Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Midnight Black)
by Western Digital
|
Our Price: $246.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $129.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Midnight Black)
Customer Review: Beware Partitions and Bundled Software
Summary: 1 Stars
DON'T BUY THIS DRIVE. I've purchased many WD Passports in the past which worked well, but I bought this drive today and will return it tomorrow. WD created a hard partition and bundled software that cannot be removed, erased or formatted. When the drive is used with Mac or Windows machines, it is recognized as two separate drives and no attempts to reformat the drive can remove these excess programs or partition (other than an low-level reformat with a hacking program, but doing so renders the drive permanently unstable and thus likely to lose your data). If you reformat for use on a Mac, then the resulting partitions will cause a conflict if you ever need to plug the drive into a Windows computer. Reformatting on a Windows computer gives similar problems with a Mac. This is all due to WD's need to bundle some rather useless software on their drive. WHEN YOU BUY THIS DRIVE, YOU ARE BUYING SOME QUESTIONABLE SOFTWARE THAT CANNOT BE REMOVED FROM THE DRIVE AND WHICH RENDERS THE DRIVE UNSTABLE IF YOU NEED TO SWITCH BETWEEN OPERATING SYSTEMS. I am very disappointed in this Passport, which would have been a great product if WD had not seen the need to 'hardwire' their bundled crapware into it. The help-desk was not able to give a solution, and a program available on their website to 'fix' this problem does not work - it only masks Windows computers from being able to detect the second partition, but does not remove it and allows the instability problems to continue if switching between platforms.Customer Review: This whole product line has been unreliable
Summary: 1 Stars
I had some trouble with their previous products in this line, along the lines of premature failures and having to reformat the disks every few months.
I somehow thought that the new product would overcome this. However, after three months with the one terabyte device it, too, won't connect to either of two Windows computers where I have the drivers install. Lights blink and their special driver software flickers as if it is going to recognize the drive and then doesn't. LIghts continue to blink.
Even if it were working I would not recommend it due to the hokey interface software. I was just looking for a simple USB disk that I could plug in and use. Instead I got this thing that originally looks like a read-only optical disk. After you let it self install there is a WD icon in your the notificztion area of your system tray forever, whether or not the disk is installed. When you plug it in the software grabs it and you have to fight with it to keep it from initiating an automatic backup. Eventutally you can just use it as a connected drive, but you have to go through the same drill the next time you plug it in.
It's great that they have so much storage in such a small package. It would be greater if the software weren't so poorly designed and the hardware lasted more than a few months of carrying it on business travel.
I cannot recommend this product to anyone and am hoping to get my money back from Amazon.
Customer Review: A Disappointed WD Fan
Summary: 2 Stars
Before getting into this review, I'd like to point out that all my desktop hard drives are WD drives, and most of my portable hard drives are also WD drives. That's what makes this product so disappointing, because I really love WD drives as a rule.
However, I cannot in any way recommend the My Passport Essential SE line of drives. It has nothing to do with the embedded apps that so many other people complain about, but instead is because of how unreasonably slow these drives are. The problem appears to be a ridiculously overachieving power management scheme in which the drive platters spin down after just a few seconds of inactivity. While I appreciate that this will save power, it just makes the experience of using the drive painful while you have to wait a second or two every 10 photos or so as you're looking through a folder for the exact photo you're looking for.
Transfer speeds, once the platters are up to speed, is normal for a USB drive. Video files stream just fine...but refreshing the thumbnails in the folder to find the video you want can take 5-10 seconds (drive spinup time + Windows thumbnail refresh time).
These delays were bad enough that I returned the 1TB drive I bought, but unfortunately I'm stuck with the 750GB drive since it's past the return date.
Western Digital, I hope you address this issue--I hate giving my business to someone else...
Customer Review: I should have listened
Summary: 1 Stars
As the subject line says, I should have listened. I've been a fan of the Western Digital "My Passport" line for years - I've never had one go on me. However, I backup and store a ton of data, so was pleased to see the 1TB model come out. I bought 3 of these to backup and store data from 2 Macs, 1 Windows. I deleted the included software, and loaded up. These drives have NOT been jostled, as they are backup drives and sit more or less forever in a drawer, getting used (gulp) less than once each month. When I bought it, I read about the problems with the micro USB connector, but figured WD had been good in the past. MY MISTAKE.
After maybe 15 uses, one of my drives is flat dead. IF I sit holding the connector in with a great deal of force, I can get it to work (until my hand gets tired) and the other two now need a bit of manipulating to get them to work. While micro-USB may be the standard for cellphones, it doesn't seem to work at all on external drives. I'm hoping I can find some of the 500GB drives with mini-USB connectors and get some of my data transferred before they go belly up on me.
I did contact WD, and got a nice "send it in and we'll replace the thing if you've got your date of purchase" but I don't. And I am so soured on Micro USB that I won't do that. If anybody knows how to replace the micro USB with a mini USB, I may try that to get the thing working again.
Customer Review: If it we're for two major flaws this would be a great product.
Summary: 1 Stars
This is my fourth WD external hard-drive. I like Western Digital. I thought I would love this hard-drive. A passport-size 1 Terabyte hard-drive!? How can you go wrong... In fact, I didn't think a company could screw up so bad on a product like this. But WD did it! How? Two major flaws;
First, the adware. Not found on my other three WD hard-drives, but found on there new essentials line. Theoretically you could have lots of fun with this adware and really organize your files. But I have a mac, with time-machine, and didn't want to bother. Plus I know how to create new folders and organize my out stuff. So I went through the arduous task of trying to delete it, which took several attempts and lots of time-wasting research.
Second, and the most important reason why you should NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. WD changed the connecter piece to the hard-drive to a less universal, smaller, weaker connecter. It is an extremely flimsy connection and if my hard-drive is bumped while attached to my computer it will be disconnected and my screen will read "hardware not properly ejected." WD made a huge mistake. It renders my whole hard-drive almost useless, because I could be using it one second and the next it could be disconnected because of there new terrible design with the connection cord. If it we're for these two major flaws this would be a great product. But it's not, so don't buy it.