Western Digital My Passport Portable Hard Drive (WDBKXH5000ABK-NESN)

When you consider it's size and preformance, it really blows your mind! I've only had this drive about a week. I'll update later to speak on how it stands the test of time. For the price (currently holding around 130 bucks) per GB of storage (1.81TB after formating and included drivers, giving you about .07 dollars/GB) you can't beat this drive! First off, this is my first perchase of a portable external. I knew the market had finally developed low consumption mobile drives that could operate purely off the USB bus and nothing else. I'm tickeled! Next, this drive operates off of just ONE USB port. Others have spoken to the fact that some portable drives connect to two ports to supply supplimental power. Inside the sealed case of this unit is most likely (though I'm not positive) a 4 platter 2.5" SATA drive spinning at 5400rpm. It's possible that it's actually a 4500 but I have no evidence one way or another. Operation is nearly silent. It's about as loud as the iPod classics, with only the faintest noise from the motor. Operation (even after hours upon hours of transfers) is luke-warm to the touch. Included with the drive is an 18" pigtail USB 3.0 cable which gets a thumbs up from me! Let's talk performance. Now I must admit, I made this transfer on USB 2.0 ports on a laptop, so many of you looking for top level rates are going to be disappointed. However as of Q1 2013, USB 3.0 is just now starting to ship on most machines and USB 2.0 is a still a market staple. So for today at least I consider this to be a real world test. I transfered 614GB of mixed files (videos 468GB, photos 102GB, music 15.5GB, and some plugins for programs 28.5GB) totaling just over 221,000 files. The transfer was from an eSATA external seagate running at 7200RPM. It completed in just under 9hrs 30mins. Works out to about a write speed of 18MB/sec. I can live with that through USB 2. The second transfer was just shy of 67GB made from my laptop's interal SATA 7200RPM HDD and totaled just less than 52,000 files. Most of which were pictures with a little video thown in. This transfer completed in 90 mins, and averaged a write speed of about 12.5MB/sec. The third transfer consisted of a folder that was a little over 93GB and just over 53,000 files (66.5GB of music, 17.5GB of video, 3.5GB of photos, and some odds and ends) again from my interal HDD. This transfer was interfered with as I forgot to disable my network connection and the PC was downloading som updates which slowed the process. However that aside, the transfer took 2hrs 5mins. The math works out again to a write speed of just about 12.5MB/sec. All three transfers were writing data to the Passport drive. I don't have any read speeds to offer but undoubtedly they will be significantly faster. Also if this helps, my laptop is a 2nd Gen i7 quad core, 8GB ram, running that 2.5" 7200 SATA disc, and using Win 7. So far I'm very pleased with this performance. The portability far out weights any limitations for my needs. And frankly speeking, this drive out performs my expectations thus far. When I have access to USB 3, I'll update my review then, but as it stands, I think this pocket drive is a winner!!! UPDATE: I've been tranfering files back to my Laptop again connected via USB 2. The transfer rate is a sustained and reasonable 20-22MB/s. However I was able to test it on my friend's new Surface Pro tablet. Connected via USB 3.0 and writing to the tablet's interal 128GB SSD, this little mosnter sustained 80-85MB/s of read speed and peaked at just over 160MB/s while transfering about 10GBs of video files. Yes, you did read that correctly, it was not a typo! Awesome for a USB bus powered 2.5" external drive!!!

As I continue to get dragged into the 21st Century - I keep finding new technologies that make my work a bit easier and the Western Digital My Passport is one of them. Being notorious for never backing anything up a few years ago I bought a 500gb "My Book" external drive by WD as well. It was the size of a Hummer, had a fan and ended up in the pile of odds and ends I never use. Fairly recently I've gotten into video editing - I'm using Camtasia which is excellent but it's resource heavy as in crazy heavy. Because I'm using a lap top with an Intel i5 and often I have many programs open at the same time - which makes my computer freeze up worse and run dreadfully slow - to render and produce a video takes hours. The solution I thought was to buy another system, however, a Tech at Dell suggested that I keep my files on an external drive as this would open up more disk space, allow me to back up my work - and do a full factory re-set because my Windows Update is corrupted. I looked around, read some reviews and narrowed it down to Sea Gate and Western Digital. The Passport won me over it's a sensational device - it's quick fix for me as the hope of speeding up is far less than expected but there is an improvement. So it buys me some before I invest in a new computer. On the other hand, the Passport makes back up effortless. It's portability is great, grab it and go - it's a terrific device: * Effortless to use. * True plug and play * No software to install * No segmenting or formatting needed * 3.0 USB is lightening fast * 2.0 compatible and it's just as fast, well almost. * Comes with everything you need * Whopping 2 TB of disk space * Beautiful esthetic - sleek looking and small What ever you needs are, whatever the application if you're looking for an external drive you'll find the Passport a best bet - it's a terrific little gizmo. Highly Recommended.

