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

My recently purchased Western Digital Passport Ultra 1 TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Automatic Back Up is really very amazing. You know how products that are advertised will say theyre this or that, then when you get them home, turns out the product is not only not living up to its advertised standards, but the company doesnt support you when the product does not perform. And the product will put you threw so many configuration changes youll wish you could throw that product as far from you as you can. Well this Western Digital Passport Ultra 1TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Automatic Backup is really the Mercedes Benz of USB Back- Ups for my Lap-Top (and I love Mercedez Benz cars). The minute I plugged this product into my Lap-Top, it instantly backed my files up, no question, no configuration laborious instructions. It did it so fast, till I had to make sure that what was going on by simply checking just went on and configured on my digital USB backup. As some of you know, Ubuntu (Ubuntu problem child) will be making changes to their OS service on July 31, 2014, I was concerned about backing my files in preparation for Ubuntus changes (talk about Ubuntu changes- a real headache) – well! I can forget worrying now in my file back ups on my Lap-Top. I highly recommend Western Digital Passport Ultra 1 TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Automatic Back Up – no fuss, no muss, no hassles, just plug it in, and it does the configurations file backups spontaneously. Really great product by Western Digital.

**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.

WD My Passport Ultra 1TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Auto Backup - Black (Personal Computers) Received this 5-day free shipping even before the mailed notification - a first for me. This is all used on a very fast desk PC with the latest Win 7 and not a tablet or laptop. 1 Plugged in the cable and the HD started an autorun and tried to download a driver from MS and failed. There was no read me first in the package that said that in order to do this your PC needs to be set for automatic updates. I refuse to let any update suddenly grab a strangle hold on my PC with any update as I could be doing something more important. I also do not run either my car or PCs 24/7. 2. Next I dragged and dropped a bunch of empty folders and files and found no problems (not having installed any WD software). 3. Then I tested further ejecting media and physically removing media and then restarting - edited files and folders on the drive and found that it worked just like any other HD. (or a bunch of about a 10 USB drives I have had and used over the years. I left the WD software in place and was not bothered by more autostart software. 4. The next day M$ notified me of an update - which apparently was the missing WD driver. I took a chance and let it be installed - end of that. In the package there was the drive, the 18-inch cable a list of support phone numbers, a large carefully folded very Limited Warranty info in super small print and nothing else. Problems: There was NO Read Me First that explained that the 18 cable has a Micro USB Type B Connector for USB 3.0 that plugs into the drive end and the standard USB compatible 2.0 on the other end. I saw a 6 foot replacement on Amazon for $5.88 (Will get it with my next $35 Package). I had to use an old USB 2.0 hub and one of my old cables - happy to discover that it would provide the needed power. DEDUCT 1 STAR. There should be a notice in the package that informed the user - you have a choice of NOT using the software provided on the WD web site or that is provided on the drive. This means that it would function as any other HD and you would have to use any trusted software of your choice. ON THE OTHER HAND, You could read, study, understand and guess at WD software described in an 87-page PDF manual found on the drive only named UserManual.pdf period. (From the lousy reviews of the software - it must have been produced in a code-writing sweatshop in Deli) At the top of page 67 of said pdf it says: If you do not install the WD software, you should install the SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) driver on Windows computers to keep the hardware popup wizard from displaying every time you connect your My Passport drive to your computer.” I did no such thing and have had NO such problem. Perhaps the M$oft driver did some good - who knows or who cares. FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUCH NOTICE AND WASTING CUSTOMER TIME DEDUCT 2 STARS. I have installed 677GB of music, multimedia, documents and pictures with NO issues and expect none with the remaining free space of 254GB. Would I buy this again – with my two star rating? Absolutely, since I now know what to expect do. I depend completely on the Amazon reviews before considering buying just about anything. I look for less than 10% of one star ratings compared to number of five star ratings. The Amazon Most Popular label - also seems like an excellent guide. I then read most of the one and two star ratings first - to see what I would likely expect to encounter. Computers are just a tool and not an end in itself - in my book.

