I chose the one that seemed the simplest but not really knowing what they really were. The pdf manual did not enlighten. It went to the 1 minute mark and then quit. Tried several times. Then I tried it on my PC at work. The driver loaded ok and everything seemed ok. I stopped the copying of data and opened the My Passport HD which seemed a bit confusing. Lots of confusion screens with My Passport but then again I am not a computer whiz. A few of my files were there. OK.

Fine. Then I attempted to delete the files as one is apt to do. They wouldn’t delete. Fortunately I didn’t load anything truly important or I’d be exceedingly miffed. Something is not right with this portable hard drive. (Loading seems to be a crap shoot as to what is copied when.) I’ve heard that there is a 10% failure rate with external drives. Maybe my experience with this HD makes up the 10%. Not sure that I wanted to go through all this again with an exchange and asked for a refund.

Maybe this is naive of me but all I want is a portable hard drive that is plug-n-play like many (but not all!) memory sticks. I want to be able to select the files that I want to copy without playing eenie meenie having to decide what kind of storage I want. In simple words: 1) plug-n-play 2)USB 3) simple password entry and verification 4)memory. That’s it. Nothing more. (Any suggestions please let me know.)

When I purchased the 1 Tb version of this drive I expected It to work with my MacBook Pro that I use for school work. I was going to use it to store all of my movies that I have ripped onto my gaming desktop, for viewing anywhere. It writes to the drive from my windows desktop perfectly, averaging at around 150 mbps, (I have usb 3.0) but When I plug it into a mac computer, and I have tried it on multiple macintosh computers, I can not even write anything. It reads fine, and I can watch my anime to my hearts content, but if I try to load some files for transfer to someone else’s computer it refuses to copy. I am happy with the read and write speeds otherwise, and would recommend this product if you do not own a mac.

I still use this external hard drive, but have to load everything from my desktop.

This portable hard drive does everything you need it to and is very reliable.

Pros:
- Very small/portable for 1TB capacity
- Sleek design
- Quiet and cool
- Subtle indicator light
- USB 3.0 speeds (though I have not tested these since my laptop doesn’t have 3.0)
- Works perfectly fine with USB 2.0

Cons:
- Specific USB 3.0 cable (It can plug into USB 2.0 fine, but the part that plugs into the actual hard drive is different from your standard usb/mini usb cable. However, I’m sure these cables will become more common as USB becomes more prevalent)
- Very short USB cable

I’ve owned and constructed my fair share of external hard drives, and I have to say that I’m impressed with this piece of tech thus far. First of all, 1 TB in such a small form factor is impressive enough. It can fit easily in my back pocket or the front pocket of my backpack, and the case construction seems solid enough to take a few hits. My biggest complaint about HDDs like these is that if you leave the USB cable connected to the device while transporting it around, it’s likely to loosen the connector over time and ruin the USB port on the drive.

That being said, don’t do that and it wont be a problem. I haven’t had this drive long enough to tell if this would happen or not, but the connector seems to be fairly rigidly connected to the case so I’m not worried for now. One thing I do have to note is the short length of the USB 3.0 cable included with the drive. For laptops it’s fine, but if you have a bottom located front side USB port on your computer and want to rest this drive on top of a larger case, you would have to get a longer cord (I was surprised at how expensive this would be). Not enough of an issue to take off any points. Oh yeah, USB 3.0 is great. This thing is quite speedy with a new USB 3.0 sporting mobo. Rock it and love it.

an external hard drive that required no separate power supply, was compact, and had a fairly large capacity (1TB+). This product met all of those requirements. We literally took the drive out of the box, plugged it in (recognized by and compatible with Win7), and approximately 4-6 hours (not sure of exact performance) later had backed up 900+ GB of media (pictures, music, and videos). We are quite pleased with its performance in these respects.

i wanted to use the pre-loaded WD software to automatically back up media files. The problem is that we do not keep media on the C drive — which is the ONLY drive you can have automatically backed up. There is NO way to specify a different drive. So if you are like us and keep files on other drives, you are out of luck…

Not mac friendly. Wanted to have portable bootable backups for my macs, so I bought this. Bad choice. It is formatted for windows and the mac formating kept failing. I had to go to the 4th level of tech support before anyone had a clue about hard drives. While waiting during one of the support calls, I finally got it to partition, but was then told by level 4 that partitions aren’t supported, and in a case of failure, the encryption (non-removable) would make data recovery impossible. Drag and drop maybe, but not bootable.

