Customer Reviews

Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Midnight Black)

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(49)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(114)

 

 

The drive is the most stylish (and the smallest) of all WD drives, and as all of their portables are, very reliable. Now quickly for the two issues many people mention:

1. The cable. Everyone relax, it's a standard micro USB. Yes, I wish it was a standard USB, but it's not such a big deal, micro USB is quickly becoming a standard too.

2. The CD software. Even on Amazon pages you can find solutions to disable this crap. I have no idea what WD was thinking - I get the "pre-installed" thing for newbies, but the lack of uninstall? Anyway, I did what any sane person should do: went to WD's page for the drive, checked the knowledge base, and guess what, the answers are there (including simpler solutions that the ones posted on Amazon). Also, worth mentioning is this little note: "In the future, WD will offer a VCD removal tool for those users that do not want to use the software.". GOOD. Better late than never, I guess.

To sum it up: don't let the cable/soft thingy get in the way. It is the best high capacity portable drive in the world. I have 15 of these, including first generation 40GB, and they are all just great.

EDIT: DUE TO A NUMBER OF REQUESTS FOR PICTURES OF THESE DRIVES TAKEN APART, SEE THE FOLLOWING LINKS:


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My line of work requires that I have a lot of disk space to hold my data. I'm not talking about 20GB of software or files, but rather 450-600GB vmdk virtual disks used to keep a snapshot of our client VMWare environments; so over the last 2 years, I accumulated over 15 USB external drives that averaged 500GB in size. I required the external USB powered drives because I travel a lot and often run these images when I'm on battery power. I've run out of space so badly that my laptop lid is covered with Velcro so that most of these drives can stay affixed to my work environment..... You bet I received tons of grief from my coworkers, especially considering I used to work at EMC2, which manufactures huge Storage Arrays that go in Data Centers. I just couldn't figure out a way to get one of those velcro'd to my laptop lid, otherwise I'd be set!

So, that covers "why" I need these drives, and what my main requirements are: USB Powered, Largest on the market to consolidate smaller ones, and as small as possible as it relates to physical space it takes up in my laptop bag.

These drives are the largest on the market that are self-powered from a single USB port, which is why these are a good candidate for my needs. While I realize everyone is frustrated with the USB cord being a micro USB rather than a traditional 5 pin USB that is commonly used on today's digital cameras to sync, for me that was not a big deal at all. My Plantronics Bluetooth headset uses the Micro USB, as does my Griffin iPhone charging pack, so I was no stranger to Micro USBs. These drives allowed me to go from 12-15 500GB drives down to 5 of these 1TB drives, with the excess 1TB that makes up the difference between all my old 500GB drives and the new 1TB drives being duplicate files across the smaller drives that were identified once I was able to run Deduplication software over the holidays this year.
Now that I've had these drives for a little over a month, I can tell you what I don't like about them, so that you can make up your own mind as to the importance that they have on your overall requirements from a drive. First off, everyone griped about the software auto starting when they plugged it in, but I always avoid double clicking on the drive letter in Windows Explorer and prefer to right click and either choose "Explore" or "Open File Location". That allows me to view the folder structure before I format the drive to the File System of my choice.

A word of caution on these drives, which someone else mentioned as well, and that is the drivers for it do NOT auto install FROM the new drive OR from Windows itself. It is not recognized and you will start to get messages saying the drive can run faster under USB 2.0, which is happening because you need to manually go into device manager, right click on the device named "WD SES Device" that is identified as missing its drivers, and select update drivers. Now for the tricky part. You then need to choose to go find the file by browsing your PC for drivers, and these new drivers are located in the CD ROM drive mapping that was added to your PC when you plugged this new drive into your USB port. It will have a CD icon under Removable Storage, be named "WD SmartWare", and have UDF underneath the Smartware word. You will need to dig a bit to find the inf for the drive, so here is the path that it's mapped to on my laptop, and all you'll have to do is change my E Drive with whatever yours is mapped to (E:\Extras\WD SES Device Driver). This should get you squared away, but REMEMBER TO COPY THIS FOLDER OFF TO ANOTHER PC OR DRIVE BECAUSE ONCE YOU FORMAT THE DRIVE, THIS GOES AWAY, AND SO DOES YOUR ABILITY TO EASILY FIND THE DRIVERS. I DOWNLOADED A DRIVER FROM THE WD SITE THAT WAS NEWER THAN THIS ONE, AND IT PLAGUED MY LAPTOP PERFORMANCE, SO I HAVE STUCK WITH THE ORIGINAL RTM DRIVERS.

