Passport Essential 2.5" 320GB USB Hard Drive
by Western Digital Retail
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List Price: Our Price: $64.99 You Save: $115.00 (64%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Passport Essential 2.5" 320GB USB Hard Drive
Customer Review: Very portable, somewhat reliable, with a few drawbacks
Summary: 3 Stars
I have had my Passport for a little over a year. It is not the same size drive, but as most of the products should function similarly, I felt like this should be very relevant.
Pros:
1) Very portable - this drive fits easily in any book bag, computer case, or on top of or alongside a computer. Since the drive runs on USB power, there is no need for an external power source.
2) Fairly rugged - My drive has been dropped, gone through various temperatures, and has spent a great deal of time riding in my backpack to and from work, and it still functions.
3) Plug-and-play for multiple OSs - This drive has worked with every OS I tried it with, including multiple Linux distros. Big plus for Western Digital there!
Cons:
1) USB-powered - I have two laptops. One is newer, and has usb 2 ports (along with a single usb 1.0 port). My older computer is a legacy laptop (from 1999), and this drive will simply not work with this computer. Since there is no external power source, the drive relies on the higher data transfer and power output of USB 2. On my newer laptop, the drive has to be plugged into the USB 2 slot as well, or else I have problems with "power failures" (this also can't be plugged into the usb 4-port, 8-port, etc expansion). It would be a nice feature to have dual power sources for those of us who need this drive for backing up or supplementing older systems.
2) Problems with supplied USB cable - a couple of months ago, the drive stopped functioning with the cable supplied. It would light up, but I couldn't hear the drive spinning, and I was fairly convinced that my drive died. It works with a new cable, and the old cable still works for my other USB 2.0 dependent devices, but the pair no longer functions. To be fair, this may be a short or "kink" in the cable, as a hdd needs a constant power supply, while other devices may not.
Overall, this isn't a bad drive, especially for the price. I didn't see a use for any of the applications provided, so I can't really evaluate their use.
Customer Review: Satisfied with Product
Summary: 4 Stars
So I spent many weeks looking for a portable hard drive after exceeding my 3rd thumb drive's capacity. I wanted a PHD (portable hard drive) that:
1) did not require an external power supply,
2) was small as possible,
3) high the lowest cost per MB, and
4) was as reliable as a solid-state thumb drive.
I read the reviews and trolled Amazon and other websites reading reviews. I kept coming back to WD PHD. There were only two things that worried me. The first was reliability. Every PHD brand had reviews stating that the device was a lemon because something - either the PCB or HD - kept breaking. There were some reviews stating the customer went through 3 or 4 devices before giving up. That's a lot of bad luck or bad workmanship. The second was the case. Several reviews claimed the case was cheap, broke easily and scratched badly. In the end the price and size sold me.
I have owned it for about 6 months and have not had a single problem with the device. Every computer (XP/Vista) that I hook it up to detects it just fine. I have not had any power problems, crashes or slowdowns.
The case on the other hand is a valid complaint. It looks great out of the box, but after just a few days of light use, the case showed every little scratch from dust, etc. I would have liked a case similar to Iomega's offering. I don't really care how it looks in the end, I am much more concerned about how reliable it is.
The last thing you should note, it comes formatted as a FAT drive not NTFS. I would strongly suggest, unless backward compatibility with Win98 or earlier is a concern, format it with NTFS before you use it!
Ohh and Amazon, as usual, had the best price, delivered it fast, and I had no problems with them. Enjoy! (go ahead push the button and order it, you won't regret it.)
Customer Review: NOT as bad as many are saying
Summary: 4 Stars
I never once saw the virtual CD others are complaining about. First thing I did was format the hard drive to NTFS file format that allows for files larger than 4 GB. It is preformatted with Fat32 that doesn't allow the larger files. This also take care of any preintalled stuff you don't want like the virtual CD. The supplements tell you where to go to their website to get document
ID 207 which explains and it only take a couple minute to reformat the drive. I realize they shouldn't put that stuff on there in the first place but is easy to get rid of.
I must have the original 320 GB model because it doesn't have the rounded off corners like the new picture. Maybe the cord is more secure on this one? Those who are having a problem with it falling off should just set it on the desk and leave it alone while they backup. If you need to walk around with it or move it around during use then maybe this drive isn't for you.
It is sleek looking and very small. Cool for sure. It seems a little slow on the transfer but I am backing up 80 GB at a time so it is not too far off from other external drives. It sure is small and compact for transfer like from your office to home.
I usually don't use software that comes with hardware. Others have reported how crappy the backup software is that comes with this unit. Do yourself a favor. Get a good backup software like Genie Backup Manager Pro which is easy to use and you can set up all the features you want in a backup and it shows exactly which files it is backing up and how the progress is coming.
90% of the complaints on Amazon for this drive are about the virtual CD software. Just reformat the drive.
Overall, this is a nice little portable HD.
Customer Review: Very easy to use with Mac
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this hard drive for Media Storage (Mac + Win) and also as a backup disc for Time Machine. The good news is that it comes in FAT32 format, which OS X can read/write. The bad news is that Time Machine requires the backup disc to be in HFS+ format (FAT32 or NTFS won't work).
However, this is easy enough to fix. I launched Disk Utility in OS X and partitioned the drive into 240 GB as FAT32 (or as MS-DOS format, as Disk Util calls it), and 80 GB as HFS+. Took less than 5 minutes for the whole thing. So now, I've got one partition for time machine, and another for my media.
Fine Print :
1. In partitioning the drive, it formats the drive first. So any free utils that come with the hard disk are erased. Not an issue for me as I didn't intend to use any of the free software. But anyone trying this should be aware of it.
2. For anyone thinking about doing the same thing, note that FAT32 does allow both Windows and OSX to read/write without the need for a 3rd party software. But the downside of FAT32 is that it doesn't allow a file size larger than 4 GB. This isn't an issue for me (I don't expect to come across many files that are larger than 4 GB each). To avoid this issue, you could create one partition in NTFS (instead of FAT32). Once you do this, you'll need a 3rd party software so that OS X can read and write to the NTFS partition. I've heard good things about MacFuse (though I haven't tried it myself).
Other thoughts...
- Nice and compact
- Fairly silent
- Pretty short USB cable (can be irritating for some. I prefer this to having a long cable dangling around).
- Wish it came with a soft case/cover (that's what I'm looking to pick up next).
Customer Review: Check your laptop specs before purchasing
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased a 320 GB drive to use as a portable device between my work Dell, home iMac, and Powerbook. My work files are large image-heavy files, pdf's, and powerpoints. Transfer speed is actually very good considering the size of the files I transfer and that this is bus-powered. It transfers happily between the iMac and PC.
In my dream world, I was going to use this drive to back up my lectures and data from my home and work computer so that I could have all my lectures with me at all times (plus as back-up in case of disaster). While Apple Time Capsule MB276LL/A (AirPort Extreme Plus 500 GB Storage) is easy to use, it is pricey and not readily portable - so in case of fire or theft, it does me no good. So, this seemed the easy solution. Unfortunately, my Powerbook does not generate enough power to run the drive from one USB port - I need to use USB Power Adapter Y Cable, which is an inconvenience and another expense. There is no self-powered option, which is fine in most instances.
Had I realized this would be an issue, I would have purchased LaCie 301370 500GB Rugged Hard Disk designed by Neil Poulton USB 2.0 Mobile Hard Drive instead. Keeping this in mind, this is a slick hard drive, very portable without any failures after several months of use. A 500 GB model is now offered, which would be a better buy for the dollar.