Testing:

For testing purposes we will run through a pair of benchmarks, each of which provide a variety of results for comparing read/write performance. We'll pit the 1TB WD My Passport Ultra drive against a 1TB Seagate BackUp Plus (USB 3.0), a 320GB Seagate GoFlex Slim (USB 3.0), and an older 250GB SATA II Western Digital drive housed in a Kingwin brand USB 3.0 enclosure.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64:

This benchmark provides results to detail the drive's read and write performance in units of measure of MB/s (higher values are better). The image below shows the screen capture from this application after the My Passport Ultra was tested.



The first graph shows the sequential read results, where we see that the My Passport Ultra is just 1/10 of a MB/s from being the fastest drive on hand. Comparing it only to the 1TB option from Seagate, what I see as its most direct competition in size and specifications, the My Passport Ultra is faster by 4.4MB/s.



When it comes to sequential writes, the My Passport takes the win by 1/10 of a MB/s margin over the GoFlex Slim and leads the BackUp Plus by 6MB/s.



Comparing the results of 512K read testing shows that the My Passport Ultra is again the top performer, this time by just less than 1/2 of a MB/s.



And finally, we have results for 512K write testing. Here we see the My Passport Ultra runaway with by far the best performance.