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

Hey Amazon community, I recently purchased this and as an avid lover of WD, this does not disappoint. The transfer speed is great when at 3.0 - I get about 96-100mb/s or if youre on 2.0 I get about 20-26mb/s. Now mind you, thats using a software called Teracopy so your mileage may vary. I like this drive because you dont need an external power source for it, so to me its just a huge flashdrive. Now before I get called out on that, I know, I know.. its like one, not that it is one. I bring this up because I pondered how I seem to like 3.0 flash drives yet.. This seems to do the job so very well and its got a lot of storage. I formatted mine to NTFS because I can transfer single files that are over 4gigs without the restriction of FAT32 telling me that it cant transfer the file so thats something to keep in mind for when you have a hard drive. I take this everywhere with me and overall its an awesome product. Im just a PC user as my current macbook is in the shop so I never got to test this on a mac yet but its not a problem to get this going. Extremely easy set up right out the box, no hassles, no complaints.

Im used to external HDDs that are about the size of spiral notebook, and about an inch thick. Or the size of two bricks placed side by side. Thats what I was expecting when I ordered this. I didnt mind because I wanted a drive that had a good capacity and that was USB 3.0 so I could try out the new 3.0 jack on my new laptop. Ive never owned a USB 3.0 device before this one. Needless to say I was blown away. I was expecting it to be delivered in a box the size of a small microwave oven (Amazon tends to pack things that way). I was actually a bit pissed off when I saw that the package was a MANILA ENVELOPE! However, when I opened it and saw how frickin tiny the drive is, I changed my mind. This thing is small enough to fit into my back jeans pocket. Heck, this thing is SMALLER THAN MY CELL PHONE!! Of course, I own a Galaxy Note II, but hey, its still a sight to behold. Ive done only a little bit of performance testing so far, but its about twice as fast in the USB 3.0 port as it was in the USB 2.0 port (40 MB/sec vs 22 MB/sec). I used CDM 3 to benchmark it; and below are the results: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s] Sequential Read : 112.099 MB/s Sequential Write : 110.528 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 41.950 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 57.537 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.535 MB/s [ 130.5 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.453 MB/s [ 354.7 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.598 MB/s [ 146.0 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.486 MB/s [ 362.8 IOPS] Test : 1000 MB [G: 0.0% (0.4/931.5 GB)] (x5) Date : 2014/02/28 21:18:42 OS : Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64) Greater than 110 MB/second sequential data transfer. WOW! Im quite pleased with this...I even splurged and got the blue version. Quite happy with this thing.

Great Drive and Great Backup Software --- I couldnt be happier with this thing. Its small, light and durable. I bought red just because I wanted to see it better. I dont have great vision. I do a lot of video editing and I end up filling up my 500MB latptop drive fast. I wanted something that I could move all my finished media files to, and this does a great job of it. But what surprised me - and in a good way - is how nice the backup software is! Once you figure it out, its a piece of cake, and way better than the software my other backup drive uses. However, the instructions for the software stink. So do a YouTube search on how to backup with WD SmartWare. Theres an especially good video that walks you right through it. UPDATE: 9.28.15 I now have two of these drives for storing my video work. I have them hooked up to a Thinkpad W520 laptop/ workstation. I labeled the drives based on the colors (red and gray) to make it easy to know which is which. My whole system is backed up onto the red one, and Im using the gray one for storing my tons and tons of video files. Probably wont be long before I get another one. The key thing to know about these drives is they just work. Theyre like a Toyota truck (and thats as high a compliment as I can give anything!). I had problems with a couple Seagate drives in the past, so I dont trust them anymore (theyre like a Ford) :-) Anyway, if youre looking for a great drive that wont give you any problems, get these. And get different colors so you can tell them apart!

Works as advertised, easy to set up. My only concern was that it initially took over an hour to do the original backup, and the software doesnt have a progress indicator to show how its progressing. I was VERY tempted to call customer support, but I left it running for over an hour and when I came back to the computer it was done. Of course, subsequent backups only use recently modified files, so they are almost instantaneous. I have the software set to automatically back up my files daily, which is more than enough for what I am working on. The only other comment Ill make is that the software could be more user-friendly. Most buttons have self-explanatory words on them, but the most useful button has only a clockface icon on it, again making it confusing to use and leading a novice (like me) to be a bit frustrated. Once I understood how it worked I was quite happy with it. Noiseless, never fails and plugs into a USB port in the back of your computer. Also, files may be OPTIONALLY encrypted. Lastly, the software allows you to restore files to your existing computer OR to another one if your original one is down (this is important).

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...

Let me start my review by saying that I am your average reviewer with a solid understanding of technology but I am by no means an expert. The best review of this product has already been written by gravemind At the time that I am typing this review, Graveminds review was second from the top when sorted by most helpful Read that review.... it will answer many questions that I didnt even think to ask when I bought this. Okay, that said, heres my review.... I am giving this 5 stars based SOLELY on the fact that these store my photo files and have done so without incident for a few years now. I am a photographer with an insane number for photo files. I own about ten of these drives in both 1tb and 1tb sizes. I also own drives from other companies. I import my photos using lightroom and have them go to two of these drives. If I was smart I would have a third drive hooked up just to be safe, but alas, the USB ports on my current computer died a couple of years ago so I am somewhat limited. I know, I know, I could plug in a 3.0 hub. I just havent done it yet. So these drives store my photo files and they read and write very fast. I am almost afraid to type that I havent so far gotten any read or write errors because now probably my whole system will go to hell. Still, for now, theyre great. I have never managed to get their backup system to work for me and I suppose I should deduct a star for that but frankly I never really planned on using their backup system. It would be nice, but I cant at all figure it out. BOTTOM LINE: if you need solid feeling and performing backup drives and you dont much care about the bundled software, these drives are a five star experience. If you are looking for the software as well, look elsewhere.

