WD 2TB Black My Passport Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBS4B0020BBK-WESN

I tried other makes before being advised by a knowledgeable friend to forget about the others and just get a WD. Lo and behold. I plugged this beautiful baby into my phone which immediately recognized it (unlike the others) and asked if I wanted to configure it. I concurred and ... bingo. No instructions and computer connection needed. My only complaint is that it does not appear to have a safe means of ejecting it after use. I called WD about this and was informed that the discrepancy came about because the unit wasnt really designed for use on anything but a computer and that to safely eject I should shut off the phone before disconnecting. No biggie. Easy peasy. Its been a love affair from the time i plugged it into my SG S8 and saw that it was a match made in heaven. Its even more fun to plug them both into my laptop and start transferring and copying files from one to another. So cool.

I bought this to use as my primary Time Machine backup for my Mac. First thing I did was reformat, then I ended up partitioning it down the middle, and taking one of the 1 TB partitions and breaking that up into two 500 GB volumes to use as local cloud storage for me and my wife. I connected the hard drive to my Netgear router and it was super simple to mount and setup the remaining 1 TB volume as my Time Machine location. Now, every time my Mac is connected to a power source, Time Machine backs up my machine automatically and I dont have to manually connect an external hard drive like I used to.

By way of introduction, I am a bit of a data snob. Well, maybe more than a bit. Not only is my data incredibly important to me, so is the overall configuration of my computer systems. I know of more than one person who lost everything, including their on-site backups, to theft or fire. Not to mention the loss of finely tweaked and synergistic software. Loss of equipment is one thing, loss of data and their systems quite another. Since I already sent backups of my data up the internet stream for offsite storage, brilliant me decided that I should do the same for the backup images of my computer systems. Well, that lasted for one month, exactly. By the end of the month I was nail-biting as I watched our data usage soar, which ended up passing our limit by a significant margin (grimace). I of all people should have known better. Indeed, my internet provider actually called me (that was a first), wondering if I wanted a better package for downloading HD movies (grin). I tried to explain what happened, but their tone of voice indicated that they did not believe me, not even a little. At any rate, my original idea was immediately scrapped in favor of a much cheaper solution: physical hard drives. (Yes, I had that thought earlier but wanted to save some $$$….) I picked up two WD 2TB My Passport Portable External Hard Drives (what a mouthful) for my off-site backup solution. Disk image backups are placed on one drive, which is then taken off-site with my name neatly (cough) scribbled on it via a post-it note. The second drive lives on-site, gathering the most recent drive images. At the end of the week these drives are then swapped (at least for now). Presto, off-site backups. Purchasing two of the same drive conveniently allowed me to easily swap them, where the network and backup software sees them as essentially identical. Two distinct colors, black and blue, were chosen to help me, the human, keep them straight. In order to further mitigate my propensity for confusion, I picked up two similarly colored cases (an inexpensive Amazon special). As with all hard drives, time will tell regarding the longevity and durability of these. So far so good, and my data usage is back under control. I bought both drives and their carry-cases fair-and-square, and have not participated in the dubious practice of a paid review.

I presently own and use 7 of these without a single glitch or problem to date. Theyve made me a loyal WD user. Whenever I shop online for an external storage drive, I always just click the refine search to WD branded items. I used to be a loyal iomega user and all of my legacy iomega drives still work perfectly. These are a super replacement with equal quality.

It has recently come to my attention that Ive been lazy with my backups. Enter the WD My Passport external hard drive. The difference between this and the slightly cheaper WD Elements portable HD seems to be that the former is better suited for backups. At least thats what Western Digitals marketing claims. ***The good*** As an external hard drive it works just fine. Ive posted screenshots of some DiskMark benchmarks I ran and read/write speeds are largely in-line with what I see from my SATA internal HDD. All good there. ***The Neutral*** Build-quality is just so-so. It feels extremely plasticy and doesnt seem like it would take much abuse. That said, it doesnt necessarily feel fragile either. If I were regularly tossing it in a bag or traveling with it I might be concerned. But for in-house backups its fine. ***The Bad*** I appreciate simple, reliable software. Unfortunately WD Backup is a little too simple. Ita about as barebones as one can get. Its only two options are backup frequency and source. The biggest problem being that it doesnt include any option to sync instead of backup. For example, say I create a backup on Monday that includes files 1, 2 and 3. Then on Tuesday, on my PC, I delete file 2. When using sync software, file 2 would be deleted on the drive mirror. Using backup software, file 2 would remain. Neither method is better than the other, just different. However, I would prefer to sync, and not backup. In order to accomplish this one will need to acquire additional software. I find this very annoying considering a) its marketed as a backup-centric product and b) the competing product from Seagate includes software which allows for both. Finally, it didnt even work right out of the box. The backup process kept hanging up. I had to format the drive and download the latest software from WDs website. No big deal but a little annoying. ***Conclusions*** I would not buy again. Most likely, I would purchase the Seagate Backup Plus instead. Alternatively, I might purchase the cheaper WD Elements external HD and also a 3rd party all-in-one backup/sync software solution. ***My Rating Criteria*** Build Quality(47.5%) - 3.5 Stars Efficacy(47.5%) - 3.0 Stars Post-Sale Support(0.0%) - n/a Packaging/Presentation(5.0%) - 5.0 Stars WEIGHTED AVERAGE(100.0%) - 3.3 STARS