Update, 3/7/14: Amazon wont let me update my review on the older Passport model, or I cant now find that review, so this update covers it, and also has relevance to the Ultra, originally reviewed below. This update will be very important to Windows 7 users. Presumably Win8 will have the same quirk. Here goes: when I first hook up the Passport or Ultra to the machine on Win7 (I refuse to use Win8), sometimes it wont register in Windows Explorer (later named File Explorer). But the drive will be detected in diskmgmt.msc as unallocated. You will be asked to initialize it. DO NOT do that, if you want the files on the drive (driver, backup files, etc). Just back out. THEN, hook up your machine for Windows update, or even invoke it manually. You should then get the very same WD SES driver that you wanted to use, but Windows wouldnt recognize it. The update will list this driver as an optional update; note the file name, and accept it. I know, because I just did what Im telling you to do, except that I made the horrific mistake of initializing the drive, and lost the files. So I had to format the thing. No problem, really, Ive got a backup of those files from another 1TB purchased. If you dont, then search in Win7/8 for that file name, and BACK IT UP. Frankly, this is the first time Ive had this experience in Win7, but then these last two drives purchased were silver ones from Warehouse Deals (for $30 off, listed as like New) -- so they might have been wiped. Gorgeous things. Brilliantly packaged by Amazon. Im going to buy two more. :) For heres the secret with these drives: you can partition them, and have the partitions CLONED, but the remainder, as extra filespace or backup. So on one drive, you have the best of both worlds. Now of course everyone will tell you never have only one backup -- okay, but then you can CLONE THE WHOLE DRIVE using some other, less-used machine, to make your second copy, rather than go through it piecemeal again. For any kind of cloning process takes a while, when large. I use Macrium Reflect 5 Pro for this. You might prefer some other software. Clonezilla is a great choice, too, see my review on its CD, here in Amazon. I now have 12 (or more?) of these WD Passports (in black, silver, red); 2 of which are the Ultra, reviewed below. I just love them, but the above quirks (and too the cord), will remain. Its not WDs fault: Windows wont allow the driver to install in the normal manner. I dont recall having any trouble with Linux Mint 13 or Fedora 17 recognizing them, either. Original review follows, below. ==== Just like all the other 3.0 USB WD Passport drives, this one has a nuisance cord and that too-bright light. If you ever saw those keyring lights which are thumb-operated tiny but too bright to look at, then you know what kind of too-bright-light I mean. Great for the keychain. Not so great for a drive. LED would have been better, especially if mild green (no red or amber, please). Comes also with a pouch that easily snags, a cross between nylon sack and satin. Shoulda been neoprene. But, you can use it for other things. Like, covering up the Perixx dedicated Peripad Keypad sold also here in Amazon. Pouch fits it perfectly. That way you protect those nifty keys from dust. Drive doesnt need any protecting like that. For it, you can get kitchen liner, though I like to cushion my external drives within big old ladies leather wallets. Theres room for the peripherals, extra SD cards, even paper clips. Cord too stiff, so you cant easily position the drive to avoid the light searing into your eyes; cord not long enough for the best deployment of the drive, which is to hook it up to a HUB MONITOR, so the power supply is not the computer. So buy the Tripp Lite 3.0 blue superspeed cord (3ft, sold here in Amazon), or I suppose some other one (but dont go for cheap, if you want durability and predictability). I did that, and my blue WD Passport Ultra works just fine. The Ultra emits much more vibration than its earlier cousin the WD Passport. The Ultra is maybe 20% thinner, too. I got a pair of blue Ultras on sale for Cyber Monday. Not sure Id buy them again, as the earlier cousin is heftier (I have four of the older ones, now maybe a year old, all are fine). The lighter the drive, the more problems it will have; but thats a guess. Will edit out this claim if it proves wrong. Bear in mind that most monitor hubs are 2.0, so you wont get the 3.0 throughput. Your computer must also have a 3.0 port, for that high throughput to work. Most computers dont have them; even if you get a separately powered 3.0 hub, it also wont operate at high speed, if the computer itself doesnt have the same 3.0 USB port for the powered hub. All that being said, the throughput is reliable. I have a 3.0 port in one of my laptops, and yes, its faster then. Else, you get 2.0 speeds. Important: the problem with larger external drives, is they need power. So you cant just expect your computer to support all that size when the drive itself is not separately powered. So you must hook up the drive to a separate hub, be it on a monitor or hub you buy, that itself IS powered. If you dont do this, your WD Passport wont always work. So dont blame WD, as some reviewers have. Blame ignorance, and then correct it. One more hint: WD is like a Ferrari or Jaguar; it needs TENDER care. Dont bump it. For extra protection, I line these drives either by putting the white plastic packaging they came in, underneath; or, lay underneath some fruit foam (after all, its Christmas) or camp foam or even kitchen drawer liner (the squidgy waffle kind that sells in varied-color rolls at Walmart for $4, or maybe even here in Amazon, I didnt yet check). That way, even if you bump the table the drive will stay put. (I swear by kitchen liner, for all electronics. That, feathers, and unused makeup brushes.) Finally, the WD SES driver will be needed. Usually in XP or Win7, this need is detected, but sometimes not. Eventually, if not detected, though the drive still works, sometimes it will seem NOT to work. In that case, use the driver. Microsoft knows about it, and will install it for you from its online driver base. As for the WDs own included software, I dont use it, so have nothing to say. Like the other reviewers noted, it comes with an ADVERTISEMENT for Dropbox, not actual cloud storage. (Did you know, you have 5GB of free cloud storage right here in Amazon, anyway.) Id rather use SD chips, pen drives or external drives, than the cloud. So cant comment on the Dropbox deal.

