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

Posted publicly as Tom in NOVA Just got it yesterday. Hardest part of setup was getting it out of the box. Plugged it into a USB 3.0 port and ran Acronis to back up 320 GB in about 90 minutes. Tested copying large file fro a WD Blue 2TB in my computer, Windows 8 showed transfer rate around 820Mbps or approximately 1GBs. Doesnt equal the up to 5GBs mfr claim but a pretty good clip anyhow. Did not load any of the SW on the drive. Drive will be used as a pretty much permanent attachment to my desktop, Dont need to encrypt, pwd protect or go to the cloud for backups. I bought this drive to replace a returned Seagate desktop expansion drive that kept dropping off line. After 24 hts the WD Passport is still connected, as it should be, Most importantly, it rules out my computer as the cause of the Seagate issue.. I realize not much time has elapsed since I received and installed the drive but wanted to report a good experience, so far its all pros and no cons. I will update this review if I encounter any issues Clear

I purchased this hard drive for myself for back up and file storage. The setup is very simple. You plug it in and start using it. It includes the software you need for a Windows machine to encrypt the data. This is an important feature for a portable drive. You can lock down the files if you need to. I am currently using the drive to run Virtual Machines via USB 2.0 and there is no noticeable latency. There is not too much more you can ask of a USB drive. If it will transfer information for a Virtual machine, it should transfer any file you need in a timely manner. I really like the looks of the drive. It is small enough to fit into my back pocket or into any pocket in my backpack. The red will stand out and is shiny crimson color. If you are a computer novice or an expert this drive you can not go wrong with this one. Western Digital has almost made the best hard drives on the market and come with the best support in the industry.

I have four of these which I use for backups. They are very convenient since they are small and they run off of USB power. I do not use them as portable storage so I cannot speak to how they respond to rough handling. My oldest Passport, a 128 Gig FAT system, recently stopped working so I bought this one to replace it. The old drive is probably 10 years old, and disks wear out, so no fault to WD for the failed drive. That is why we keep backups of backups. The disk has a USB 3 interface and a standard USB 3 cable. My computer has only a USB 2 interface, and this drive works fine with it, albeit at the slower USB 2 data rate. The file system on the drive is NTFS. My computer is running Mageia 3 Linux, and the drive worked fine with it right out of the box. There was nothing extra to install (e.g. drivers). Since I run Linux, the auto-installs and auto-backup software and all that other software does not run. That is fine with me since I did not want to use it anyway. I wrote my own backup software, and I like it better than the commercial stuff. Since I do not use this drive on a Windows platform, I cannot speak to the quality of the software contained on the disk.

Great little drive. Outer construction is small and sleek. While the stylish top covering has a solid material feel to it, the base of the unit feels noticeably cheaper and more plastic-like. I would definitely not be comfortable with slipping this drive in my pocket. I decided on this unit just for the peace of mind of being able to password protect the drive. The utility is hassle free, allows you to set the drive to unlock automatically for trusted computers, and although there are ways to bypass this security feature, you can rest assured that it will keep your data safe from the average lookie-loo. Transferring assorted media files transfer rates are around 1GB/min on USB 3.0, roughly 2.5x faster than similar file transfers using USB 2.0. Drive stays cool during long read/write sessions and is fairly silent while it goes along doing its thing. I especially like the minimalistic lone LED that flashes rapidly while the drive is active and is solid when idle. Mine came with a nice soft pouch to protect the drive when not in use, but dont kid yourself, its not for transport. I cant speak to the cloud/back-up utilities that this drive is capable of because these are not features I ever planned on using. Overall I am very satisfied with my purchase. This little drive opened up some much needed elbow room on both my desktop and laptop, and I still have over a TB of data to spare. My only complaint is that the included USB cord so short it verges on useless.

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.

