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

I ordered 2 WD Passport Ultra 1TB Portable external USB 3.0 Hard Drives with Auto Backup. The first drive worked properly on a new Dell 15-3521 Laptop running Windows 7 Professional, but when I tried to use the second WD Passport external drive on another Dell-3521 Laptop running Windows 7 Professional it would not install if the USB 3.0 cable was plugged into any USB 3.0 port on the Dell Laptop. After swapping drives and computers and cables around, it became apparent that the USB 3.0 cable that came with the second WD Passport Ultra HD is defective. The drive will install and be recognized on either computer only if it is plugged into a USB 2.0 port which defeats the purpose of having a high speed USB drive if it cant work at USB 3.0 speeds. Either drive will work with either laptop at USB 3.0 speeds on USB 3.0 ports if the non-defective USB 3.0 cable is used! All I really need is a replacement cable that works, but since Amazon.com LLC filled the order, I have not figured out how to request a simple replacement for the defective cable without having to return the entire order. I could use some assistant! Or, I can order another USB 3.0 cable which should solve the problem! I hope I hear from someone at Amazon about this!

Well, Why 5 Stars: USB 3.0. Im just starting to use my USB 3.0 port... And I copy all my stuff almost 400gb incluided music, videos, movies, documents, etc... in about just minutes! not hours like old times just minutes. Not even half and hour.. more about a 15min I think was it. Blue: I really like the blue color. So when I looked this color Design I knew that I would really like it. What else? 1Tb of a Top High Brand Manufacturer like it is Western Digital. They are PRO in what they do. Many years in the business aprove it or I think so haha. Security. Even when it have a software of keeping a track on backups, I just have the option that when you plug it to your pc is prompt an Autorun and no Disk appear: You most Autorun the security Software and insert the password otherwise you CANT, read well Can Not access the Disk information. I like this option. So if i lose my backup No one can access my data. And if you forget the key... damm. Better have a good memory, all for security reasons. Insert the password (with remember option for the current pc) and the drive will just appear. Like that. I really Recommend This product and no.. no one is paying me to say this. Is that I think that is a great product of a great company for a essential need: Save all important stuff that u dont wanna erase Ever. And the 1 Tb because I think is the average for most people and great capacity. I recommend that if you buy a Portable External Hard Drive, buy that one at least 60% more than you are gonna backup. For various purpuses: 1. You are not going to spend money in another one in near-medium time. 2. You have enought space to keeping downloading stuff, creating data , music , videos, documents, and stealing music or games from your friend..and 3. We always want More. Haha. I also recommend two of these. Yeah. 2 !. well. that for even more security porpuses. One that your gonna save alll your stuff that never will erase... you keep this in a safe place, where is the important documents of family etc, and the other is where you are gonna work with and travel around, backup here backup there.. You are going to work.. take the bus.. go to work... work indeed.. backup your stuff like always and returning home...someone steal your bag... you lose all the data? no. You just lose the Recent one that maybe it still is in the actual hard drive pc. but the important ones like family pictures.. music collected from year to year, Family videos.. software that u dont know where to download it again... or heavy ones that you will take years to download again.. are Safe.. at your home. Nothing no worried about. That steal the bag oh damm.. yeah but Who return all your working in collecting that data.. over the years.. and that time spent? No one does. or maybe yes... Time Machine! Last recommendation: When you guys are going to backup some data, take the time to stay secure that there is no viruses o malware or strange virus that may compromise the entire drive. See u around. I expect that this review help you in a way or another. =D

This hard drive is a hardy little workhorse! Bought it almost a year ago, and hasnt failed me yet. I formatted it in Ex-FAT, allowing cross-compatibility reading and writing across Mac and Windows, without the restriction of the 4GB maximum file size. This conveniently allowed me to store my legally obtained HD and Blu-Ray copies of my favorite movies on the hard drive! Many people dont know about thiThis hard drive is a hardy little workhorse! Bought it almost a year ago, and hasnt failed me yet. I formatted it in Ex-FAT, allowing cross-compatibility reading and writing across Mac and Windows, without the restriction of the 4GB maximum file size. This conveniently allowed me to store my legally obtained HD and Blu-Ray copies of my favorite movies on the hard drive! Many people dont know about this new file formatting option. I went home for the week and somehow both the Weimaraner and the Golden Retriever, both puppies one year old (so old enough to do some damage) tore through the entire case, and chewed up the corner where the USB 3.0 plugs into the hard drive. After thinking that the entire endeavor would be hopeless, I still decided to give salvaging a try. The part where the USB 3.0 plugs into the hard drive was dented and squished, and there were random white parts of what looks like paper stuck inside hole. I poked around a bit with a pen and cleared out the hole, and plugged in the cable. To my complete surprise, the little blue light came on and started blinking, and the hard drive started spinning. The thing works. I mean what the hell? Fantastic, I just ordered a replacement.