The prices of hard drives now slowly begins to fall again, and this new edition of Western Digital's 1Tb external USB 3.0 drive is being sold for a reasonable amount. THe drive is physically striking, with a pearlescent red finish (it is available in a number of other colors, as well) with a black-banded stripe on the side edges. It is reasonably small, too, and when combined with its lightness, makes for an excellent external drive for a laptop, or even a desktop machine. Because the drive is a USB 3.0 device, its transfer speeds are remarkably faster than traditional USB 2.0 drives (and which is increasingly important as the size of these drives becomes so large that transferring the large amounts of data they can hold takes an extremely long time if using the older USB 2.0 technology). The drive is also quiet in operation. And, can I say it loudly enough, the drive comes pre-formatted so that you do not have to spend your first three hours formatting! It is important to note that, if your computer does not possess as USB 3.0 port, this drive will not operate at USB 3.0 speeds. USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0, and so you can plug this drive into any USB port and use it, but you won't get the high transfer rates unless your computer is similarly equipped with the USB 3.0 hardware controller. Also note that the cable supplied for use with this drive has a notch in it (on the drive connection side of the cable) that will not allow you to use other cables with the drive: you must use the supplied cable to connect this drive to your computer. However, as mentioned above, the other side of the cable is the standard USB form factor, so as long as you don't misplace the supplied cable, you can connect this drive to either a USB 3.0 or a USB 2.0 socket. No carrying case is supplied. Five stars for speed, five stars for lightness, five stars for quietness, five stars for appearance (just lovely), and four and a half stars for price (they will continue to come down). An easy recommendation.

This is a long review, trying to be comprehensive. UPDATE, 12/14/13: I now have four reds and one black of these drives; the reds are 500 GB and 1TB; the black is 320GB. Now get this: when the drive is plugged into a 2.0 USB port, and say it has 80 GB to clone (in Macrium, for example), so that means a straight copy at low level: it takes over an hour; usually, 90 minutes or so. But 40 GB plugged into a 3.0 port (on the computer, won't be 3.0 unless the COMPUTER port is 3.0, not merely the hub) -- plugged into a 3.0 port, eleven minutes! I just did this, k? Same exact function, cloning in Macrium, but half the amount to clone, since it's my Dell Latitude 6530 laptop (which has one 3.0 USB port on the right). Eleven minutes! Notice the implications: if you can wholly CLONE your drive in 11 minutes, then you don't need to worry about backing up. The problem with cloning is that it takes so long; so, many recommend backing up, still; for an incremental backup (at least in Macrium) can do a 500GB drive in five minutes (I do it every day, Macrium makes it easy). Okay, even with Clonezilla, a 2.0 port clones 70GB in 20 minutes (well, that's the disk size; the actual pristine Windows stuff is about 35GB, excluding docs). I don't know if Clonezilla recognizes 3.0, I think sourceforge has upgraded it now, will test. But everyone has 11 minutes to wait. Go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, check the web weather, done. Eliminate that wait problem, and you can survive on clones alone, excepting for your own docs; which of course if you're sane, you always back up before and after you edit them. I also purchased two blue of the Ultras on Cyber Monday, because they were cheaper. But they are also thinner, have more vibration, so I'm going back to these classic 3.0 WD Passports. And, yes MAYBE replace the cord as noted, next. (It's not always necessary, to replace the cord. I can use the original cord on my lappies.) UPDATE, 3/22/13: I replaced the cord with Tripp Lite blue hi-speed USB 3.0 (purchased here in Amazon), and it works fine. UPDATE, 02/04/13 and 1/31/13: I just bought a fifth WD Passport drive at 320GB, besides 2@ 1TB red, 2@500GB red. The cord issue others report is indeed a fit question, so periodically check the fit of the cord both into the USB, and into the drive itself. It