Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(130)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

This thing ships with pre-installed backup software, including some functionality called "VCD". Problem is, I didn't want any of this stuff because I'm not interested in using the drive for backup/restore purposes. I just wanted a hard drive external to my computer with lots of capacity for holding music, photos, and video.

Unfortunately, the way WD has configured this drive, it's almost impossible to use it the way I want to use it. It shows up in "My Computer" on my Windows 7 machine as a CD drive with software that can be run, and zero storage capacity. It does NOT show up as one of the hard disks. Therefore, basic "disk drive" tasks such as saving files to it are proving impossible.

So far, I have spent 2 hours and several visits to WD's web site trying to figure out how to get rid of the unwanted backup software and pre-configured rubbish, so that I can just put my media files on the stupid thing. I've repeatedly rebooted my system, unplugged and reconnected the drive, etc., and still don't have a simple working hard disk. As of this moment, it's still not working properly for me.

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.

This is really 2 products in one, which each deserve their own review.

First, the hard drive. It uses the next generation USB 3.0 protocol, which is completely backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and lower. That is good, because few people have USB 3.0 at this point - but when you do, this is ready to go. The single cable provided is for both data and power, eliminating the need for a power supply. Our Dell Inspiron notebook computer ran it fine with no issues over 2 months. The cable is 7" long, nice and tidy, long enough for most uses without getting in the way. The cable on this new generation drive stays in very solidly and works fine even when I tried wiggling it all around. In fact, I was able to hang the (very light) drive from the cable and shake it vigorously without it falling off!

The drive itself is about the size of an empty men's wallet, because it uses a 2.5" notebook hard drive inside. The case is glossy black, very sleek, with a single tiny blue/white LED for power/data status. The drive is amazingly quiet. I was able to transfer a 7.7GB file from the drive to my Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook computer running Windows XP with USB 2.0 in about 5 min 45 sec, which is about 185 MBits/sec of actual file data. Any speed limitation is undoubtedly due to the older Inspiron, not the drive.

Now, the software. Software is very simple to use, tailored for simplicity rather than power users. It comes on the hard drive itself, not a separate disk. What struck me is how incredibly simple it is to use. It is very easy to install and setup, and then runs automatically in the background, silently backing up your important files while the drive is plugged in. You can leave the drive connected all the time, or just plug it in occasionally when you want to update the backup files. (Keep in mind, though, if you are relying on the drive for backup, you might not want it with the computer all the time!) You only really need to do anything when you want to restore a file. You will need the WD software as the files are stored in an archive, not separate files. This shouldn't be a problem, as the software is on the drive also and can be installed on whichever computer you are restoring to.

This is not software for power users. It decides what is important to backup, and the files are sorted by type in the restore view, not by directory. When I went to look for a word document, I was puzzled that I couldn't see it until I realized I was viewing picture files, and had to choose the document tab. You can choose categories and drives to back up, but not directories. That said, it seemed to do a great job of finding all my important data files while avoiding system files.

While very simple to use, the WD software has some very nice capabilities. For example, it will keep several previous versions of files backed up. You can select how many, and can restore whichever you like. One important thing to keep in mind though is that in Windows XP it only backs up the files for the current logged-in user. If you have multiple users, keep it plugged in while they each log in to make sure everyone's files are backed up. This happens even though in our configuration each user can see the others' files.

If you decide to install WD SmartWare software, you may want to update before running the backup to get the latest bug fixes. Of course, you could use any backup software you wish (even the built-in Microsoft backup in Windows), but this will work great for most people, even those with very little computer experience. If you have more experience, give it a try - and if you don't like it, you have plenty of other choices.

All in all, a very impressive product that I will continue to use regularly.

My old laptop went into sudden death mode earlier this year, and it had been a long time since I'd run a backup because I'd been using DVDs. And I was just thinking, before it happened, I need to get an external hard drive just in case, because the laptop is old <sigh>. Fortunately, I'd ordered a Toshiba Canvio Plus 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive E05A050CAU2XK (Raven Black), and was able to perform CPUR and get it backed up. But I could no longer trust that laptop, so I also bought a HP Pavilion dv6 and transferred my files to it.

The Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive was offered on Vine, and since I have the new laptop I decided to try it.

One of the drawbacks of plug 'n play devices is the dearth of instructions in hard copy format. All I could do to figure out how it worked was to plug it in. I can only get it connected to one of my USB ports. The connector is very tight. I'm running Windows 7, and Auto-play ran, but the software did not install. I tried it a couple times, but it didn't happen. I thought about formatting it, but decided I'd just go ahead and open the drive and run the setup from there. From that point, just about everything has been perfect.

The software allows you to determine how long to let the drive wait to go to sleep, giving you some control on the power draw. The user interface is very friendly. You can't set up your own partitions or directories on the drive if you're using the software, but files are backed up by category, like pictures, music, movies and so forth. The user interface shows a mirror image of your C: drive using the same categories. You don't know exactly where your files are on the backup drive, but this feature allows a reasonably easy way to search.

One last beef about this drive is the software update reminders. I received one immediately, went to the website, found my product, and discovered the update was not for this device. But you can fix that by turning off the software update reminders.