Another word of caution is the opening in the drive itself where the micro usb cable plugs into on the drive is ridiculously fragile. A month in and after almost filling one of these TB drives up, the light stopped flashing on the side, I no longer heard the drive power on and start spinning, nor was it being recognized by my laptop. I about crapped myself because I've already been thru hell a year ago when I lost 1.5TB of client data that I had sitting on a Seagate 1.5TB 3.5" SATA hard drive which had a flaw in its firmware where it would wipe your existing partitions clean off the drive AND write 0's in the place of the data that used to reside on the drive and then corrupted the firmware itself IF AND ONLY IF you happened to connect that Seagate drive to a Dell PC that also had a conflict with it. So, all in all, I was pretty frustrated thinking I had lost another drive. But, there was another option. I talked to WD and they said they'd replace the drive for me, but I was obviously more concerned with the data on it. The drive was cheap enough to replace if it ever came to that. So WD sent me a new drive, and in the meantime, I took this drive apart to see if I could fix it myself or at least identify what happened to make it become a paper weight. Once I got the drive opened, it was quite interesting. These are not 2.5" SATA drives like all the other usb powered drives..... It's a 2.5 or maybe even a 2.75" drive, but you can't take it out of the plastic case it's in and say slide it into your laptop, which is what I tried to do the first day I got these drives, so this was actually my second time under the hood of the drive cases.

Now, there was something I was very stoked about which was the fact that these drives use a very similar circuitry design that their larger cousin uses in the 3.5" SATA drive in that you can unscrew about 6-8 hex screws and take off the green circuit board that physically connects the SATA pins to the hard drive itself. This is done intentionally as opposed to permanently affixing the SATA connector to the drive, because if the SATA pins break off, which I've seen happen numerous times before, the drive is dead and so is the data on it. With the board having the ability to be exchanged out, one for one, the drive powers up instantly. So in my case with this 1TB USB drive, the female connector was somehow damaged by the useless cables they provided because they kept falling out at an angle and must have bent one of the 5 pins that are required to power this drive. So on these drives, instead of the green circuit board having a SATA connector on it like 2.5" and 3.5" SATA drives use, this drive has the female end of the micro USB connection. What I did was take off the board that had the bad female connector and replaced it with the board from the new 1TB drive that arrived from WD. Once I did that, the drive powered up and hasn't had a hiccup since, which was over a week ago. If you ever get into trouble with something like this on these drives, don't be so quick to give up because there is usually an option available, but it was a bummer I had to even deal with this in the first place.

Lastly, and probably the most important comment I wanted to make was how absolutely flimsy the micro usb cords are that were provided with the drives, and how I've already had to return one of the 5 because the cord kept coming out while I was using the drive running VMs, and it eventually corrupted my data because of the constant on off on off on off on off on all day long. However, I am very pleased to say that I have found a total workaround for this and no longer have a problem with the cord falling out. I invested in new micro USB cords from Monster and they fit very tightly, have never come out, and I have seen a huge improvement in IO performance from these drives, which is an even bigger win. I know some of you will feel that for the price of the drive, working cables should be expected. And I agree, but they aren't practical, and it was worth the investment of $15-$20 per cable to ensure I didn't have to go through losing another drive. I actually feel these drives are a complete steal for being the only 1TB usb powered drive on the market (at the time of this review) and I have no regrets with them even after having to get new cables for them.

