(Old Model) WD My Passport Ultra 1 TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Auto Backup, Black

I like WD external hard drives but I have to admit I dont use the software for them. I use them like big thumb drives and dump my own files for backing up on them so as to be in better control of the files. I have yet to find a software that satisfies me for this purpose and I need things stored so they can be accessed without the software if I want. Personal preference on my part. I use drives until I fill them and then get a new one since multiple copies and new drives are always a good bet since nothing lasts forever in technology. External drives eventually die, files degrade or corrupt, computers die, I like everything in at least triplicate, cloud saving included. I have used this to backup from my home PC and to travel with to various locations to access files on my laptop. The drive worked for this purpose right out of the box, no formatting or software needed. It has been dependable and very fast for the several weeks I have used it now. I will note that the USB cord port on the drive is for a USB 3 Micro B Male and not interchangeable with many other USB cords I own, so I am more worried and careful about keeping track of it. It is replaceable but its the newer style which I dont own in multiples at this point. However, it is not a proprietary cord as stated in some other reviews, its just a newer design which may not be as common to your own devices yet. The other end of the cord is standard USB design.

NEWEST UPDATE (11/15/14): Started experiencing the SAME issue! Sent back the HDD; replaced with the WD Elements version. Was going to RMA with Western Digital until I discovered the culprit. One of my front panel ports on my Corsair Carbide 500R case was defective- a common issue it seems (http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=107328). The faulty port was able to register the HDD as connected, USB 2.0 drives worked without issue, but its like the port wasnt delivering the necessary power for the USB 3.0 transfer. Got a free front I/O panel replacement from Corsair; all seems well! UPDATE: When I received my replacement, I did a quick format to get rid of the factory software that I had no need for. Then I began the transfer process between my current 1 TB external to the new one. The same issue occurred. On my current drive, there is a folder labeled AUTORUN with an icon file (that displays the Western Digital logo). As it turns out, this seems to be the cause of the issue. Once I deleted that, everything copied over fine and works great as far. Original Review: Unfortunately, this product arrived DOA. My computer recognized the drive but would just stop copying files over once a certain sector of the drive was reached. I used Western Digitals diagnostic utility and it said it passed, but when I tried to write zeros to the drive (full format), the drive froze up at around 509,000 sectors. I have been using Western Digital drives for a long time and this is the first of which I have had a bad experience. Hopefully my replacement, which is coming rather quickly, will be functional.

I bought this for my desktop PC and it works great so far and thats an important point. The real value of this product is whether it keeps my backups safe and I really wont know the answer to that for a few years. Setup was easy; its default setting is to copy everything under the USERS folder on your C drive thereby copying documents, music, video, downloads, favorites, etc. You can manually adjust the settings if you have some custom folders you want to include. I didnt bother upgrading to the Smartware Pro, the one that comes with the unit works fine. UPDATE 6/25/2015: Works fine, but something I didnt realize originally is that it backs up the data but it is not a mirror image. What I mean is that the Backup Drive does not delete anything it has previously backed up whether youve removed from your C drive or not. For some, that might be a feature you want if youre looking for something you deleted 6 months ago and want to recover it. On the other hand, this backup drive will continue to grow keeping copies of every obsolete document you create. If you ever use it for recovery, youll restore all that junk also. Ive been occasionally scanning my backup drive and manually deleting stuff I know I dont want anymore.

My purpose in buying the drive was to have periodic, scheduled backups of my PC. In spite of the poor reviews regarding the WD Smartware backup software, I went ahead and purchased this drive. The drive itself is great, very nice form factor, responsive with my computer, etc. - no problems. Very easy to drag and drop files as an alternative to using backup software. WD Smartware is a dud unfortunately. I overwhelmingly agree with other reviews regarding the included backup software. It is very poorly designed, cannot recognize which files to backup as they are created/modified and left me very unsure of how safe my backup really was. In spite of the fact that its included free, a very frustrating experience; I should not have wasted the time with it as the prior reviews here have stated. One would think Western Digital, a company focused on data safety/backup would have a leading solution. As an alternative, I purchased the Acronis TrueImage software to use with this drive. This combination has worked great and I feel very comfortable with my current backup arrangement occurring in an automated fashion. In summary, if you are looking for a local backup solution, the drive itself works great, but you should have an alternative software in mind before making this purchase.