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.

good solid-state hard drives for permanent data backup UPDATE! many years later the drive failed. that sucks a lot it was a lot of work collecting all the data and putting it onto this drive. Ive learned and done some more research that the operating temperature of this drive in solid state drives in general needs to be climatically controlled to cooler temperatures. this was not exposed to wrecks sunlight it was in a safe dry place in a drawer in my house. I live in a dry climate in Colorado apparently when the ambient temperature gets into the high 80s or 90s it is in the danger zone for the solid state drive and that probably caused the failure. really disappointed but thats information I did not know hopefully it helps someone else. keep these in temperatures below 80s. I use this for many years backing up so many of my old hard drives and SD cards and even some old data cds. would definitely recommend solid state back up hard drives for everyone easily connected to multiple devices through usb.

The low cost for the 1TB drive with USB 3.0 transfer speeds, and the small size of this drive are the reasons I decided to purchase one to backup my Windows 7 PC and store movies, music, photos and documents. I liked that it had an automatic backup feature and was excited to get started using it right away, as the directions were basically plug n play. Unfortunately I found that after an easy setup; installing the software that is located on the drive, the auto-backup feature would not work for me. I made sure the USB 3.0 port on my PC was working, and I also changed out the USB 3.0 cable to make sure they were not faulty. I updated the software and was given WD SmartWare Pro version 2.4.12 software version as an update (setting it to automatically update in the future). You can set the drive to backup specific files or categories of files, on a scheduled frequency (daily, hourly, specific days and hours of the week) or whenever anything changes it automatically is supposed to update in the background. I was able to choose a specific category like music and get it to quickly transfer via USB 3.0, but if I checked more than one category, the software stalled and wouldnt transfer files. Certain categories Documents was one for me, would stall in the backup process, while others flew right through. You also have the option to backup to Dropbox, which works OK, but its not as fast as the USB 3.0 transfer speeds even with 60 Mbps high speed internet. The Backup software does not work as expected, which is disappointing as its such a great selling point for this drive. Despite the software issues, youve still got a compact, high-capacity drive at a great price. I intend to research a bit more about the software and try to solve my issues with this product. Im going to try it out with a Windows 8 PC to see if theres a difference. Maybe the Pro version update is to blame? Whatever it is, its a frustration and a the reason I dropped a star from my review. The build quality of the drive, the speed with which files transfer via USB 3.0 and the price are all good, but as stated the software may be a bit buggy for you.

I recently started going through all old home videos and pictures, and aggregating them onto my home (RAID mirrored) server. I bought this little (physical size) hard drive for one reason: to backup that data on the server. While the data is mirrored on the servers hard drives, those two hard drives are in close proximity and are susceptible to failure from external sources (electrical/thunder, water, fire, etc). The reason why I paid more and went with a small hard drive (2.5) as opposed to a full-sized hard drive (3.5) was for the ability to store the hard drive into a safety deposit box. Now if you do some research, hard drives arent great for long term storage that is disconnected. If you attempt this method I add the caveat that you should connect the hard drive to a machine once in a while. I personally plan on updating the files every 4-6 months. But C.Rogers, why would you do this when there is cloud storage!?. Simple, privacy and speed. Cloud storage is over the internet and subsequently is limited by the fastest upload speed your internet provider gives you. It is further limited by any bottle-necks the data hits along the way to its destination. When youre talking about backing up terabytes of data, this is already a turn off as it would take a huge amount of time (a week or more?) to upload initially. Granted after that it can do incremental back ups that wont take nearly as long, that leads me to my next problem, privacy. There are two aspects I worry about, non-encrypted transmission and legality/security of the service (who really owns the data on their servers, and how secure is it really?). Does the service provide the ability to encrypt the uploads and downloads so no one in between can look at my data? Does the data stay encrypted on their servers? When push comes to shove, who owns the data once its on their servers? Finally how secure is the service from being hacked? While all these questions have answers that would probably sway me toward cloud storage, the fact that they exist at all means there are far more variables than Im comfortable with. More variables mean higher percentage of problems arising from unforeseen scenarios. You know whose going to hack this hard drive when its not in my possession? A bank robber. Done. You said its fast? How fast?. To that I cant comment fully as I dont have a machine with USB 3.0. Best I can offer is USB 2.0. To that end I can mention that Im getting an average of 20 megabytes (not megabits*) per second writing and about 27 megabytes per second reading. Compatibility: Confirmed working on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2007 without issue. Construction: Feels solid, nice little rubber pads on the bottom. Still a hard drive though, I wouldnt go dropping it. Noise: Church Mouse status Bloatware: Minimal. It comes with Western Digitals management and back up software installed (totaling 254 MB on the hard drive). I imagine I could delete it, but I see no need. In fact I might need some of it in the future. Additionally, its not in your face as soon as you plug it in. There if you want it, but silent if you dont. Other notes: The wire it comes with is about 12 inches long. If this is your first USB 3.0 device, be aware that it is a different wire than USB 2.0 1.1 and 1.0. While I believe USB 2.0 and previous micro wires will work, you will not get USB 3.0 speeds. Thus if you need a longer cable and want USB 3.0 speeds, you will need to order one separately. tl;dr: +Great hard drive for a reasonable price. +Small enough to store in a safety deposit box. +Speeds of 27 MB/s read and 20 MB/s write on USB 2.0. +No real bloatware, just additional utilities included on the hard drive totaling 254 MBs.* +Pretty quiet. -USB 3.0 cable provided is only 12 long. *did not use the auto or cloud backup options, can not comment.