Edit- Just got a call from Western Digital customer relations who explained to me that I had been given misinformation and because of my poor tech support experience, they offered to comp me a hard drive that is suitable for my purposes.

Amazing… a terabyte in that small package. It’s fast. It’s huge… and it’s small. For the money, this is the best way to increase storage space for pictures and video for a desktop, and especially a laptop. I am sure it will be obsolete soon, but for now it is a great buy.

I just got my drive today and I was disappointed when it wouldn’t connect to my computer. I have to hold the drive in weird positions to stretch out the cable for it to work. I am not sure if it’s the connection on the hard drive or the cable that came with it.

I spoke to tech support who offered to send me a free cable. However, if something was wrong with the drive, that I would need to pay return shipping to get it fixed, even under the warranty.

I’m not going to take the chance of trying their cable or buying another on my own. I paid $120 for this and I expect it to work 100% of the time.

I got a WD passport and after a year it simply stopped working. It could no longer be seen in Windows Explorer suddenly one day for no reason. If you look this problem up on the web you’ll see that it happens to lots of people with this product. WD customer service said there was nothing I could do about it. They gave me the number for a third party data recovery service that would charge to get the data off the drive. This product is COMPLETELY UNRELIABLE as a source for back up data that you don’t want to lose!!!

I was very impressed with the sleek design and portable form factor. USB3.0 was about 3x faster for me in transferring large files compared to USB2.0. The fact that it is USB-powered is nice. No more need for an extra power supply brick. It does, however, use a proprietary USB cable to supply power to the device. I’m a little afraid I will lose that cable.

However, I have one complaint. I don’t know if it is just me, but does this hard drive only synchronize files (videos, music, photos) from only one computer? I first synchronized files from my laptop into this hard drive without a problem, but when I went onto my actual desktop computer to sync more files into the hard drive, there was a message that popped up saying that the hard drive did not recognize my desktop computer. In order for me to sync files from my desktop computer to my hard drive, I would have to reset (delete) all the files I currently had in the hard drive. If this hard drive is set up to be like this, then it’s really disappointing.

I’ve been wanting to get a large capacity external hard drive to back up photos, videos, and other important files from my computer’s hard drive for a while. This one will do all I need it to do and with 1 terabyte of storage, it will be quite some time before I’ll fill it up. I haven’t taken a look at the preloaded software yet, but I doubt I will use it. I’m more of a hands-on guy who doesn’t like to put things on automatic pilot. I like the blue color too because it’s easy to see inside my black laptop bag. I don’t have a USB 3.0 port, but I’m sure that will make backups much faster when I upgrade. It works as advertised, it’s “plug and play”, and I’m sure it will serve my needs for quite a while.

The light will come on on the device. But none of the computers recognizes it. Western Digital sent me a chord, saying that the problem was with the USB chord. Still not working. Asked them to help with data recovery. They told me I have to pay someone to recover data, which may cost up to $2000. Do NOT buy this product. If something goes wrong with the product. If you do, make sure you back up all your data elsewhere, because this product is not reliable.

Smartware software got hung up at the last 25 seconds of the install. I went online and downloaded firmware updates and tried everything that was recommended in the forums. Nothing worked. Called WD and they told me to do the same things that I already tried. Could’t get it installed. I could have used the hard drive without the software but then it wouldn’t do the automatic updates. I wasted over 6 hours of my life that I ain’t getting back. According to the online forums this is a very common problem. I found the product unusable and had to return it.

Smartware software got hung up at the last 25 seconds of the install. I went online and downloaded firmware updates and tried everything that was recommended in the forums. Nothing worked. Called WD and they told me to do the same things that I already tried. Could’t get it installed. I could have used the hard drive without the software but then it wouldn’t do the automatic updates. I wasted over 6 hours of my life that I ain’t getting back. According to the online forums this is a very common problem. I found the product unusable and had to return it.