I did a careful product analysis before I purchased this product. Looking for additional highly portable storage I had originally looked at installing a hard drive in my laptop optical bay using a spare 500GB 5400RPM HDD I had laying around. Unfortunately another laptop had a hard drive failure and it became necessary to use that spare drive as a replacement for the failed drive. At that point I was no longer sure how to proceed. The last time I shopped for external storage was 5 years ago. I bought a WD My Book at the time. 2 years later the enclosure took a nosedive but the drive was still good, needless to say that drive got transplanted into a new enclosure and is still running fine today, problem being it is pretty large (3.5 form factor), has its own power supply, and not very portable. So going into this process I was looking for something powered only by a USB connection, and preferably smaller than a thick trade paperback. Well, I was in for a bit of a surprise. The new portable drives were about as big as my iphone and all were powered by USB connection. Big plus for me. At that point it became a maximum dollar to storage to quality equation, with a optical bay HDD still being an option. Since I could do that for $65 or so and use an older 250GB HDD I had laying around that became a base line for my budget, however I wanted at least 500GB since I am busy backing up my media library, and wanted it handy for travel. Essentially the more storage the better. Speed was not so much of a factor, raw storage was, and since I run a machine with Ubuntu 12.04 the various manufacturer provided apps and encryption software for Windows or Mac were a complete non factor. So basically the biggest bang for my dollar is what I was looking at. Upon further research I discovered the best storage range was definitely items in the 1TB range. Not only were they the same size as 500GB solutions, they only cost roughly $10 more. 2TB solutions were thicker, and the price jump was much larger. 1TB it was. I narrowed it down to three choices. The Seagate Backup Plus, the HGST Touro Mobile, and the WD My Passport Ultra all priced at roughly $70. So why the Ultra? It fit all my requirements, had a smaller form factor, lighter weight, equal storage, similar price, best benchmarks, and I have had great luck with WD HDDs in the past. It arrived yesterday, took one minute to set up and less than half an hour to get all my data transferred. It is very quiet, and gives off very little heat. Pretty sturdy construction. I will definitely update this if any problems occur, but for now I got exactly what I was looking for, quickly, and at a great price.

