Best Portable External Hard Drives Reviews

Western Digital My Passport Essential SE Portable External Hard Drive Fast, Compact, Affordable and functional But Not Perfect.

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.