I’ve been using the WD My Passport drives for a few years now, and I think that this version is even better than the others. Maybe it’s because after upgrading my laptop to Windows 7, one of my older WD drives refused to work properly. I had to copy all of my files off of the old drive using an older computer, and then copy them to this new drive. Anyway, these are good drives (as long as Microsoft doesn’t screw stuff up with their compatibility issues).

The product arrived from newegg.com, but it was new and sealed in box. Since newegg is local to me, it got to me relatively fast. As for the product itself, I am extremely happy with it. I bought it for purposes of doing backups from my NAS, and encryption for my data. Priced at 79.99, what more could I ask for? Thank you seller and WD for making a product that fits my needs on speed, capacity and low price

I’m not a very technical person but this product so far serves the purpose for which I bought it. It was quite easy to use – just insert and go. My laptop hard drive was in the red and this external helped to create the necessary space I needed. I now have all my movies, photos, music and documents saved in one tidy space.

Firstly ive had it for 6 months and its still working. During those 6 months i have not had one problem.
I use it just like a flash drive. About once a week i load it up with movies, music, digital pics, among other files.

Every time i plug it in the drive shows up. Every time ive transferred data onto or off of the drive it goes through.

Cons:

really REALLY short usb mini comes with it. So short i couldnt really ever use it. If you dont already have a longer usb or an extender i would go ahead and buy one for this right now.

And i dont really like the software that comes with it so i just uninstalled it and dont use it.

Slow transfer rates. This is my first ext hdd so these rates might be standard but i was hoping for faster rates using my usb 2.0.

i’ll say it again so far so good. And im going to buy a second one.

I have many external hard drives which I use for high resolution audio & photo storage. The Western Digital My Passport Essential SE I TB were my first experience with usb 3.0. The speed & storage capacity are great. I am using them with both Windows 7 64 & 32 bit OS. With one exception, they basically function as they should. If they come with pre-installed back-up software, I remove it before transferring any files, and put all the folders in a safe place on another hard drive just in case I ever need it. I never have.

The problem I have had, on more than one occasion with the usb 3.0 versions, is that they will occasionally report that they cannot be accessed and need to be reformatted – which is what I have had to. Fortunately, I keep my data on multiple drives, but I would never rely on one of these by itself. I have since moved to the Samsung 3.0 portable drives without incident to date. But it’s really too early to say for sure. Quality control on electronic components today is clearly not what it needs to be.

This is not high tech, but it is functional, lightweight and affordable. There’s no need to waste your money on a $40 case unless you need it to prop your tablet. My Acer Iconia A500 fits perfectly into the case where it is secured with elastic bands in the corners and a velcro strap across the body. There’s a net in the top to hold papers, cleaning cloth, etc.

I’ve had this drive for over a year. Everything about it is fine (I especially like the password protection) except for one thing that I’ve only just started noticing: The cable doesn’t fit quite right into the slot on the drive. It’s a mini/ micro USB slot that doesn’t really have a good fit for the cable that’s required, so at the slightest movement, the cable falls out, whatever you were doing stops, and you have to position it just right again to get the cable so that the drive works. I really wish this wasn’t the case. It’s a perfect hard-drive except for this. If you’re purchasing this product, I can only hope you plan on welding the USB cable into the drive.

On the downside, the included backup software (WD SmartWare) has been dumbed down to a point that it is next to useless. You have virtually no control over the individual files that get backed up and it has no provision to do a system backup. SmartWare decides for you (I guess that’s the so-called, “Smart” part of SmartWhere). It’s an all or nothing proposition. SmartWare only allows you to select the category of files that are backed up, for example, all documents, or all pictures. You have no control over which documents, or which pictures. Add to that the fact that the software has proven to be somewhat unreliable, and you’d be better off with any number of free backup programs available on the Internet.

Another major frustration is the extremely poor documentation. The package contains not a single word about how to hook this drive up, or how to access the onboard PDF help files. If you’re new to computers, or computer illiterate, you’re out of luck. To me, this growing trend is very unacceptable! Another growing trend that I find annoying is that fact that after the first 30-days, any call to tech support is charged at a rate of $14.95 per incident. This means for example, that if you update your SmartWare software (which it will periodically prompt you to do) in a couple of months and you can no longer find any of your backed up files, (a common complaint) it’s going to cost you an additional $14.95 to get things working again. In other words, you’re going to have to pay Western Digital to help you work around problems caused by their faulty software! That assumes the person on the other end of the phone has a clue what you’re talking about, but I’ll save that rant for another time.