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~

I wanted an external drive for my Macbook Pro. I was looking for a good looking drive that was small, had USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt connectivity and one that didnt need an external power source. Of the drives that fit my criteria, I was drawn to the Western Digital drive because of the form factor, the price and the brand. This drive looks good. It is fairy small, about the size of an index card and a little large than .5 inch tall. The drive has a small white LED on the front that lets you know when the disk is being accessed. It comes in a variety of colors. I loved the both the red and blue versions because I was simply tired of the blacks and grays. I know it seems odd to be concerned with how the drive looks but I think you should get pleasure from the things you see and use all the time. When you see this drive you should not only see something that is technically competent but also something that is pleasing to the eye. I have experience with Western Digital drives in a number of internal applications over the year and have never been disappointed. This external drive has been in use since January and I am completely satisfied. It is very reasonably priced. It is quiet and stays cool to the touch. It has USB 3.0 connectivity so it is zippy. A thunderbolt 2 connection would have been great since my Macbook supported it, but those drives were hard to find at the time and I didnt think it was worth the extra money for just a thunderbolt connection. As far as throughput spend are concerned, USB 3.0 has max throughput is 5 Gbps, Thunderbolt is 10 Gbps and Thunderbolt 2 is 20 Gbps. USB 3.1 will be also 10 Gbps.

I really like this. I was expecting it to be a little larger, but the small size makes it very easy to carry around. Its about the size of a smart phone. I had a question about the software and emailed customer service, who responded within a few hours, so that was a good experience. I do need to buy some sort of a carrying case for it though, as the little fabric bag they give you with the device wont protect it at all other than from getting dust on it. The speed of the drive is adequate. I schedule mine to backup my files every other day. I make sure the drive is plugged into my laptop during the scheduled time and it takes care of itself. The only problem I have with the software, is that when you allow it to choose which files its going to back up automatically, it doesnt tell you WHICH files they are, it just gives you a general description. I chose this first, since it backed up some system files and then I had to search for them on the new drive to find out what they were. After that, I scheduled a manually selected backup from then on, as I keep all of my photos, music, documents, etc. on a separate partition of my laptop hard drive and thats what I want to make sure I back up. I can back up the system once a week manually. So far, no problems. UPDATE: I had decided to use discs to back up my PC, as I wanted to be able to specifically choose which files on my hard drive to back up (such as photos and important documents) and formatted this external drive to use with my Xbox One. I backed up games from my Xbox One and put the drive inside of the cabinet that my tv sits on and its been sitting there since 2015. I got it out today and tried to access it 3 different Xboxs, but none will see it. I checked it in the Disk Management program of Windows and it says the disk is DEAD. It clicks over and over (the click of death) when I connect it to my Xbox. WHY cant we buy reliable products from large, multi-million dollar corporations any longer?? Its been sitting in one place for the past 3 years, nothing should be wrong with it. What really ticks me off is that I just purchased another WD external hard drive. Thankfully, it has a 3 year warranty and I purchased an additional 2 year data recovery plan with it before I knew this drive was dead as a door nail. Ill never buy another one.

All of the external hard drives I own are the Western Digital brand, and this one is by far my favorite. I love how small it is and how quickly I can move and save files. As a college student, time and backups are essential. I work with Pro Tools and in it comes, massive amounts of files and file backups within its own project folders, and my teachers always say if its not saved in three places, it doesnt exist -- that said, I love that I can trust this little thing not to crap out on me whenever I need to use it. Plus, I like that there are different colors, it helps not to lose it and also distinguish which is which if you use multiple, like I do. Lastly, because I had a difficult time getting a straight answer for this -- It does work for BOTH Mac and PC, but youll have to configure it for Mac, which isnt a terribly hard process at all. You can easily search for a tutorial or have someone show you, if you dont already know how to do this. As far as price and how broke college students roll, Im incredibly happy I made this investment. It was worth every penny to know that I can get my work done without worry.

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.