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

4.5/5 PROS: - Great Price - No plugs! - Small (Can fit in your pocket) - USB 3.0 support - 1.81TB of storage CONS: - Not really plug-and-play as the quick set-up guide suggests (Used on Windows 7) - Not easy to eject in Windows I really love how portable this device is, its very small and easy to carry around. I have a WD 1TB mybook, and its a lot less convenient in comparison. My Passport Ultra is just much more enjoyable to use as I dont have to plug it into another wall socket. The 1.81TB of storage is excellent and provides enough space for most people, however, many may question where the other 200GBs of storage went. In case you were wondering, the difference lies within how hard drive manufacturers calculate bytes vs how companies such as Windows calculate bytes. This isnt unique to this hard drive as every storage device is calculated this way. I really enjoy using this device, my only real gripe was that it wasnt really as easy to set up as the instruction manual suggested. According to the quick-set-up guide, the device is supposed to open with a setup window as soon as you plug it in, unfortunately this didnt happen for me (using Windows 7). Instead, the device requires you to assign it a letter before you can format it, luckily theres Google to help figure out this process, but I think you shouldnt have to search (beyond an instruction manual) to figure out how to properly set up a device. One other annoying thing is that this hard drive isnt read as an external storage device on Windows 7, so it cant be ejected simply. Im sure there is a way to eject it, Its just not as simple as right-clicking it and selecting eject. Those are minor issues that youll only have to figure out once, so after that the hard drive is excellent! Im constantly using this device to transfer storage from several computers and also as a second backup. Its very convenient, I dont regret this purchase at all~

First of all, I had wanted to purchase the non-ultra version of the WD hdd, but it seems they have phased out that version and consumers are now left with no other alternatives.. Prior to this, I had 2 other 1TB non-ultra WD hdd and Im no computer geek, so Im not going to go into the extent of comparing the speeds of transfer between this new ultra hdd and other hdds. I bought this hdd cos i ran out of space in other hdds, and as a storage device, this 2TB ultra hdd works as it should. In fact, WD is the only brand of hdd that I have trusted thus far and I had bought 4 other external hdd from wd, starting from way back in 2008 and Ive never had any problem with their hdd. In terms of build and appearance though, while the non-ultra version I purchased previously had their silver and blue color coming directly from the material used to make the hdd, the red color from this ultra version looked to be just a sticker that could be defaced in the future. Im someone who takes physical appearance of my purchased products rather seriously and this new design feature will take some points off my review score. Another reason why this ultra hdd only receives 4 stars, is that based on previous reviews of this product, I was expecting my purchase to come with a free soft pouch. But that is no longer true for my case and now Ive had to go through the trouble of purchasing another pouch...

**Please format this drive prior to use. Otherwise, it will store all your files as read only** This makes a good backup drive especially if you know how to dabble in Windows DOS (xcopy) or Linux/Unix xterm (cp) commands. The backup software that comes with this device is, quite frankly, unamazing. I certainly wouldnt trust it with my precious data either for a proper backup or restore. I personally use this device to backup all my documents, photos, and music. I wrote a specialized xcopy script which I run in my Windows 8.1 task manager. Most people wouldnt know how to do this (especially because not everyone knows how to dabble in DOS). You can still backup your files manually using Windows Explorer to MacLinuxUnix File Manager. The read/write performance on this drive using my MacBook Pros 3.0 outlet was uninspiring. Copying a 50mb music WAV file took around 2 seconds each. So that makes it around 25mb/s in write performance. The read performance, in my opinion, was even slower. I am hesitant to make that a firm conclusion since reads are usually faster than writes for hard disks. My guess is that the disk is probably running at 5400rpm. Overall, the overall disk performance was satisfactory but certainly not excellent. Since USB 2.0 can still transfer far faster than 25 megabyte/s, I would think this disk would have been just as fast if it was using USB 2.0. So for those with only USB 2.0 connections, I would say this disk would work just as well as those using USB 3.0 ports. Another quirk of this drive is that every file I store using Windows shows as read only on my Mac. I tried to override this using NTFS privileges (give everyone full control) but something overrides it. So I couldnt use this as a shared disk between my Windows and Mac since my Mac can only read the files and not make changes to them. Pros: 1)Compact and can store lot of data (mine is 1TB version). 2)Reasonably good backup device with sufficient performance for almost every consumer. 3)Works well with DOS, Windows Explorer, MacLinux Xterm. 4)Having only USB 2.0 connectors will not hinder the performance of this disk since its read/write speed is way below the maximum USB 2.0 threshold. Cons: 1)Backup software is unremarkable and I am not sure if I can depend on it for reliable backup and recovery. 2)Performance is merely satisfactory. I get only about 25megabyte/s for writes and even less for reads (I am not sure why). Still, this is more than enough for most consumers. Just dont expect cutting edge hard disk performance. 2)Mac OS reads everything copied from Windows as read only. I cant override this with NTFS permissions. So OS interoperability is quite poor.

