 - Box Contents - My Passport Essential 250GB Portable USB Hard Drive, USB 2.0 cable, Quick Install guide
- 250GB Hard Drive Capacity
- Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive; you just plug it in and it's ready to use. There is no CD to install; the included software loads from the drive the first time you plug it in
- Powered by the USB bus. No separate power supply is needed
- This ultra-portable drive fits easily in your pocket or purse, weighs only a few ounces, and holds tons of valuable data
List Price: $129.99
Lowest Price: $93.75 
Product Description: Pack up your office files and take them home, carry thousands of songs or pictures, and synchronize files between home and office and encrypt everything on the drive for added security. These elegant portable drives are simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter - they are powered directly through the USB cable. Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-03
Loving it so far...
To make doubly sure this review is tied to the correct product, as I have noted reviews for slightly different models in the same series seem to be shared across all model types, it refers to the Western Digital 250GB My Passport Essential in black.
This was my first external hard drive purchase so my newbieness will be apparent from the rest of this review. The first thing I did when I got it out of the package was plug it into a USB hub. Nothing happened. Not recognized. I figured it wasn't getting enough power - which I learned from reading other's reviews, not from a manual that WD incidentally doesn't include in the package - you can't get to this until you actually install the hardware (it's a PDF file on the external drive)- so a star comes off for not including a quick start guide beyond a small square of paper that essentially says "plug into computer. launch wdsync.exe". It wasn't QUITE that easy.
I then called Western Digital support and spoke to a friendly rep who confirmed I was not getting enough power from the hub, which I had already figured out during the short wait it took me to get through to someone, and the device was recognized as soon as I plugged it into a USB port on the back of my computer.
Anyway, while the rep helpfully offered to send me a second free USB cable so I could power the drive directly from the hub in the future, he also said it was impossible for me to use this as a back up drive for all my programs and files. Huh? Isn't that what I bought it for? I decided that he either didn't know what he was talking about or maybe there was some language barrier or I was an idiot..so I tried the sync software first and it seemed to be working..everything looked to be copying over, but when it signalled the process was finished, I found nothing stored onto the drive. I have no idea why.
At that point I simply selected all my files and folders and dragged and dropped them all into the new drive folder. I immediately got a window saying it was copying and would take 183 minutes, and about ten minutes later I came back to check on the progress and everything was there. Everything. All files and folders copied over very fast and seemed to miss nothing. I'd like to point out that the device was connected through a 1.1 USB hub on my Dell Dimension Desktop, which is running XP, and this process was FAST! I'd been worried about this after reading many reviews complaining about what a slow process it would be to backup everything with only a 1.1 USB hub but I didn't experience this. Maybe because I only have 20GB of disk space on the desktop to begin with.
I couldn't believe how quick and easy this was and actually kept rechecking that all the files and folders - including my entire iTunes library, photos, and documents..were in the Passport drive and not in another file folder. Then I realized while I had copied the iTunes program I had somehow forgotten to select all song folders, and when I went back and dragged those in the process indicated it would take an hour, so that's more believable. I am new to this whole process of transfering files but seem to remember somebody telling me that if you copy over iTunes but not the source files, when you open iTunes from the external drive it'll be searching for the song files and won't find them.
Now that this is all out of the way, I am very pleased, even though I've only owned this a couple of hours, but so far so good! Rating:
Date: 2008-06-29
Great Space/Cost ratio
For starters this product has a great cost benefit, almost 30c per Gigabyte. Additionally you'll find some interesting features, like Outlook backup that will amaze you; more on application power than in presentation and front end.
Anyway, a great device, I hope it'll last in a healthy way until I buy some other with 5 Terabytes. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-27
Very good drive
This is my third Western Digital Drive. It's very reliable and never clash. No questions why I bought it 3 times already, It's good. Buy it...and you will not regret. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-22
JUST WHAT I WANTED
This is just what I hoped for. I thought I would have to increase my USB port, but glad I did not buy the attachment. We leave for the winter, and it will not be necessary to take all the CDs. It works out great. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-21
Western Digital Passport 250GB
I've had my WD Passport 250 GB for 3 weeks, it is a great little hard drive that just sits on the back of my computer and is ready when ever I need to back up or retrieve anything. I love that it is always on and doesn't need a separate power cord, I already have two full power strips under my desk!
It replaced a Teac unit 3x the size with only 160 GB that would always get fried if it was turned off or came unpluged while the computer was on, which happened 3 times, so I'm loving this compact WD unit.
Paul B |