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I know this is quite long, and I really only planned to add feedback regarding the USB cords, but once I started typing, I figured I'd help someone out who will undoubtedly run into the same situation I did but get through it without the stress and headaches! If you need pictures of what the inside looks like, email me and I can get them to you.



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Feb 2010 update (original review follows)...

After months of negotiating with Western Digital and trying to work through two serious design flaws with this drive, and after experiencing a horribly botched attempt to correct the problem (I still don't have a working drive...Even new shipments in Feb 2010 have the same problem!!), I am reducing the user rating from 5 to 2 stars. It is truly a pitty, because if it weren't for these two KILLER problems, this would be one superb product with a terrific hardware platform.

As author of the leading review and most recommended user tip, I really struggled with this rating. I don't relish in damaging WDs reputation - even in my little corner of influence. But recently, WD has made the problems worse by sending their loyal customers on a wild goose chase. I can no longer recommend the My Passport Essential SE drives. This is the 2nd time that I have changed the rating for this product line. I have also changed the title of the original review --

Original Title: "WD has fixed BOTH issues that raised such ire"
New Title: "WD tried & failed to fix 2 serious issues. Reduced from 5 to 2 stars"

For complete details about WD attempts to correct the nightmare of this model, see my response to Cuppa on page 2 (Feb 16, 2010). Here is my original review, which although critical of initial marketing decisions had awarded the prouct 5 stars...
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What were the product managers at Western Digital thinking?! How could any vendor get it SO-O-O very wrong in this enlightened consumer era?...

1. Bloatware / Crapware -FIXED (but see Feb 15 update)

WD tried to UN-commoditize their new My Passport SE drives by forcing a software application (and an annoying chain of Windows events) on anyone who connects the new SE series of high-capacity external drives (750GB and 1TB editions of their popular 2.5" external drives). Let's face it! WD is a high-end manufacturer. Their product needn't be distinguished by forced aps that treat customers like sheep (and like idiots!). The My Passport SE series is sufficiently distinguished by style, hardware encryption, value, and durability. No need to fill it with crapware.

Anyway, I have given WD full credit (restoring 5 stars), for their November decision to fully back down by offering a utility to hide the extra partition and restore standardized operation. The other peeve of early reviewers had to do with the cable. Some reviewers claimed that WD had switched to a proprietary scheme. Not so! But they did make the move to a Micro-USB interface instead of the earlier Mini-USB. It was inevitable. The switch has already swept through the phone industry (Nokia, Motorola, LG, Novatel... The list goes on). Power supply makers are all redoing their wares with this new smaller connector. Many power suppliers simply have a standard PC-USB connector on the housing. Simply attach whatever pig-tail cable suits your hardware.

2. USB Cable -FIXED (but see Feb 15 update)

Western Digital had packaged a faulty USB cable with October shipments of the My Passport SE series drives. I know that they are sill in stock at retailers because I received the faulty cable in December. Other buyers at my company recieved them in Jan-Feb 2010. The flakey cables are shipped with drive Part# beginning WDBAB... To distinguish the newer cable, look for the photos and explanation from other reviewers. WD will replace the early USB cable upon request. Unfortunately, it may take a few phone calls. The support staff have a memo about the problem, but they may not know how to locate it. I wonder if WD is proactively reaching out to registered owners (?!).

For both issues #1 and #2, the bottom line is that WD listens to customers and to these reviews. For a brand new product, I am cutting them some slack. I consider both problems to be reasonably and promptly addressed.

3. Features

Sans the bloatware (some people like it and some do not), the drive has one very cool feature: 128 bit hardware encryption. Don't even think about not using it. Your data is yours alone. Keep it that way. Just be sure that you escrow the key and give it to someone you love. Otherwise, someday your data will be unrecoverable forever under several very likely scenarios.

4. Cost

Amazon and B&H Video are price leaders on this model. They beat other reputable retailers by $20~25. As of Febuary 2010 - depending upon daily fluctuation & temporary promotions - the 1TB model sells for $179-195, or just That's 18c per GB. Larger format 3.5" external drives are faster and about half the cost per GB. But they are larger than a paper back book and require external power.