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.

Well Ive had this external drive for about six months and so far I love it! Ive backed up all of our music, pictures and documents from our computer and my cell phone & mp3 player, as well as my husbands music & videos from his iPod. Together we probably have over 10K songs. Having added all of that, we have only used about 8 GB of the 1 TB available! Lol Ive not had any issues with losing information. It was easy to set up. There were no issues with it being compatible with my computer, which is an older Dell Dimension 2300 running Windows XP. I like that you can set it to constantly back up your documents so that I dont have to remember to do it! Have not use any of the software that came on the passport. The only qualms I have with it is with the program, which is a bit sluggish when you try to open it and also the GUI of the program is not easy to understand. Also the USB cord is extremely short. Otherwise Im pleased with this device.

Let me start off by saying the drive itself is great. Backups up quickly and efficiently and there is a wide range of options...BUT there are some lacking features. Many other reviews tell you what it can do, I feel you need to know where its lacking. Lets begin with and issue that will affect novice computer users. This drive comes with a tiny one page pamphlet. The graphic shows you to connect the drive to your computer, then theres a little graphic of a book and a web address. You need to go to the document section of their website. From there, you locate the manual for your drive. Going by their pamphlet, you need to be connected to the internet at the time of your initial install. This is not always an option for everyone. But heres the thing, if youre a Windows user, click on MY COMPUTER, then click on the MY PASSPORT drive, you will find a directory of User Manuals. The instructions should state this. Once youre in the user manual, you discover that you only needed to run the WD APPS SETUP file, which you access in the same way as the manuals. Already youre doing more work than necessary. A simple sentence of connect drive to computer, open drive folder, double click WD APP SETUP file would have saved some aggravation. Once the software is installed on your system, you can access the help menu within the program, which is very user friendly. There are a few software items I dont like. You have many choices on when to schedule your backup, (daily, weekly, monthly, immediately) except on a certain DATE of the month. Say, I want to back one of my systems on the 1st of the month. Not an option. You can choose the first Monday (Tuesday, Wednesday, etc) of the month, but not a specific day. I also would have appreciated a confirmation screen or at the very least, a status bar notification that told me my drive actually performed the backup. Even a little notification that the drive is currently backing up would be nice. And as I discovered, a blinking light on the drive does not necessarily mean its backing up your computer. To ensure the drive is actually backing up or to confirm a backup has completed, you have to open the WB SmartWare software and click on the Backup Tab. If its currently backing up files, you will seeing a copying files message on the top of the screen. To confirm a backup, you need to click on the clock icon located near the bottom of the screen. This will tell you your Next Backup, Missed Backup and Last Backup. BUT, I had a daily backup set for 5PM and the drive wasnt connected at the time...the missed backup never appeared on the list. One might argue that it didnt log the missed backup because the drive wasnt connected. My argument is you should NEVER keep your backup drive continuously connected. If a virus hits your computer, it hits your Passport Ultra too. Ive already been there, done that with another external drive, hence the reason why I always disconnect. The hardware is great and I love the drive, BUT I have had to help a few older, less tech savvy people set this up and explain how to double check their backups. Theyve all asked the same thing...why doesnt it tell you when its done? Bottom line, it an awesome little drive, but the software leaves a bit to be desired. Would I recommend it? Only to people who have a modest amount of tech knowledge and who dont mind extra clicks to double check their backup.

