WD 1TB Black My Passport Ultra Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBGPU0010BBK-NESN

This backup drive does exactly what it says. No complaints, Perfectly satisfied, though it may not be as fast as advertised on some systems, including mine. On my computer, which is a 2014 era 1.86Ghz ASUS with 4Gb Ram, the process is a bit slow, even on a USB 3.0 slot. I used the included software to backup about 45 Gigs of documents, photos, and music for an initial trial. It took about 90 minutes for 45 Gigs. Thats about 1 Gig per two minutes, far from what some users report at 5 Gigs per second. This was on a USB 3.0 slot. So, just to warn you ahead of time, it may be pretty slow on low performance computers. Especially for large back ups. You can schedule backups hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly automatically, and the backup software that is included in this drive will update any information youve saved on your computers hard drive in that span of time. This is really convenient for me as a writer. I dont have to manually back up my files anymore. If Ive been working on a long file like a book for over a month, I can back up my whole document on the first backup, and then it will back up just the part Ive written since the last backup, in subsequent backups. For instance, I did my second backup today, and it was just 13 Megs of information that Ive added since my initial 45 Gig first backup. This second backup took about 40 minutes total. Backing up information can be done in the background if you want to work on other things while it is taking place, which makes the included software convenient. Just click one button for each subsequent backup, or if you have the Western Digital drive attached, it will backup at the specified hour, day, week, or month that you want to backup, automatically, with no click of a button.. You can initially choose which file paths and folders you want to backup. You dont have to back up your computers whole hard drive in automatic backups. In my case, I chose just Documents, Photos, and Music. As other users have hinted, the files are backed up on the Western Digital drive in a special file format with different file extensions than the source file on your hard drive. They appear in a bin folder on the Western Digital hard drive. Though not that obvious, they are still easy to find. Restoring backed up data is basically one click of a button as well, using the software included. I have not tried restoring data as yet. However, if you would rather back up your files manually and exactly as they are on your computers hard drive (same file names and extensions, etc.), you can do so just as easily as with any other USB drive. Simply copy the files directly to the Western Digital hard drive using your Windows File Explorer, like you would with any USB drive. Just out of curiosity, I copied my 45 Gigs of files manually a second time, not using the Western Digital backup software, but Windows file explorer instead. The process was painless and easy since Western Digital drive is formatted in NTFS, just like most computer hard drives. It only took 2 minutes for my computer to copy 45 Gigs of files directly to the Western Digital drive using Windows copy feature rather than Western Digitals software. This was on a USB 3.0 slot. So, it easy to use this drive with the included software, or just as a supplemental hard drive saving to it like you would any USB drive.

Overall it is good product. Failed after over 2 yrs (almost 3 yrs). During these years, I have to let windows repair it and re-format 3 time to re-use it. At the end, I download hard drive tools form wd site to test. The tool said it good, passed but can not performed the extended test. Bad tools.

Got this just in time after my Windows 10 installation. If I did not know Windows 10 can raise hell with your computers USB 3.0 slots, I would have thought I received a defective product. Anyways, once I fixed my USB 3.0 issues, I found this hard drive works excellent!!! I use this drive to load up Movies and TV shows, and plug this in to my Smart TVs USB port. Large files transfer easily and quickly, and it works perfect. Just keep in mind, if this is how you intend to use this product, dont use the included encryption software. Your TV wont be able to play whats on it if you do. I may be lucky, but in all my years of being a computer geek, I have never had a Western Digital hard drive of any type fail on me. I trust this product, and I am sticking with it.

This model is the 2015 generation of the many My Passport drives Ive owned or purchased for clients. They have proven reliable and good performers. They have incrementally improved with each new generation. BOTTOM LINE (for the impatient): The new model is a little bit faster than last years and adds a 3TB and 4TB model. This My Passport Ultra has a more attractive satiny finish and there is now a white model to fit in better for Mac users. Otherwise its almost identical to the older model. If these differences are not important for you, you may want to get this or

Very nice. I use it as an external backup for my small email server on a Windows 10 machine. I enabled BitLocker for full disk encryption on it and connected it via USB port and enabled Windows File History backup on it. So far works really well. CON: One downside is that if you have an older computer, Windows XP for instance, this drive will not work with it. I learned it the hard way. Luckily I had another (newer) computer to use it there instead. CON2: The drive does not have a power supply. Which is good if you want to save space and a wire clutter. But it is also bad if your USB port is underpowered.