helps to have the USB plugged into a power source other than the computer, if it is over 500GB. A smaller size drive isn't a problem. I also have several WD at 250K, two of them self-powered, one being powered solely from the hub. None of them require two USB ports for juice, nor would I ever recommend using any drive that way. HOWEVER, I just used its own cord to clone the drive -- cord is THINNER on the 320 GB versus the 500 GB -- the latter's thicker cord has problems. But with the 320 GB I cloned my Dell laptop, Latitude 6530, internal hard drive, using the Dell's own separately POWERED 3.0 port designed for charging smartphones, etc. Cloning 36 GB took 16 minutes. Impressive. That includes partitioning. I did this via Macrium Reflect 5 Pro, so maybe its software makes the clone go faster, I don't know. This was on Win7 Pro, 32-bit. The reports on the red drives below, were used on XP Pro 32-bit. The OS matters. This update (prior to 'December', below) is meant also to add that the black WD drive in the picture is somewhat misleading. In the picture, there appear to be air holes in the top. No holes anywhere. The top is patterned like holes, very attractive, mix of Chinese black laquer sheen and matte. Very pleasantly surprised, as normally I'm sick of black. (What, don't computer makers know our walls are generally pallid, and we don't like seeing snaky stuff all over? Someone could make a lot of money retooling the colors of peripherals, monitors and computer chassis to milk white, like they're doing at Apple, hint hint! More red and blue and even forest or jade green would be nice, too. Or if you can do it -- that nice light pine.) Back in December, I started to experience the no-recognition problem others report, on the third (red) one in the report below. As you'll read below, one of the reasons for that problem, is the fact that a big drive like this needs more juice, so instead of hooking it to the back of your computer, you'd be better off hooking its lone USB dongle to a separate POWERED hub, i.e., on a hubbed monitor like the Dell 1905FP, 2010 Ht, etc. Right now, I'm using the latter (widescreen) monitor. But the drive, though lit up on the WD, still wouldn't register in XP Pro. So then, you have other troubleshooting: is it the cord? Maybe static buildup? Maybe the USB port itself? In my case today, it was #2 and #3. I unplugged the cord from BOTH the drive AND the USB port on the monitor, then plugged it into a different USB port on the monitor, and nothing happened, no recognition. Then unplugged both from monitor and drive, waited a bit, then plugged back into the original USB port on the BACK of the monitor, where it was before. Voila! It worked! Then, plugged in a flash drive into the side USB port which didn't work, and lo and behold, the PORT wasn't registering the flash drive, which I knew worked. So, replugged the flash drive into my computer, and now the drive registers. In short, sometimes a static charge builds up between cord and drive, which then causes the USB port to be unable to read. So it's not the drive's fault, not the cord's fault, but the CONNECTION. So you 'burp' them by disconnecting, waiting a bit, changing what's plugged in, and then reconnecting as before. If that doesn't work, try rebooting, because there's a static problem sometimes in the computer's other connections. This is especially true in XP: if one drive or port isn't reading right, ALL are affected. So that's an OS problem, again not the drive or your cords; in which case, if you can't get it to work, you power down, unplug the computer's power cord, wait, then replug and turn on again. For in Windows, the PRIOR STATE doesn't clear out properly unless you unplug and wait. It's a flaw native to the OS. Sigh: I wish it were easier to figure out, but at least you can go through troubleshooting steps. If these don't work, then get some 'live' Linux distribution as a CD or USB (many sold here in Amazon), boot using it, and see if your drives are recognized. If yes, then you know the drive is fine, but it's an interaction problem between your version of Windows and the drive. Here, that has some particular relevance: the driver Windows needs for this drive is 'SES', and Windows even knows that, so make sure that's the driver you're using. If not, then update the driver via Windows Driver Update. