WD My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 3.0/2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Midnight Black)

by Western Digital

• Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility
• Connectivity today; speed tomorrow
• Up to 3x faster transfer rates with USB 3.0
• Automatic, continuous backup
• Hardware encryption, password protection

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 3.2 x 0.6 inches ; 5 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0041OSAZS
• Item model number: WDBACY5000ABK-NESN
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (375 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 5, 2010

Product Description

Color: Midnight black

From the Manufacturer

My Passport Essential – Next generation storage to go.

Put your digital life on the stylishly small My Passport® Essential™ portable hard drive. With WD quality and USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity, this drive is designed for today with tomorrow in mind.

WD quality inside and out
My Passport portable drives are the world's best selling drives. There's a reason. We've been making hard drives for 20 years and we know how to protect your data.

USB 3.0 plus USB 2.0
A single drive with universal compatibility today and next-generation speed for tomorrow. Use it with USB 2.0 now and step up to USB 3.0 speed when you're ready.

Ultra-small portable drive
Lightweight, stylish and easy to carry, this drive is powered directly from the USB port on your PC. No separate power supply is needed.

Features at a glance Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility Up to 3x faster transfer rates with USB 3.0 Automatic, continuous backup Password protection and hardware encryption 2-years limited warranty

Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 interface- A single drive with universal compatibility today and next-generation speed for tomorrow. Use it with USB 2.0 now and step up to USB 3.0 speed when you're ready.

Up to 3x faster transfer rates - When connected to a USB 3.0 port this drive lets you access and save files up to 3 times faster than USB 2.0. Transfer a 2-hour HD movie in just 5 minutes instead of 13 minutes.*

*Performance may vary based on user's hardware and system configuration.

WD quality inside and out - For over 20 years, millions of people worldwide have trusted their data to WD hard drives. We are successful because we understand the importance of your data and our first concern is keeping that data safe.

WD SmartWare™ software - You're in control of your backup. Install all the features, select just the components you need, or if you prefer, choose not to use the software at all.

Automatic, continuous backup - Works quietly in the background to protect your data using minimal PC resources. Whenever you add or change a file it's instantly backed up.

Password protection for privacy - Gain peace of mind knowing that your data is protected from unauthorized access with password protection and encryption.

USB-powered - Powered directly from the USB port on your PC. No separate power supply is needed.

Planet friendly - We designed a small box that uses recycled material and minimizes waste. We encourage you to recycle it.

Ideal for

• Connecting with your USB 2.0 port today and using with USB 3.0 when you're ready
• Transferring files up to three times faster when connected to a USB 3.0 port
• Protecting your data with automatic, continuous backup
• Adding extra storage space for photos, videos and music
• Securing private or sensitive data with password protection and hardware encryption

What's in the box
Portable hard drive, USB cable, WD SmartWare software, Quick Install Guide.

Compatibility
Formatted NTFS
Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7
Mac OS® X Leopard®, Snow Leopard™ (requires reformatting and will work in USB 2.- mode)
Note: Compatibility may vary depending on user's hardware configuration and operating system.

Portable Storage Comparison Chart My Passport Essential My Passport Essential SE My Passport Elite My Passport for Mac My Passport SE for Mac My Passport Studio Next generation storage to go. Next generation high-capacity storage to go. Premium backup and storage. Smaller, smarter, Mac-ready. Maximum capacity for your Mac. Pure performance for Mac.   Interface USB 3.0, USB 2.0 USB 3.0, USB 2.0 USB 2.0 USB 2.0 USB 2.0 FireWire 400/800, USB 2.0   Capacity range 250 GB - 640 GB 750 GB and 1 TB 250 GB - 640 GB 250 GB - 640 GB 1 TB 320 GB - 640 GB   WD SmartWare   Automatic backup   Password protection and hardware encryption   Ultra-portable form factor         Capacity gauge           E-label             USB dock             Highest capacity

Product Description

Put your digital life on the stylishly small my passport essential portable hard drive. with wd quality and usb 3.0 and usb 2.0 connectivity, this drive is designed for today with tomorrow in mind. visual backup software and password protection with hardware encryption ensure your data is protected. lightweight and easy to carry, this drive is ideal for fast storage to go.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 119 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Small, fast, high-capacity drive October 26, 2010