This is by far the smallest external drive Ive ever owned. Its roughly 4 x 5 x 0.5 inches and easily slips into a carry on bag or laptop bag. The USB 3.0 cable looks very different from the USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 cables Ive used on other drives and needs to be stored with the drive -- which means it wont fit some of the cases advertised for it like the Lacdo case I bought for it. If you are going to get a special case, get one that is a full 6 inches long by 5 inches wide and 2 deep so you have space for the cable too. I love the magenta colour; definitely catches your eye so you are less likely to lose it or forget it when packing. I bought this for overseas travel and I expect great things from it. Do be aware that file transfer speed depends on the source you are downloading this to/from. Overall I am very happy and would consider getting more if the price and colours are right.

This is the first time I have ever bought an external hard drive. Did not really know what to expect from this thing but gave it a shot. Ive been using this thing for a while now and have not run into any problems with it at all. I was a little nervous because I used sd cards a lot and always get a notification that something is wrong with the card or that theres a card reading error or something like that. However I have not received anything like that with this thing. I am into media and music so I use it for storing extra project files, movies, videos, and pictures that I am working on. I use it between my surface pro tablet and laptop a lot but have not run into any errors or complications what so ever. I take very good care of it so it is always in my backpack or at home. I never dropped it so I dont know how sturdy it really is but seems like it was built with good quality in mind. It looks very nice, small, and is very light and easy to carry around. Overall a great buy.

I bought this to archive and backup my laptop as I travel, and to store store videos ripped from my DVDs. Ive been on the road for 8 months, and its working fine. Use it almost every day to watch videos. While Im not equipped to do any real speed testing, I have seen transfer rates of better than 80MB/sec. Ill buy another one. My video collection keeps growing. Update, July 2017: Just returned from extensive travel. Carried this drive all over Europe. Still works fine. Did have a cable failure. Drive will not work at all on USB 3.0 port, but will work on USB 2.0 on an older computer (at the lower USB 2 speeds). Swapped cables and the drive works fine on USB 3.0, so its only a cable fault. Still, disappointing reliability on the cable (but not the drive itself).

Pro: cheap, usb powered Con: ENCRYPTS EVERYTHING, NOT VIABLE FOR PORTABLE STORAGE. First, understand that an automatic backup function is critical to any backup storage device. It means that as you make changes to your computer, the program monitors them, and makes the appropriate updates to the backup hard drive. So if you have a folder of thousands of images, and you add 10 photos, the device will then backup those additional 10 photos. Not having auto backup means you would have to remember every change you made to your computer, and manually go to the hard drive and copy the files there as well. Auto backup is absolutely standard and expected on any device. Obviously with 1TB of data, you cant be expected to keep up with all the files and changes. The MAJOR problem is this.... If you are doing automatic back up on this device, it encrypts everything. That means the files are 100% useless on the harddrive unless you plug back in to your computer and go through a very very lengthy decryption process. You cannot just plug this drive in somewhere and view the files like you would on the computer. The files are broken down, split up, and are no longer usable files. The only way to make this a portable storage device, is by manually placing files on the drive. With 1TB of data, that is unreasonable. Hard to explain, but just know that this is NOT a good option for having a large portable storage device. You need an external drive that has an option to NOT encrypt everything.

This drive is exactly what we needed. My son has a MacBook that he wanted to configure TimeMachine to backup and he needed a target drive. We plugged this one in, reformatted it (it came formatted NTFS), and told TimeMachine to use it. Done. Power is supplied via the USB connection, so there is just one cable to connect to the MacBook. As long as he connects it to his laptop every few days, it stays up to date and were all good. We didnt install any of the WD tools or anything. Were just using it as a simple backup target, so I am not sure about any of the other features. Time Machine will encrypt the drive on its own.