I ordered the drive to run several VMs for school. I needed a drive that was fast, had enough room and was portable. This drive meets all those needs. The drive connects quickly to my laptop running Windows 8.1 and any of the computers at school running Windows 7. I have not had any driver issues when connecting to these PCs or needed to downloaded any separate drivers other than the ones Windows automatically loads when the drive is plugged in. I havent done any official speed testing on the drive, but when transferring bigger files it is consistently reading and writing at speeds over 100MB/s. Much better than my cheap Kingston flash drive writing at maybe 5MB/s. This drive is much quieter than my other drives too. This drive comes with a short micro USB 3.0 cable with a single male USB connector. I have an older USB 2.0 external drive that came with a cable that had two USB connectors on it. This was used so the drive could get more power; some USB ports especially on laptops dont supply enough power. So far I have not run into any issues with this drive needing more power than it can get from the single USB connector. I even tried connecting the drive to a USB 2.0 port on my laptop and it worked fine, although slower of course (USB 2.0 has a lower power rating than USB 3.0, 500mAh vs 900mAh). The short cord is useful when needing to travel with the drive, but I may find at some point needing a longer cable. I bought the titanium gray colored drive, but after seeing the black one in person and comparing them side by side, the black one looks much cleaner. As for the actual housing, I think WD could have made the case a bit more sturdy, theres a some flex in the housing when squeezed. Not that I feel like the drive is going to fall apart, but it feels a bit hollow and plasticy, compared to my older all-aluminum Iomega drive. The case/cloth bag it comes with isnt anything special, but it keeps my drive and cable together while it is in my backpack, which is all I need it to do. I definitely recommend this drive to anyone that needs to move and store large amounts of data that a thumb drive just cant handle yet.

I replaced my ailing computer with a cybertronics computer purchased through Amazon, it came with four 3.0 usb ports, and several other 2.0 usb ports. The purchase was to replace a motherboard that crashed. New peripherals were bought including 2 western digital Passport ultra 1 TB (both from Amazon), to back up the windows 8.1 machine. One was used by the Norton 360 program and the other using windows 8 back up (File History). I also purchased an external usb 3 dock (from Amazon), to house an internal hard drive that makes a continuous duplicate of my computers hard drive in real time. In addition, i had previously purchased an LG Super Multi Blue (from Amazon), that connects through a eSATA to 3.0 USB adapter (from Amazon). After adding an Epson 3640 printer (from Amazon), the keyboard, mouse, I had no remaining USB ports. I was tempted to purchase a Western Digital I cloud but worried about security in the cloud format. At this point, i wanted to be able to charge and connect with my smartphone and needed more ports. The Anker PCI-E box and instructions said it will instal to window 7, however i had a windows 8.1. the package was simple and the instructions was similarly so. Very to instal in less then a minute, after which i said that was it? when i turned on the computer, plugged in a peripheral, it worked even without installing the driver. Since the purchase, i moved my peripherals that where 3.0 usb to the Anker card, and it works perfectly without problems. Now all the peripherals, the multiple hard drives, printer, blu ray burner, cellphone, connects easily without plugging and unplugging. Transferring of data is dramatically faster then 2.0 usb. the pros regarding the ultra 1 tb external 3.0 is the small form factor, 3.0 usb fast connection, and the the warranty! This is important given that my previous drives failed within a year. I used the security software that came with the drive, works well enough on my computer, similar to other security software out there that require a passcode. It does what a drive is supposed to do. The color options are a plus too, since i have two of them, one for secure data other for media.

The model I am reviewing is the 1TB Black Ultra. Your experience may differ from mine. This is a review from someone using: Mid-2012 MacBook Pro OS X 10.9.3 Mavericks The Good * Sleek Design * USB 3.0 * $69 at the time of this review is a good price for 1TB * Windows users have auto-backup option * Once you format correctly on Mac this drive is a breeze to use * Very small footprint (small form-factor) * Plays nicely with time machine (Mac Users) * Comes with nice carrying bag * Allows you to lock down drive with password * Comes with utilities services bundled in The Bad * The bundled in software that I could use was slow and not very well designed * The prices of this drive fluctuate all the time (I paid $89 for this drive) * Initial set-up for Mac can be difficult for a novice consumer The Ugly * Support for WD has a bad reputation of being nonexistent Recommendation: I would recommend this drive to anyone who has used WD drives before. I have no problem using this drive but I can’t say the same for others. Also if you are on Mac research how to format the right way if you have never done it before.