By Jaroslaw Kaczynski

Color Name:Pacific blue

It was time to create fresh backup of my laptop, so I got this blue, 500GB WD drive because it was one of the cheapest and I know the manufacturer (used their products before).
The drive is definitely the smallest 2.5 inch portable drive I have ever seen personally. It was the first USB 3.0 device I have purchased, so discovering new, wider USB 3.0 connector on the drive side was a surprise to me. Please note that that the larger plug on the cable (the one you insert into the computer) is also USB 3.0, but fortunately it fits into any USB socket. If your computer does not have USB 3.0 hardware, you can use regular 'micro-USB' cable to connect: just plug it into the wider of the two sections of the socket in the drive.
First backup with the drive was successful, but lengthy as usual. I'm going to buy USB 3.0 express card for my laptop to speed up the process in the future.
One note about the software that comes with the drive - it is horrible! While my hardware experience with WD drives was OK in the past, their software was always of questionable quality. I decided to give it another try after 3 year break, but I had to uninstall and undo some damage manually pretty quickly. I have requested not to install backup part of the software (I'm using operating system facilities to backup), but the software installed 'shadow copy' and some other resident software on my machine anyway. Later on the software suggested firmware update, but could not detect the drive during update!. The worst offense was the change of drive letters on my machine: I have main hard drive with two partitions, DVD drive and flash drive - WD software stole D: letter drive from my DVD drive and turned it into G: drive.... Of course uninstalling the software did not return the correct drive order, so I had to do it myself. Conclusion: DO NOT INSTALL THE SOFTWARE THAT COMES WITH THE DRIVE - only the driver that is required on Windows to avoid pop ups when the drive is connected. Read more ›

122 of 135 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Winner from Western Digital October 5, 2010

By Lawrence H. Bulk TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Color Name:Midnight black|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I recently received this Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDBACY5000ABK-NESN (Midnight Black) from Amazon Vine and I am very pleased with it. It is the first USB 3.0-capable device I have owned. I am using this, and all of my other external hard drives, as storage units only (in other words, for backing up and storing my document files and folders, my music, my pictures, and my videos, not for backing up the computer itself). It is a nice large portable hard drive, as large or larger in capacity than most laptop computers. It requires no power other than that supplied by the USB port.

When it arrived I opened the box and retrieved the drive. Having done that, I gently shook the drive to make certain that nothing was loose inside. Then I physically examined it to make certain that the ports were properly fitted and aligned with the outer case. Everything was fine. At that point I inserted the supplied cable's plug into the (new-type) miniature USB port on the drive and inserted the regular USB plug into my computer. Both ends fit easily and perfectly.

As I am using the Ubuntu Linux operating system on my computer, the drive opened instantly. I saw the usual WD backup programs, etc., which are of no use to me and which I immediately removed. (From what I have read, many people do not need or want WD's backup programs. Fortunately, on this drive, they are easy to delete.) The drive now has 465.6 GiB of available space. (My system analyzer shows that 100 MB is being used for "something" but I don't know what it is....) I copied some files onto the drive and they installed perfectly, just as they have done on my other external hard drives.

As is, it will work perfectly with Microsoft Windows systems and, with reformatting, it will work with Apple Mac systems.

This particular external drive is quite nice - small, well-made, and convenient to use. I cannot comment on the speed of USB 3.0 transfers as I don't have anything which has USB 3.0 as yet. When it becomes standard on notebook or netbook computers, I'll buy one of those; I am looking forward to faster transfer speeds. From the examples of file transfer given on the outer box, the speed differential does not appear to be as fast as I had been led to believe from articles in magazines and on the internet. But any speed increase will be welcome.

Of course, like all USB drives, it is fully compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 (though I do not know the power arrangements with USB 1.1).

The only point on which I cannot comment definitively in this review is that of longevity. I will have had to own it for several years before I can say anything truly useful about that! But all of my other Western Digital hard drives have worked perfectly from Day One and all continue to work perfectly.

I hope this information may be of some interest to anyone who wishes to purchase this drive. I have to admit that I am somewhat prejudiced: I own a half-dozen or more Western Digital hard drives and I like them all very much. My oldest, a 40 GB (which was considered HUGE at the time I bought it, perhaps 6 or 7 years ago) is still in regular use as are all the others. As I said, all of them have held up beautifully so I should expect that this one will too.

In my opinion, if you are currently in the market for a larger portable hard drive, this is the one to buy as it will be usable with all versions of USB for the foreseeable future. I highly recommend it.

I also strongly recommend that you buy more than one external hard drive (preferably this one as it has a large capacity and is USB 3.0-capable) on which you save your information (redundancy). Should your computer's hard drive or even (or also) ONE of these drives be damaged or corrupted in some way, you will still have your data. That's what I do. It's cheap insurance! The chances of losing your computer's hard drive and TWO external hard drives should be quite low. (I think that there is a greater chance of your computer's hard drive to fail than there is of one of these externals to do so.)