Though slightly thicker in physical size than the Seagate competitor, this hard drive has nearly the same width & length & does fit nicely in a hardshell case. It also features a light that blinks when data is being transferred to or from the drive: the Seagate competitor model is thinner & the light on that model remains lit when the drive is powered. I was able to hook up the drive to Windows 7 right out of the box. The hard drive arrived exactly as described & worked perfectly right out of the box. There is some security software that Ill probably never use which comes preloaded, but not activated, with the hard drive, for which a warning in the user manual stipulates that a lost passwords cannot be recovered with the security software and renders the data on the drive unaccessible. So, I don t think the security software will get used & to me it presents a little overhead thats noisome. But the hard drive includes less noisy preloaded software than drives of yesteryear and performs beautifully, being backward compatible with USB 2.0 & Windows 7. Great product if you want or need extra disk space.

I ordered the drive to run several VMs for school. I needed a drive that was fast, had enough room and was portable. This drive meets all those needs. The drive connects quickly to my laptop running Windows 8.1 and any of the computers at school running Windows 7. I have not had any driver issues when connecting to these PCs or needed to downloaded any separate drivers other than the ones Windows automatically loads when the drive is plugged in. I havent done any official speed testing on the drive, but when transferring bigger files it is consistently reading and writing at speeds over 100MB/s. Much better than my cheap Kingston flash drive writing at maybe 5MB/s. This drive is much quieter than my other drives too. This drive comes with a short micro USB 3.0 cable with a single male USB connector. I have an older USB 2.0 external drive that came with a cable that had two USB connectors on it. This was used so the drive could get more power; some USB ports especially on laptops dont supply enough power. So far I have not run into any issues with this drive needing more power than it can get from the single USB connector. I even tried connecting the drive to a USB 2.0 port on my laptop and it worked fine, although slower of course (USB 2.0 has a lower power rating than USB 3.0, 500mAh vs 900mAh). The short cord is useful when needing to travel with the drive, but I may find at some point needing a longer cable. I bought the titanium gray colored drive, but after seeing the black one in person and comparing them side by side, the black one looks much cleaner. As for the actual housing, I think WD could have made the case a bit more sturdy, theres a some flex in the housing when squeezed. Not that I feel like the drive is going to fall apart, but it feels a bit hollow and plasticy, compared to my older all-aluminum Iomega drive. The case/cloth bag it comes with isnt anything special, but it keeps my drive and cable together while it is in my backpack, which is all I need it to do. I definitely recommend this drive to anyone that needs to move and store large amounts of data that a thumb drive just cant handle yet.

All I wanted was a rugged, high-capacity outboard hard drive to store certain files on--and I wanted one that was powered from the USB cable. This little Passport Ultra 2TB drive does the job perfectly, in a snappy, rugged, businesslike package that seems to be of very high-quality construction. You get 2TB of storage in a drive that is about the size of a deck of cards. Cant beat that. The drive was ridiculously easy to install; I just plugged mine in and my HP EliteBook notebook computer recognized it within about 20 seconds. A very minor but nice point--this drive has little rubber footpads so it does not just lie flat on ones desk. A nice little touch; some drives in this class do not have the pads. The drive comes with a short but adequate USB 3.0 cable and is all ready to go out of the box. Being USB 3.0, this drive appears to be VERY fast. It is certainly noticeably faster than my older USB 2.0 drive, but I have not run any rigorous benchmark tests. Overall I am very pleased with this purchase. The price/Terabyte was pretty good for what I paid on Amazon -- the prices fluctuate all the time on these drives, but I got a good deal. I got the Titanium colored version and I really like it. RJB.

I ordered this because of recommendations from several friends. Their comments were supported by Amazon reviews. However, it took me three units before getting one that worked. The first unit was not consistently recognized by my computer. At first I thought this was caused by incompatibility between my USB 2.0 and the units USB 3.0 but there were no similar problems with the replacement unit. More problematic was the fact that during backup, not all the files requested were copied. Soon the unit stopped working altogether. I called Western Digital several times while trying to work through these issues and their service folks were very responsive and helpful. Wait times were short. When they were convinced the unit was bad, they did not hesitate to tell me to return it for a replacement. Unfortunately, the 30 day period for return to Amazon had expired so I had to return it directly to Western Digital. I was a bit suspicious as the replacement from WD did not have retail packaging and was shipped with little cushioning. The replacement failed to work right out of the box. In talking with WD I got different stories. One rep said their replacement units were new, just without normal retail packaging, Another rep implied that the replacement units were reconditioned. So far, the third unit is working fine. The unit is compact and quite. The utility software is easy to use. The WD service people deserve five stars. Because of initial problems and unproven reliability, the hardware gets one star. I recommend that you proof the product within 30 days so that you can return in through Amazon. This appears to be the only way of getting a new device as a replacement. Also, return it at the first sign of trouble. It will not get any better and you risk loosing the Amazon return option.