I don't know how long the first backup took. I started it and left the computer alone and did some other things. The backup was successful. Now I can keep it plugged in, and when I update a file or create a new one, it gets backed up automatically. I find no performance degradation using my laptop. The software just runs quietly and invisibly in the background.

This is like having a subscription to have your files automatically backed up offsite. But this is my personal laptop, and I can get that functionality without a third party. I like it and recommend it.

The Western Digital My Passport, while well made and compact, is not worth buying because of its pre-installed, un-removable software and its poor functionality as a general external Hard drive. First, the WD My Passport is designed with system backup in mind, and system backup ONLY. The pre-installed software does everything that Windows can do by default. It wouldn't be a problem except for the pre-installed software is on a 700MB virtual cd-drive on the disk that cannot be reformatted, hacked, or deleted. Even if you manage to remove the WD software (which I only managed by nuking it with Linux) you will not be able to use that 700MB as the virtual cd-drive is part of the device's firmware. As of yet, there is no workaround this problem; Western Digital, if contacted in this regard, will just tell you how fantastic their software is but tell you how to turn it off, so it won't bother you every time you plug it in, but not how to remove it.

The other reason that I really hate this drive is that I can't seem to use it for many things that I want to back up. It's formated fat32 by default, meaning that I can't back up anything over 4GB.

All in all, this Hard Drive is designed to hold your hand through everything you do with it without you worrying about making any scary changes to it. If that's what you're looking for, good on you. If you have any tech experience and you have the misfortune to find yourself in possession of one of these patronizing little monsters, reformat it immediately and resign yourself to the lost 700MB, you won't get to use it.

Bought this cute little portable hard drive to back op our Imac. It seemed to be working until one day when I noticed the Icon for the Back Up drive had turned Orange. A short time later our Imac crashed our OS during a power failure. When we went to restore we discovered a major problem. Yep we lost a lot of stuff! After replacing with a Segate unit (noticed a lot of wierdness went away with the new drive).
I decided I would like to see if we could get this unit replaced or repaired. I went to the WD Web Side and they sent me an Email a day later saying they got my inquiry and would get back to me in 4 days. Several weeks later I wrote them again and got a form letter back requesting that the model and serial number. This had to be filled out between the marked spaces on the Email and then they would get back to me. They kept sending me the same Email over and over and I kept sending it back. They kept notifying me that my serial number was invalid. I tried to send them a picture of the number however it was rejected as being too large of an attachment. Finally I called the 800 number only to get some fellow in the Philippines who was of no help at all. I would have sent him the picture however he had no Email.
Now I cannot fault any company since no matter what is produced there will be the occasional bad item, however I can find a lot to be desired in the way they resolve issues that come up. They may very well build some great little drives however they have no customer focus that I have been able to locate.

Side note- Plugged the little drive into a Windows 7 machine and the operating system says it is working properly (under Properties) you still cannot talk to it. Go Figure!

Finally a happy ending!

It appears that the trick to getting these problems resolved is getting to level two service department. There you find folks who know and understand these units and are willing to help. They are located in the US and communications are not a problem. Once there they down loaded some software to my PC, this allowed me to test my drive and find out what the hardware's real serial number was (number on unit is so small that you cannot tell the difference between 6's & 8's). Testing revealed the drive had a problem and a RMA was generated and the unit was replaced. It took a little over a week and a new unit arrived.

I have read many of the existing reviews for this Passport Essential external HD (and probably so have you). I won't go into a lengthy discussion in that case -- just bullet points.

- Small size, large capacity, truly portable (but bring the special micro-USB cable too!).
- Support for USB 3.0 (faster by about 1/2).
- Low power requirement with auto-standby.
- Included backup software that is easy to use.
- Somewhat deceptive marketing. The packaging and ad copy promote it as "Portable Hard Drive", which it is. But the fine print reveals that they really meant it to be a plug-n-play backup drive/software combo.

So all in all, this product delivers what I think Western Digital intended - a portable, external, continuous backup of your files. I have backed up my two internal hard drives to it, and I can see and access the individual files on the Passport drive, which is nice; they are not compressed or stored in some proprietary format. The WD SmartWare software runs in the background and keeps the files on the Passport drive in sync continually. Whether this will slow down the system, I don't know. It seems to be OK so far.

I am now more confident that my data will not be lost due to hardware failure. I would even say that this could replace paying for an online backup service. The only drawback with a local backup is that if there was a disaster, it could destroy both your original and backup at the same time. One thing you could do to avoid that is copy your most important data to DVD-R(s) and send to a relative or friend to keep for you.

If you are really looking for just a blank, external hard drive (larger than any USB drive, I assume), then if this one is cheap you can update its firmware and then defeat the Virtual CD they put on it. Or just find a different brand that clearly does not install any software on the drive.

UPDATE 9/27/10: I have tried to update the firmware on this drive so that I can turn off the Virtual CD feature and update the SmartWare software, but I cannot seem to get it to update the firmware. It keeps telling me to disconnect all USB drives and only plug in the Passport drive, which I do. But rescanning brings up the same error over and over, on two different computers. Western Digital support thinks it may be a bad drive, and Amazon Vine does not have any more to swap with me. So I'm stuck with the firmware I have (1.0.0.8). It works OK as-is with the SmartWare software that came with it, so I guess I'll keep using it, but my confidence level with this drive has taken a step down.