- R/W @ 100 MB/s [if @ USB 2 port, its port-limited to 35 MB/s] - WD reliability - Silent - This works: repartition/format as two volumes; 1 small boot-able system recovery/utilities; 1 big encrypted storage. Now for the complaints: - Unlike their legacy WD Elements SE 1T USB 2 drive, this one REQUIRES their WD SES driver install, lest you get an annoying driver-install-fail message from Windows each time you connect the drive. The drive will function [R/W] regardless, but their SCSI Enclosure Services [SES] driver is needed by their WD Disk Utilities app, which also requires installation, to set the drives sleep timer and run diagnostics. So much for portable. - Good luck their proprietary software requiring install/setup per machine, but the first thing I do w/ portable drives is clean and repartition disk into 2 volumes; boot-able system recovery and backup. Do people really put up w/ all these different backup/encryption methods for each drive/manufacturer? W[hy]TF does no disk maker go open source w/ their backup/encryption software? It may be counter intuitive, but this would instantly vault make them to industry leadership role AND bring an explosion of goodness from the OS community, at no cost to the manufacturer. Theyd steer the development and be the most compatible, so all other manufacturers would be forced by the market to yield. And current market leaders shouldnt rest on their laurels. As things are, none have yet to even match the ease and PORTABILITY of, say, that crappy little native windows app, ROBOCOPY, for backup, or open source for disk encryption; learn it once; use it for ANY and ALL storage; THAT is portability. [hint: we want to protect/backup/clone/port our DATA, not the physical disk].

The physical drive is a 5 so far using it as a continuous backup drive. Its operating on a HP Pavilion Elite M9340F 64bit, Win7 Pro with a 3.0 PCI card using Acronis True Image 2014 and WD Smartware backup software. The 4 rating goes to the SmartWare and the difficulty in getting Win7 to recognize the WD drivers. Also, Trying to follow directions in the User Guide was worthless, even the updated version. The disk comes with SmartWare version 2.6 PRO but almost as soon as the software is activated a popup indicates a new version. The new version installs as non-pro with an indicator for upgrading to the pro version, for free. The directions to upgrade are simple enough however, when the request is submitted it errors out and doesnt upgrade but it does remove one of three authorized installations. It took over a week of emailing WDs tech support, who did work with me, to get the new pro version activated. All indications are that WD has/had a Win7 structure glitch in its automated upgrade software. It appears the software needs a file that should be located in a particular structure of Win7s Program Data but it isnt. After sending WD my structure they were able to manually upgrade the software. As for the drivers, Im still not sure Windows is using the proper driver but it works so Im not going to fight it any more. I finally got Windows to recognize the drive name in the Device Manager and get the SES driver install however, details of the driver under Disk Drives in Device Manager indicates its a Windows 2006 driver. The instruction indicates using the Extras folder on the Passport to update the driver but Windows return a no drivers that match your device error. All attempts to find an updated driver failed. As said, it works. Im leaving it alone.

Im a big digital media junkie. I damn near have every show, movie, music, or piece of data on an extra hard drive. For the longest, I relied on 2 AC powered hard drives that I had gotten from NewEgg about 3 years ago. One was a 1TB the other a 500GB. These are nice options if you dont need to carry them around, which I did some times. It was a pain in the butt. Not to mention the added weight from a desktop sized hard drive, the case, cables, and the need to have a power outlet nearby. I began looking into USB 3.0 powered drives a few months back. I wanted it to be atleast 1TB, slim form, and of course, powered over USB. By chance, I found this hard drive while randomly searching around on Amazon. I purchased it instantly. Once it arrived, I hooked it up, wiped it clean and began transferring everything over to this bad boy. The transfer speeds were slow, I think that is my fault due to my USB 2.0 ports, but I didnt mind and I did this while I was asleep. This thing is awesome. I rarely remember that Im even carrying it, its really that light. The indicator light on this is located on the back(where you plug the cable in it) and isnt bothersome or insanely bright. During idle, it does a slow pulsating with more off then on. During load it blinks and flashes quickly. I havent heard any random clicks or sounds from the drive, which is really nice. The rubberized feet serve their purpose, but I can see them not having a sturdy grip. But, as long as youre stationary, I dont see that being a problem. The case itself has a nice texture that has some grip to it, feels sturdy and well put together. I got the black color, it matches my setups more than the other colors would have. The texturing gives it some depth and makes it pop, but not to much. All-in-all, Im very happy with this drive and will definitely look into another one in the future or a much larger one.

I bought this HDD to backup the files on my aging dell laptop (Windows 7). Overall installation of the software went smooth and I found the backup app to be intuitive and simple to use. The software recognized both drives in the laptop and gave me two options on how to back up data: guided or all files. The guided option will find files that fit a category (i.e. music, documents, etc) and back them up whereas the all files option will back up ALL non-system files unless otherwise specified. I ended up using the all files option as it did a better job capturing game files (such as those in the program files folder). The back up files were easy to find on the HDD. This hard drive is about 1.5 - 2 times thicker than the Seagate Backup Plus. I did not use the dropbox backup feature. My laptop has only USB 2.0 so I wasnt able to take advantage of the higher speeds with 3.0 however I have no complaints with the transfer speed or time it took to back up everything.

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.