Western Digital 160GB 2.5-inch Passport USB Portable Hard Drive
by Western Digital
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List Price: 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 Western Digital 160GB 2.5-inch Passport USB Portable Hard Drive
Customer Review: Awesome product that comes with a lousy software!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an awesome product which comes with some pathetic software!! The drive itself is very compact, stylish and works with a USB port. No need to have a seperate power input as it gets powered thru USB from your PC / Laptop. It doesn't make any noice and it is kinda small for the storage it offers. One can just carry it in his / her pocket!! I love this product!!
Biggest downside of this product is the software that comes with it. Initially, the drive did not work with Windows Explorer. I thought this works only with the WD Sync software that comes with it and tried using it. Boy!! This is one piece of junk software. It was very slow, very confusing and it doesn't work!! I was so frustrated with it that I packed the whole stuff and placed a return of the order. My friend suggested formatting the disk and try Windows Explorer then. I did that and only then whole thing started working!! It's awesome now...I just dumped the software that comes with it.
Customer Review: Worth the penny!
Summary: 4 Stars
Always wanted to get a portable hard drive. So did some shopping online and read all reviews. Decided to get the WD160GB. I got this device at a good deal from Amazon.com and it arrived on time as promised. So the first impression was impressive. This device works without any installation, use it just like any other flash drive. There's some kind of set up which takes less than a minute. So getting started is that easy. The speed of read and writing is, I would say, amazing for a drive of this capacity. Have to wait and see if this gets affected with decreasing storage size (as I load the memory with my files & documents). There's a little vibration during read & write process, but very low level that it can only be felt by touching the drive during read or write. So don't bother about other comments that claims this device vibrates. All machines however small it is will vibrate no matter what. Overall, it worth my money.Customer Review: Solid case, good drive, VERY BAD BACKUP SOFTWARE
Summary: 2 Stars
If you're proficient with computers, this is an adequate device for backing up your files. But if you are an average computer user, use the Maxtor drives instead. The backup software is not intuitive and most users will unknowingly not backup their intended files.
Strengths:
- Nice package, sharp looking
- Solid, fast drive
Weaknesses:
- The backup/encryption software is very slow and hard to use
- The backup/encryption software doesn't work well with the Vista directories
- The backup/encryption software doesn't backup new subdirectories that were created after the initial setup
- The USB cable is too short
- The device will not work on a USB 1.0 computer w/o a separate power supply
- Can't mount device as an unencrypted drive in Windows XP/Vista (must use software to copy files)
Overall, I wouldn't purchase this drive again.
Customer Review: Had issues
Summary: 3 Stars
When the drive works, it works well. I had issues with the drive not spinning up, though this was due to power limitations on the hub I had it plugged in to. Even USB Hubs that advertise USB 2.0 Compatibility do not guarantee that they will supply the amount of power required by USB 2.0. This means that this hard drive will not work for you. This hard drive requires 1 amp at spin up, most USB hubs provide at most 500mA per port, or half of what this drive needs. I had other problems where it would spin up for a few seconds, long enough for windows to recognize it as a drive and ask about autorun, then shut down. It would go through this cycle for hours if left unattended. This would result in hundreds of autorun windows open on my computer. Other issues I have seen with this drive are transfer rates dropping to 0 and clicking sounds. I have yet to lose any data and it still works so I can't complain too much.Customer Review: Solution for USB Power Surge warning on Laptops
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 Laptop (older) and also experienced the USB Power Surge message when plugging in my new WD Passport 160GB Portable Hard Drive. I noticed that since it always wanted to run an Auto-Scan or Auto-Play as soon as it was plugged in I decided to click Cancel and found that it would not turn off my USB Port after doing this. I then decided to try disabling Auto-Scan or Auto-Play for my USB Drives (I don't need that kind of help, like most of us to find our data. Windows Explorer or My Computer is sufficient). I researched the Internet and found a registry change for Windows XP Home Edition that will disable it permanately if you choose. If you choose not to make the registry change, then you can simply hold your left shift key when plugging in the drive until you hear the hardware detected alert then release the key. This prevents Auto-Scan or Auto-Play from running.