WD My Passport Ultra 1TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Auto Backup - Black (Personal Computers) Received this 5-day free shipping even before the mailed notification - a first for me. This is all used on a very fast desk PC with the latest Win 7 and not a tablet or laptop. 1 Plugged in the cable and the HD started an autorun and tried to download a driver from MS and failed. There was no read me first in the package that said that in order to do this your PC needs to be set for automatic updates. I refuse to let any update suddenly grab a strangle hold on my PC with any update as I could be doing something more important. I also do not run either my car or PCs 24/7. 2. Next I dragged and dropped a bunch of empty folders and files and found no problems (not having installed any WD software). 3. Then I tested further ejecting media and physically removing media and then restarting - edited files and folders on the drive and found that it worked just like any other HD. (or a bunch of about a 10 USB drives I have had and used over the years. I left the WD software in place and was not bothered by more autostart software. 4. The next day M$ notified me of an update - which apparently was the missing WD driver. I took a chance and let it be installed - end of that. In the package there was the drive, the 18-inch cable a list of support phone numbers, a large carefully folded very Limited Warranty info in super small print and nothing else. Problems: There was NO Read Me First that explained that the 18 cable has a Micro USB Type B Connector for USB 3.0 that plugs into the drive end and the standard USB compatible 2.0 on the other end. I saw a 6 foot replacement on Amazon for $5.88 (Will get it with my next $35 Package). I had to use an old USB 2.0 hub and one of my old cables - happy to discover that it would provide the needed power. DEDUCT 1 STAR. There should be a notice in the package that informed the user - you have a choice of NOT using the software provided on the WD web site or that is provided on the drive. This means that it would function as any other HD and you would have to use any trusted software of your choice. ON THE OTHER HAND, You could read, study, understand and guess at WD software described in an 87-page PDF manual found on the drive only named UserManual.pdf period. (From the lousy reviews of the software - it must have been produced in a code-writing sweatshop in Deli) At the top of page 67 of said pdf it says: If you do not install the WD software, you should install the SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) driver on Windows computers to keep the hardware popup wizard from displaying every time you connect your My Passport drive to your computer.” I did no such thing and have had NO such problem. Perhaps the M$oft driver did some good - who knows or who cares. FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUCH NOTICE AND WASTING CUSTOMER TIME DEDUCT 2 STARS. I have installed 677GB of music, multimedia, documents and pictures with NO issues and expect none with the remaining free space of 254GB. Would I buy this again – with my two star rating? Absolutely, since I now know what to expect do. I depend completely on the Amazon reviews before considering buying just about anything. I look for less than 10% of one star ratings compared to number of five star ratings. The Amazon Most Popular label - also seems like an excellent guide. I then read most of the one and two star ratings first - to see what I would likely expect to encounter. Computers are just a tool and not an end in itself - in my book.

When I worked for a former employer in Austin TX in the 1990s we had an expression - Backing up a computer is NOT an option! That axiom is as true today as it was in 1991. Additionally, a technical support representative from Buffalo Technologies made the recommendation to me five years ago that the more valuable or important that the data is, the more back ups that you should have. This relates to data redundancy. I am a tax preparer and have about eight separate back up devices in my office. WD continues to produce reliable storage devices. I purchased the 1 TB version of this product which coincides with the HDD capacity of my desktop computer. The WD software that comes with this product is very user-friendly and intuitive. Initial configuration is relatively simple. It connects to an available USB port on your PC and virtually no intervention is required by you after the initial set up. My configuration includes regular queries for software updates and when available, they have all been seamlessly installed. In a nutshell, this is an excellent and very wise investment for anyone.

I wrote this glowing review below and only hours later I went to do an update of an existing backup and it is not working (or if it is, its going so slowly that it will take days to backup * FIVE GB * - which is ridiculous. It took less than 5 minutes to do the initial backup, and now that Ive connected the passport to my PC to update the files already backed up, its been going for over an hour. Same data (just a couple of edits on some excel files), same USB port, etc. For 5GB of data. You can copy / paste to the drive, but the whole reason I liked it is because I thought it would backup changes for me. Sigh. ******************************************************************** So easy to use! I was dreading picking out a new external hard because I was sure I would experience some awful technical issue and end up buying my brother a plane ticket to Atlanta just to help me backup some music and photos of my kids. But the WD Passort Ultra is really fast and easy to figure out. You plug it into the USB 3.0 port if you have one (it will say SS = Super Speed) or any other USB port if you dont. It does its installing new hardware thing and then the notification pops up that the device is ready to use (I use my Passport using Windows 7 and Windows 8). You go to My Computer, double click on WD Apps Setup, follow the prompts and after a minute the WD Smartware is installed on your PC. You then double click the WD Smartware icon and you can set your preferences. I chose continuous backup, but you can also set a certain day of the week and time to have your files backed up. I dont intend to keep the drive plugged into my PC while I work, this way it updates right away when I plug it in. For the backup scope, I chose the advanced setting. It says this is for experienced users, but all it asks you to do is select the folders you want to back up. I selected my Document, Pictures, Videos & Music folders. If you need your email backed up or anything that is not in a central location, you might want to use the default setting. You click enable backup and it begins backing up the folders youve specified onto the Passport. I use this drive to backup personal documents on my work PC and all doc/photos/videos/music from my personal PC. I can view them by viewing the folders on the drive and opening the WD SmartWare.swstor folder. There I see a folder for each of my PCs and if you drill through into those folders you will see your backed up data. You can do all kinds of other fancy things (versioning, etc.) but Im just trying to keep it simple. I bought the Amazon basics case for it, and its perfect, holds the device and the cords.