5. Regarding other recent Geek questions:

a) The drive is 5400 RPM and easily powered by a single USB connector. It does not require a 2-headed cable for USB hubs within spec.

b) Drive makers introduce ever higher capacity external drives before they offer similar models as an upgrade/replacements component to your notebook PC. Therefore, some individuals will purchase the latest external drive with an intention to REMOVE it from the drive housing (and the USB interface), and then drop it into their laptop PC. But...

But unlike other models, this drive cannot be used to replace the internal drive within a notebook PC -- not even if you have the full 12mm height. Unlike other WD My Passport drives, the drive unit within the external housing does *NOT* have a standard SATA interface! This time, WD created a proprietary internal spec to squeeze the drive into an even smaller external form.

Ellery's Byline:
I frequently clarify selected tech reviews & forums. You may write to me: Ellery (at) starbus (dot) com

I bought this drive yesterday and I am returning it today. The reasons? There are two main ones. Like the first reviewer, I find it annoying that Western Digital bundles the drive with their automatic software utility. The first thing I did was reformat this drive using the disk utility on my macbook. The drive reformatted, but the bundled software remained on my desktop. I still had to eject both to unplug the drive. When I plugged it into my PC, the automatic software came up there too and informed me that there was no longer a partition able to accept their program and that I should make sure that the drive was formatted correctly. I formatted it FAT32 so that I could use it between my Mac and my PC. Every time I plug it into my PC, the new hardware wizard pops up and tells me that the drive was installed incorrectly and may not work properly. So far it does work properly, but I have no intention of going through this every time I want to access this drive on my PC. I know that I could probably reformat the drive another way, or use my Mac to erase the contents more thouroughly, but that leads me to my second complaint: the USB connector is awful. WD seems to have gone to the newer micro-USB connector. In addition to this making all my other USB cables obsolete, the connector will not stay in the drive. Any slight movement, and you lose connection with your computer (Which means going though the whole automatic software and hardware wizard nonsense again). Not very portable in my opinion.

I have used and liked WD drives in the past and was very excited to see a "portable" 1TB drive that did not require an external power source, but this drive will be going right back. I will spend the extra money for the Seagate 1TB freeagent go drive. I hope that one works right.

I have purchased most of the previous versions of passports. And this latest product (750G) is really bad.

There are two things that are going wrong:

1) New cable. The new cable constantly loses the connection with the hard drive. They should have kept the regular cable, unsure why they had to change it.

2) Proprietary software in the bios. You can not delete it. It is in the bios. It never goes away.

After using it for one month, the HD broke down. Now I need to return it.

Don't buy this product.

Until I remembered that most people are idiots... This is not a 1 Star Drive... this is a 5 Star Drive.

If you read the one star reviews, you will find that most people who wrote them are bothered by the Western Digital Smartware Software. Let me be perfectly clear. The Western Digital Software is NOT removable without a hardware hack, but you can prevent it from auto-running or auto-launching IF you update the drive software to the latest version. This software is necessary for an advertised feature of the drive: Data Encryption. It also does one click backups, and has some other utilities as well. Finder reported 999.2 GB Free on this disk ( Under Snow Leopard 10.6.2 )... So about 800 MB is used for overhead to do what it does. If this bothers you, then don't buy this drive.

The other complaint was about the cable. Either is was too loose or "proprietary". There may very well have been some loose cables in the early batches, but the one that came with my drive in March 2010 fits snug and secure. In fact, I can let the drive dangle in midair, suspended by the cable, and the drive still stays mounted. I do not recommend doing that though... The cable is NOT proprietary. It is an 18" micro USB cable. This is a standardized interface that is used on newer devices like the new blackberries, and the Amazon Kindle for example.

Pros:
- Huge Capacity (999.2GB Free)
- Very Small (2.5" Drive inside Enclosure)
- Bus Powered (No External Power Supply Needed)
- Affordable (Currently $149)
- Cross Platform Encryption Option
- Free Cross Platform Backup Software & Utilities

Cons:
- WD Smartware Software is not removable and takes up 800 MB of space.

