Last year I was not alone in worrying about the future of Thunderbolt. Despite Apple’s wholesale change to the new interface, peripherals have been slow to appear and prices have been surprisingly high. Meanwhile, the slower and cheaper USB 3.0 standard has been making great headway.
Western Digital has now introduced a portable drive that, for the first time, gives hope that Thunderbolt is here to stay. With a capacity of up to 4TB and a starting price under £300, the My Passport Pro is an attractive external drive and is one of the cheapest Thunderbolt storage devices I have seen. It is also unusual in not requiring an external source.
The most exciting feature, however, is that this is a dual-drive system which can be set up in RAID 0 (for maximum storage) or RAID 1 (for maximum security). The drives also support Apple Time Machine. With a short built-in Thunderbolt cable, the Pro is sure to be an excellent travelling companion for any Mac power user.
The 2TB My Passport Pro with twin 1TB 2.5in disks retails at £299 (including VAT) while the larger capacity (and 14.5mm thicker) 4TB configuration costs £409.
I think buying a 1 TB SSD like a crucial M500 or M550 is a better solution as there is no mechanical part.