This is my 3rd WD Passport style external drive over the years and all still perform great. This one is the 2TB unit BTW. As many have indicated the software continues to suck but I never use it anyway except for the security utility. I prefer to drag and drop to create my own back ups as that is much easier to move to another PC anyway. I am running Windows 7 and all appeared to transfer at what I consider to be acceptable transfer speeds (measured in hours not days). I set up about 500GB to transfer overnight and it was done before I got up in the AM. This unit is actually more compact than my older 500GB unit but does not come with a case. If I need a case I will use one from my older 500GB drive. Having the 2TB gives me way more flexibility as my Laptop is only 600GB and about 5 years old but still performing well (HP Pavilion). I take tons of HD Video which is a major space hog as many of you know. Hope this helps give you the basics that I am always looking for in these reviews.

I just received this drive on 2/14/14 and have had an opportunity to work with it a bit since then. I got the Ultra to replace a 2TB external portable e-Sata drive that had died. Fortunately I had another identical/redundant e-Sata drive that I used to copy all the data to this WD Ultra. All in all I copied around 400GB and what I found was very interesting indeed. I have a Lenovo W510 which has e-Sata, USB 2.0, and USB 3.0. That enabled me to compare apples and apples and oranges to oranges when it came to transfer/copying speed. Using the e-Sata drive and the WD Ultra hooked into the USB 2.0 port of the W510 I got copy/write speeds around what Id expected -- 14MB/sec, +/-. When I then switched to the USB 3.0 port the speeds doubled -- to an average of 28MB/sec, +/-. It varied slightly depending on the size of the files, but overall, I was able to confirm that the speeds definitely and consistently doubled using USB 3.0. I was very pleased. Some notes: 1. I was not interested in any of the software included with this drive. All I wanted was a hard drive that Windows would recognize and nothing more. So the first thing I did after plugging it in was copy all the included software to another partition (as a strictly precautionary measure in case I ended up needing any of it, which I did not, btw). I then reformatted the Ultra, effectively erasing all of the included software and/or programs. I double checked to see if there were any hidden drives, and I found none. (Its possible that if Id installed all of the accompanying software a virtual drive might have been created. But after reformatting the drive and not installing anything, all I got was a nice big storage drive, which is exactly what I wanted.) I then created two partitions to suit my needs -- a large one around 1.5GB, and a smaller one around 300GB. 2. I did not use the included USB 3.0 cable. Instead, I used THIS cable:

As a disclaimer, I am only reviewing this hard drive after having it and using it for less than a week. This is more of a first impressions/ease of use review right now. I will make sure to update in the future with its long term reliability. This unit comes with a USB cord, instructions, and a small black pouch to keep the drive in for storage. The pouch is really thin and cheap feeling and wont protect against anything other than dust. So I basically ignored that and havent used it as all. To backup your files could not be any easier. You just plug in a USB port (it works in either 3.0 or 2.0 ports), a little blue light starts flashing indicating the drive is powered on. The faintest spinning noise is present in the drive, but it is so low you have to put your right next to it to hear it. Then you just begin the normal backup operation for your computer and everything is done automatically. It was literally one of the easiest things Ive done on a computer. After completion, just unplug and store in a safe place. The unit seems to be well built, with an all metal construction and seemingly quality construction, so my hopes for reliability are high. It comes with a 3 year warranty, so if something does go wrong, at least you can get your money back. I will provide an update at the 6 month and 1 year marks and let you how the unit is doing. But until then, there is nothing to lead me to believe that this isnt a great external drive.

Loaded mine up with a bunch of movies and use it to tote around and plug in to watch on the go.