Bottom Line:

Epic Win for Western Digital & Amazon. I will be buying more of these drives and recommending them to my friends and clients.

Fail for people who buy this drive without reading about it's well documented and advertised features, then complaining about it.

This is my THIRD straight WD Passport LEMON.

Within the last 6 months or so, I bought first one WD 500 GB drive, which failed, and then another, which failed. Both of them had connection problems, which led to data corruption. And both of them failed completely within weeks. I didn't buy them from Amazon, but from a local big box. The first time, I replaced the bad one with the same model, figuring it was a fluke. The second time, I went back, got my money returned, and in the tradition of Charlie Brown and the football, bought a third WD drive, this time the 750 GB "portable."

"Portable" in quotes, because as many others have noted, breathing in the vicinity of the USB connection makes the thing dismount, causing all kinds of grief for the apps that are trying to use it.

After one day of repeated disconnections, I called WD tech support. The subcontinental gentleman on the other end said he hadn't heard of this problem, which is hard to believe judging from the reviews here. But he offered to mail me a new cable -- which arrived quickly because both it and I were in L.A. I plugged in the new cable -- it felt solider, but not THAT much solider. And sure enough, all I had to do was pick up the drive, or even nudge it, and once again it was gone.

Today I called WD again, told the rep that the new cable was also not working... He put me on hold for a while, then came back and said "Good news, sir! We have a solution! Since your drive is less than 30 days old, you can return it to the store where you bought it, and exchange it for a new one!"

Some solution. I didn't have to call tech support to figure that out. But I told him I would... except that the drive I exchange it for won't be a Western Digital. Terrible engineering, plus that infuriating phantom software (which, even if you can dismount it, still takes up a ton of room on the disk). Three disks, three strikes... Outta heah!

Don't make the mistake I did yesterday - I bought this. Very attractive drive, tiny...it does use a new USB connector, which is a pain, but it appears to be an open standard, so in a year or two I suspect I'll be happier about that.

What is absolutely unacceptable is that every time you plug the drive in, it mounts TWO DRIVES--the one you plugged in, and another CD partition full of WD's backup software that they wish you'd use.

You can't stop it from happening. If you eject it, it remounts. You can't erase it--it's in the firmware of the drive.

DO NOT BUY THIS, if you don't want to be marketed at continuously by your own hardware. At this time WDC has no system for stopping the automounting, and there's no ETA for a tool to stop this from happening. Of course, the best tool would have been to just make a good hard drive (which this was) and let people use it as they see fit.

There are many other fine hard drives on the market. Avoid this one.

Western Digital released a firmware/software update 11/16/2009 that lets you disable the automatic installation of the WD Smartware. To find it, google "wd smartware 1.2.0.7" (without the quotes) and look for the first hit on the Western Digital web site.

After installing the firmware update, disconnect the hard disk, wait about 30 seconds, and then plug-it in again. Under Vista, you get a prompt to locate driver software. Select the last option, not to prompt again for this device, and as far as I can tell the WD Smartware software will not bother you again, and nothing had to be installed on your computer. (I did not try the other update on the same page, to the Windows Smartware software, since my goal was not to have to install *anything* on my computer to use the drive.)

The cable is a standard micro-USB, which is the same type of cable used by newer cell phones and Blackberries. However, it is different than the mini-USB connector used on older portable hard disks.

Passport drives were one of the best products on the market, until this disaster. What happened? Well, every once in a while a company decides to "be like Microsoft" (or Sony) and attempt to ram proprietary software down your throat. The result (as is evident in the bottom lines of both Sony and Microsoft) is invariably user rebellion. Some sheep stick around, but those sheep will eventually start to wonder why their machines are running slowly and what all those ridiculous apps are for.

This drive is probably ok. Unfortunately, me (like 1000's of others) returned it instantly because it uses a proprietary software partition and it keeps trying to install proprietary software everywhere it goes. Total fail. Get two smaller drives if you must. This 1TB disaster is a dark omen of bad things to come from WD.