This is my second My Passport. Its easy, just plug into your computer, and thats it. I have 3 external drives (WD) i from the 90s, 1 from 20006, 1 from Christmas and they all work and have never had any problems. Ive had Maxtor and Seagate drives and had many problems. So I am staying with WD and recommend them to anyone

I cant tell you how much of a difference this fantastic product made for my PS4 I think I have a total of 19/500 GB on my PlayStation and 1.2 TB on the external hard drive that = gaming Shangri la and flexibility waiting on DL stinks and so does long loading screens. No better accessory, just buy it quit reading reviews!

I have been using WD Passport as my backup since 2015. I own two previous versions of the product (purchased 2015 and 2016), and the old ones are still working with no problems. However, the warranty is expired. I purchased two new ones in September 2019. I am unhappy with the software provided with the new version. The main reason I purchased WD Passport in the past was for the built-in password protection software, but the new software is not working. Im not a software engineer so I dont know why its not working, but Ill tell you exactly what happened in case this helps. I had a previous version of the WD Passport software installed on my computer. When I plugged in the new Passport, it offered to upgrade my software. However, the upgrade didnt work. There was a component of the old software that refused to uninstall. I couldnt get the WD password protection software to work on my new Passport, so I reformatted the new Passport and used a different encryption software that I had to purchase separately. As far as I can tell, the hardware is working perfectly to back up my files, but the software that came with the Passport was a bust. If you dont mind doing manual backups, this would not be a problem. If you rely on the software to make your backups automatically, this would be a major issue. I am perfectly happy making manual backups, and I have had good experience with the WD brand in the past, so I decided to stick with it. The hardware seems to be sturdy, because it got shaken around in a very loose box, and still worked when it got here. I purchased a second WD Passport off the same product page, but in a different color. The new Passport has a slightly different design and a slightly different cord was provided with it. I managed to get the old WD Passport software completely uninstalled off my computer, after multiple attempts. I tried to install the new software. The installation appeared to be a success, but when I ejected the Passport and plugged it back in, and tried to use the new WD Passport software to set a password, the software said that I didnt have a USB disk plugged in. Im not sure if this is because Im still using USB 3.0, and the new Passport is built for USB-C. They supplied a converter that lets you plug into USB 3.0, but maybe the software doesnt recognize the plug-in. Another possibility is that the software might not work if you dont have an internet connection. I am somewhat paranoid about some of my data, and I always back up all my computers while in airplane mode, with the wireless connection turned off, because at the present time, Ive been using the same back-up device for my public and private files. I dont use cloud back-up for most of these files. Im not sure if the software would work if I turned off airplane mode, but that wouldnt work for my needs anyway. Therefore, I will be using a different encryption software to password protect the drive, because I cant get the WD software to work for my needs. As far as I can tell, the hardware is still working perfectly to back up your files. The main delivery girl actually THREW the envelope onto my porch, and the drive seems to be okay, so it must be pretty sturdy. BTW: This is my second attempt to review this product. The first critical review I submitted mysteriously disappeared, and when I went back to edit the review with the new information, my first review simply wasnt there. So Im submitting this again and I hope it will get posted this time, to give you the heads-up on the software issue.

Just plugged it in, ran the backup utility, and set up my backup schedule. Came back later and tested single file and folder restores, and they worked easily just as you would hope. I like it, it just ticks along in the background, keeping my data safe from a disk failure. I may buy another and do an off-site rotation once a month just for safe keeping. No cloud needed, yay!

Great portable HDD. Im using it as backup to network so it is always attached and cant speak to its portability though it is quite small. After formatting for my particular needs and getting the longer cables for my install location it is working out great. Great to have tons of storage space.