A final concern is the fragile nature of the USB 3.0 connector that attaches the drive to the computer. This connector, which looks like two side-by-side micro-USB connectors, will take very little abuse before it fails. It may be good marketing to say that the drive is USB 3.0 compatible, but in reality very few, if any computers available today come standard with USB 3.0. Even if you have a USB 3.0 connection, you will only realize a modest gain in speed. Nowhere near the 10X speed potential claimed for USB 3.0. Everything in design is a tradeoff, but considering the portable nature of this drive and the fact that it will routinely be plugged and unplugged, possibly many times a day, I think the decision to go with USB3.0 was a poor one. If you read the various reviews, you will see several complaints that the drive all of a sudden quit working. I suspect that in many of these cases, a failed USB 3.0 connector is to blame. WD would have been better off sticking with the mini-USB connector and USB 2.0.

The bottom line is this. If you just want a basic, high density, portable hard drive at a reasonable price and you plan to supply your own backup software, then this drive is a good choice. If you’re new to computers and need a bit of handholding during installation, or if flexible backup software is important to you, then look else ware.

The software is useless for anything above very basic usage, as it has no sort of customization whatsoever. Solid build quality. Works fast on USB 2.0. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything that supports USB 3.0 yet, but it’s nice to know it supports it for the future.

As long as you’re not counting on the software (there’s many better and free encryption, monitoring, and backup tools out there anyway) and don’t need something with its own power source, it’s one of the best external drives out there.

I’ve been trying to sync my laptop to create a backup. It makes my computer hang. Then I tried copying and pasting the files. When copying Gigabytes of file, it again becomes unresponsive at some point, having to restart m computer. Can be computer, but i didn’t have problem copying files to another Omega portable HDD that i use. Not completely satisfied with perormance but it is a nice size with USB 3.0 capability. It’s ok!

Disadvantages:
1. Takes too long to backup the disk using USB2
2. Not intuitive
3. Support: (i) Marginal support quality, (ii) available for free for 30 days only
4. When not running a backup the program frequently uses more than 50% of CPU time
5. Operating system files are not backed up

Advatages: small size, powered off the USB port

Suggestions to buyers:
1. Select a driver with faster interface – USB3 is not available in old laptops

I am quite pleased with this product for a variety of reasons. Of course it works, it is small form, stylish, and easy to use. But must of all, I like it because it requires no external, bulky power supply. It gets its power through the USB cable connected to your PC. I now own 4 of these. I use them on my WHS 2011. In the end, this is a product for the times!

Excellent size and compactness. Pre installed software is great for average user. Very quiet and the usb 3.0 is good feature. Will strongly recommend def best quality and product for the price and 1tb class of devices.

Hard drive is quiet, not the fastest, at least with USB 2.0 (slower, then older USB 2.0 Seagate) I did not try it with USB 3.0 because I do not have one yet. Uses only 1 cable, which is what I wanted. Cable is not typical, may be some kind of future standard.

Just love the fact that I can have a USB powered drive that holds one TB of information and now transfers data at FAR higher speeds. Great for backing up your notebook computer or carrying most of your desktop with you while traveling. The transfer speeds are so high that there isn’t much difference between the speed of the internal hard drive and this drive so you can order yourself a smaller notebook drive and use this one for your large programs and save yourself a bundle.

Yes–but you will need to use Disk Utility to reformat it. Takes just a couple of minutes.

If you have a PC, you will generally format this drive using the NTFS file system. A Mac can only read NTFS formatted drives, but can not write to them.
If you format this drive to FAT32, both PC and Mac will be able to read/write to it.

*the limitations of FAT32 however, prevent a single file size being greater than 4Gb

Go to the Applications folder and scroll down to the bottom where you will find a Utilities folder. Open it. Find the application “Disk Utility” and double click to open. When it is open, find the external hard drive in the list and select it. Click on the Erase tab. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format: popup menu. Give the drive a name. Click on the Erase… button. Wait a few minutes. Quit Disk Utility. You are ready to go.