/s
WD 6GB Pocket Drive: 5.2 MB/s
Synthetic Tests (Everest Ultimate Edition 2006)
Average Read Speeds
JetFlash 8GB: 12.9 MB/s
WD 6GB Pocket Drive: 6.4 MB/s
Average Write Speeds
JetFlash 8GB: 9.6 MB/s
WD 6GB Pocket Drive: 5.4 MB/s
The performance is pretty average as compared to flash drives. In the above comparison we tested it against the JetFlash 8GB.
Conclusion: The pocket drive costs Rs. 6,500. At a similar price point you have the option of buying the Western Digital 80GB Passport portable hard drive, only that it’s considerably larger than the 6GB pocket drive and hence not pocket-able. So if ultra portability is what you want then the 6GB pocket drive should suit you fine, else for around Rs. 7,000-8,000 we would definitely go for WD’s 80GB Passport.
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