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.

I was deciding on either a 2TB from WD or Toshiba. I read reviews from reputable websites for both externals, but the WD My Passport Ultra seems to be just a little bit faster and more recent. With this in mind, I went with the Ultra over the Toshiba over Black Friday even though it was about 15 bucks more expensive. I also considered the aesthetics, and I like the design of the top of the drive. Even through research before receiving the product in hand, you cannot predict some aspects. I am rating this product four stars instead of five for three reasons: It may be a bit faster in some instances, but I did not notice it compared to my old 1 TB My Passport from 2010 which also uses USB 3.0. Number two, the build quality could be a lot better. When assessing build quality now for electronics, I always run a finger along the edges of the product where one external shell casing meets the other to look for abrasive edge contact. In this case, the My Passport Ultra uses two plates, and the user can feel the abrasive edge contact when handling the drive. This is not exactly poor construction in that it will fall apart. In fact, it seems to be built quite solidly. I simply feel that it could have been made a lot better. For future drives now, I may look for one entire external shell. My final criticism concerns the thickness of the external drive. It is a lot thicker than my My Passport from 2010. I keep on perceiving this thing as a brick in external drive form. I dont know what went inside to make it more thick from my previous drive from Western Digital, but I hate how it is so much thicker. Perhaps this is a consideration by the manufacturer after consumers reported damage from their previous drives that were not built sturdily enough. In conclusion, this hard drive works like it should, and I bought it at a good value. My complaints may be minor to some, but I would reconsider my decision in retrospect.

I have been a loyal Western Digital user for years. Every hard drive I have ever bought has been WD. This drive had many negative comments describing drive failure and poor customer service. I wrote it off as other people doing things wrong. After 6 weeks of use (only about 6-18 hours a day), the drive suddenly failed. One afternoon it began making the clicking noise hard drives make when they fail. I immediately disconnected it, and let it cool to room temperature, even though it was only around 100*F when it died. When I plugged it back in later, it started up and allowed the Unlock program (which is hosted on the drive itself) to run and accept my password. It will then display a newly attached drive connected to my computer, but no information will ever load about it (capacity, free space, etc.) even if I leave it for two hours to sort itself out. The WD drive utilities program only gives an unspecified drive failure error code. Put simply, my drive failed with no warning. Shortly after the drive failed, I contacted WD via their websites forms. The next day I received an email outlining my two options, both of which were for a same-item replacement. I had had a long, rough day at work and didnt feel like explaining why I didnt want a replacement, so I saved it for the next day. The next day (19 hours later), I received an email stating that since they were unable to contact me via email that I was going to receive a phone call from them. I replied and said I did not want a call, and that if I wanted to talk on the phone I wouldnt have used the website, and said I would contact him later. I quickly got another email telling me my case had been suspended until I was ready to deal with it. Highly irritating. When I emailed and explained why I didnt want to trust my data to a device that had already failed on me once and countless times to other users, I was told there was nothing else they could do for me. Do not buy this drive. The best portable drive according to several reputable consumer electronics reviewers is the Seagate Backup Plus, which is only $10 more than this one. I am ordering one on payday. I suggest you look at one of those instead. Do not buy Western Digital. I never will again.