Passport Essential 2.5" 320GB USB Hard Drive
by Western Digital Retail
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List Price: Our Price: $64.99 You Save: $115.00 (64%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Passport Essential 2.5" 320GB USB Hard Drive
Customer Review: Excellent value for the money and portable to boot
Summary: 5 Stars
For the price, you can't beat the capacity and portability of these Western Digital My Passport Essential Portable Hard Drives.
Western Digital has a long history of producing dependable drives.ss
The housings are well designed and, with a bit of care, you can dissemble them should the need or desire arise. The drives themselves are workhorses. They are not the fastest, but they are more than adequate for most purposes.
I generally don't comment on other reviews of the same product, but there seem to be a number of misconceptions about this product thst should be clarified.
First, these portable hard drives are for usse only with USB 2.0 ports. Period. Machines three years old and older may not have USB 2.0 ports.
Second, hard drives are electro-mechanical devices. Hard drives do fail unexpectedly whether they are a day or year or more old. Hard drive failure is not predictable. So it you plan on using this or any hard drive to back up your precious family photos, financial records or doctoral thesis, make sure you have a second or third backup!
A couple of minor criticisms of the product. The supplied USB cable is on the short side. On the other hand, how long a cable do you need with a portable drive? In any event, USB cables are readily available and relatively inexpensive. A bigger and more important criticism is that Western Digital does not provide a cable with a second USB connector for use on those computers where a single USB port doesn't provide enough power. Finally, WD doesn't include a carrying case. Small things, to be sure, that wouldn't cost Western Digital a lot of money to include, but they don't.
You won't find any competent network administrator who doesn't have multiple backups and the reason for this is that hard drives do fail!
So if you entrust your valuable data to a single hard drive, you are making a big mistake. Always have at least two and preferably three backups that you update frequently. And don't assume that your backups are reliable. Test recovering data from them from time to time.
You might be able to recover some or all the data from a failed hard drive, but it can be a very expensive or troublesome process.
Just remember: if it's worth backing up, it's worth backing up at least twice. That's what the IT pros do - and it's what you should do with your valuable data as well.
Sorry for the digression, but I just wanted to correct the misimpressions that some people have left about these drives.
The Western Digital My Passport Essentials are solid, inexpensive, portable and very useful hard drives.
Jerry
Customer Review: Very easy to use with Mac
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this hard drive for Media Storage (Mac + Win) and also as a backup disc for Time Machine. The good news is that it comes in FAT32 format, which OS X can read/write. The bad news is that Time Machine requires the backup disc to be in HFS+ format (FAT32 or NTFS won't work).
However, this is easy enough to fix. I launched Disk Utility in OS X and partitioned the drive into 240 GB as FAT32 (or as MS-DOS format, as Disk Util calls it), and 80 GB as HFS+. Took less than 5 minutes for the whole thing. So now, I've got one partition for time machine, and another for my media.
Fine Print :
1. In partitioning the drive, it formats the drive first. So any free utils that come with the hard disk are erased. Not an issue for me as I didn't intend to use any of the free software. But anyone trying this should be aware of it.
2. For anyone thinking about doing the same thing, note that FAT32 does allow both Windows and OSX to read/write without the need for a 3rd party software. But the downside of FAT32 is that it doesn't allow a file size larger than 4 GB. This isn't an issue for me (I don't expect to come across many files that are larger than 4 GB each). To avoid this issue, you could create one partition in NTFS (instead of FAT32). Once you do this, you'll need a 3rd party software so that OS X can read and write to the NTFS partition. I've heard good things about MacFuse (though I haven't tried it myself).
Other thoughts...
- Nice and compact
- Fairly silent
- Pretty short USB cable (can be irritating for some. I prefer this to having a long cable dangling around).
- Wish it came with a soft case/cover (that's what I'm looking to pick up next).
Customer Review: A very portable hard disk
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my fifth Western digital passport hard disk I have bought from AMAZON. All of them are still working. I connect them to my Dell Inspiron 9400(that has 6 USB ports). When I bought the first one I was very doubtful if they could work connected to a laptop but, they work even when I have connected up to 4 to this laptop. They also work in all other laptops that I have connected to (even in the tiny SONY VAIO UX380FN. This 320 GB works also equally well.
I should also mention that I had previously bought 3 Western Digital "MY BOOK" USB hard-disks. They are still working fine since the first day, but I hate their cumbersome power supply that makes them not very portable.
I had previously bought another brand USB hard-disk, also from AMAZON. It never worked very well. Finally it refused to be recognized by the system so, I finally opened the box and mounted the disk as internal in a desktop to recover the hidden data inside: the hard-disk was OK, so success for my data.
USB hard-disks, specially the passport cannot be dismounted by windows like the USB pen drives. I consulted to Western Digital. They informed me that this was a problem with all USB hard-disks, because windows recognized them as disks, not as flash drives or memory cards. I found a trick to allow dismount them without a shut down. I bought and installed `cryptic disk'. This program requires you to mount and dismount the hard disk, apart from protect your data to be peeked by other eyes in case your disks go to other hands.
Customer Review: Excellent mobile storage
Summary: 5 Stars
I have owned several Western Digital Passport drives and a few other mobile drive brands. This drive is great for backups, as you can hook it up fast without a power supply and store it anywhere. Put it in your briefcase, put it in your safe, take it with you anywhere and keep a copy of your data. It is almost pocket-size and the only thing you have to keep with you is a short USB cable. Some people consider the short cable that's included to be too short, but it's mobile!
Some owners have commented on needing a power adapter or extra usb cable for it, but I've never had that issue. I've used it on multiple desktops and multiple laptops with no issues at all, but you'll have to try it on your own system.
The surface of the Passports (shiny, black material) can be easy to scratch if you throw it around or keep it in your bag with other items. That would be my only complaint, but it doesn't really bother to me.
All WD Passports that I've owned, including this one, have stood up very well. I've never had a drive failure, the transfer speed is always quick, and the case is very sturdy. I have these drives everywhere, because of their mobility and performance. You can't beat them!
The speed is very responsive. I've used it on an XP and Vista machine and both have copied data to it fairly quick. I haven't performed tests on it, but it always gets the job done for me. The 320GB version is a great upgrade on the previous Passport models.
Customer Review: Very Convenient!
Summary: 5 Stars
Ever since the USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) outlawed USB keys, I've had no way of transferring my data from one work computer to another. Several co-workers used the past generation of this hard drive without a problem so I decided to get one. This little thing is fast (with USB 2.0) and extremely quiet. I just have this sitting on top of my desktop tower with the USB cable going to the front. There is a bright white light in front (by the USB connector) that serves as the HD's activity light - it also lets you know when it is safe to disconnect (when you disconnect it in Windows first).
As with all HDs - I formatted this to NTFS and just make sure to disconnect in Windows before I physically pull it out. I got the 320GB one - after formatting shows = 298GB. The black external plastic is extremely easy to scratch (and it shows) so you might want to go with a different color. I went with black because at the time it was $20 cheaper than the other colors. I haul this thing in my laptop bag - it is so thin it slides into any slot without a problem.
I've owned this drive for a few months. Just a warning: You'll never go back to your old way of working with computers. Ever since I found: [...] - I have everything I need on my Passport drive. Even when I'm at home, I plug this thing in and use Pidgin, OpenOffice, and Notepad++ 100% from this drive.
As with any hard drive - always backup your data.
Definitely recommend!!! 5 stars!