Current draw of passport, passport ultra, and easystore

WD External and Portable SSD Portable SSD
1

The web site doesn’t list the current requirements for USB-powered portable drives. They are USB 3.0 drives that are supposedly compatable with USB 2.0, however, USB 2.0 can supply only 500 mA maximum. Unless I know the current requirements of WD USB-powered portable drives, I cannot buy them.

4TB Passport
4TB Passport Ultra
4TB Easystore

Note: I have blown up USB 2.0 ports in the past because USB 3.0 drives exceeded 500 mA.

2

Here is a reply email I just received from WD support. It’s not helpful.

Dear MARK FILIPAK,

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is Peter.

I would like to inform you that the WD My Passport drive and other portable external drives work on USB 3.0 port and they are backward compatible with the USB 2.0 port.

These drives are designed for standard USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports so it will work on both the ports, It will draw power from the ports without any issue.

Unfortunately, we do not have the power specifications documented on our website.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.

Sincerely,
Peter
Western Digital Service and Support

3

Heheh… Interesting. If the ports blew up due to overcurrent, the ports weren’t USB complaint and were poorly designed. :slight_smile:

4

Hi Tony,

The ports were USB 2.0 compliant. I believe it’s much more likely that the drive jumped on the USB without staging the power-up. Nonetheless, WD should publish the current requirements of its drives.

PS: I’m sure that if I looked at the drive inside the unit (if I could open a unit to see the drive), I could find the current specification. It should be on the outside of the unit and in the unit specification also.

5

This is an old topic that never had a real answer, so here it is. At this moment I have my 4TB WD Easystore connected to a USB 3.0 port and it is showing a demand current of 896 mA in the USB Device Tree Viewer application on Windows 10.

6

Thank you, Chuck. Thanks for sharing your findings.

My Win10 laptop shorted a tantalum capacitor and crowbars the external power supply, so I’m temporarily on my Win7 backup laptop. Thankfully, USB Device Tree Viewer works in Win7.

I down-loaded USB Device Tree Viewer (Download USB Device Tree Viewer 3.8.4 (latest)), checked it with VirusTotal, and tried it – tip: the SHA256 checksum is for the zip, not the exe.

Wonderful! Thanks so much.