WD Elements Portable: External hard drives now feature USB-C and offer up to 6 terabytes of storage
29/6/2026
Translation: machine translated
Western Digital is equipping its WD Elements portable hard drives with USB-C. The new models, with capacities of one, two, four, five or six terabytes, are now available from us.
Photos, videos and games can quickly take up several hundred gigabytes. If your laptop’s internal storage is running out of space, you can delete files, move them to the cloud or back them up to an external drive. Western Digital is updating its WD Elements Portable range for this purpose and equipping the new models with USB-C.
The hard drives are available with one, two, four, five or six terabytes of storage. All models use a conventional HDD rather than an SSD. Compared to SSDs, they are generally cheaper per terabyte, but transfer data more slowly and are more sensitive to shocks.
Direct connection via USB-C
Western Digital has fitted the new models with a USB-C port. A USB-C-to-USB-C cable is included in the package. A separate cable for laptops without USB-C is not included.
The hard drives use USB 3.2 Gen 1. The interface theoretically transfers up to five gigabits per second. However, this does not mean that the HDD actually achieves this speed. Western Digital does not specify any specific read or write speeds. The manufacturer also provides no information on the rotational speed or the built-in cache.
The drives are backwards compatible with USB 2.0. However, for devices with a standard USB-A port, you will need a suitable cable or an adapter. A separate power supply is not required. Power is supplied by the connected device via USB.
Two case sizes
All variants are 110.8 millimetres long and 82.2 millimetres wide. They differ in height and weight. The models with one or two terabytes are 15 millimetres thick and weigh 130 grammes.
The versions with four, five or six terabytes require a thicker casing. They measure 23.7 millimetres and weigh 240 grammes. This means that even the larger variants should still fit comfortably into most laptop bags. The plastic casing is available exclusively in black.
Compatible with Windows and macOS
The hard drives are formatted with exFAT as standard. This means you can use them on both Windows 10 and later versions, as well as on macOS 11 and later, without having to reformat them first. According to Western Digital, compatibility may depend on the specific hardware and operating system.
Additional backup or encryption software is not included.
Header image: WD
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