Thank you for reading and considering my opinions.

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Update: October 20, 2010

I REALLY like this hard drive. How much? Well, I just bought four (4) more of them - three from J&R Music & Computer World via Amazon (J&R is one of their 'partners'), two black ones and one blue one, and one through J&R itself (a red one, which Amazon has not been stocking).

The three I purchased through Amazon arrived yesterday; I'm still waiting for J&R's shipment. The ones I have received all function perfectly. They are extremely well-made.

I am giving my older USB 2.0 320GB drives to my wife so she can have extra storage for her audios, videos, pictures, etc. (she has quite a lot of them, much more than I do, and she was running out of space) and I shall be using these newer ones for backing up our computers, the task for which I used the older ones previously. If and when we upgrade to newer computers which feature built-in USB 3.0, we'll be ready with these drives.

Obviously I like this large and convenient portable external hard drive very much and I'm quite certain that you will too.

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Update: November 29, 2010

I ordered ANOTHER one of these drives from Amazon, this time in Silver; it arrived today. Like all the others (I now own six of these units - the 'free sample' one I got from Amazon Vine and the five more which I've purchased), it is constructed faultlessly and works perfectly.

I like Western Digital products (I have a full dozen of their external drives), I like the company (they care about their customers: I can make this statement from first-hand experience), and I very much like this particular product.

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Update: January 31, 2011

Do you need a case for this product or a similar one? Take a look at this AmazonBasics Hard Carrying Case for My Passport Essential - Black. While as of this date it is not yet available, courtesy of Amazon Vine I received my review sample today and I like it very much. If you are interested in it, you could place it into your Wish List and order it when it becomes available.

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Update: August 5, 2012

Though it was not his intention, "AverageCitizen" made a comment which impelled me to revisit this review and tell you that I now DO own a computer with two USB 3.0 ports. Thus I can now take full advantage of these drives' capabilities. Let me tell you: USB 3.0 is FAST. I am noting, in the real world, transfer speeds about four times faster than what I was able to get using these drives with USB 2.0 ports. I transferred 625 GB of data FROM one of my newer 1 TB WD hard drives TO another one via my computer's USB 3.0 ports and the process took slightly under two hours. That translates to about 85 MB/s. I continue to HIGHLY recommend this particular 500 GB hard drive and Western Digital external hard drives in general.

Lawrence H. Bulk Read more ›

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very solid entry for Western Digital October 8, 2010

By I. R. Smart. TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Color Name:Midnight black|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

While USB 3.0 devices are slow to trickle out into the mainstream, Western Digital has released this 500GB USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) drive that works just as you'd expect it to.

Transfer speeds are what you'd expect over USB 2.0 (i.e. average), and the drive is very quiet. I suspect it's a 5400rpm drive inside...

Some things to note:

1.) The device itself is pretty small. Very, very portable.
2.) It has a plastic coating that scratches very easily, sadly.
3.) I don't see an easy way to open the casing to put in a larger drive in the future...
4.) The USB 3.0 cable is different from your normal USB 2.0 cable, but for USB 2.0 use you can use a standard MicroUSB cable, and I tested this to work perfectly. USB 3.0 is MicroUSB + an additional port next to it for USB 3.0 speeds, but you can just use the MicroUSB part for older systems!

Overall, this worked great on my 2009 i7 iMac formatted in HFS, and on Windows 7 formatted as NTFS. No issues with either.

It's a very solid drive so far, the price is reasonable for this new USB 3.0 technology, and I can't find any reasons not to give it 5 out of 5!

So.... 5 stars out of 5!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Small and convenient September 24, 2010

By Biblioholic Beth VINE™ VOICE

Color Name:Midnight black|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I'm a Mac user, so my first concern was whether or not this would work with Mac. I ordered it on the assumption that other Western Digital external hard-drives did, so this one must also. The description didn't say. Anyway, while it does not right out of the box, and the instructions were almost non-existent, it took about 10 seconds to google it and find quick and easy instructions to reformat the drive.

The drive itself is nicely sized - a little bigger than an iPhone. It feels solid, and it was plug-and-play into my laptop for reformatting. I loaded all my photos on it (it will be used primarily for that) and it was quick and painless.

I'm not a tech guru - I can do the basics and a little more. I appreciate the ease of use for this hard drive, though I do wish the instructions had a LITTLE more to them. For example, how to reformat the drive for use with Mac ;) Otherwise, I would certainly recommend this drive for anyone looking.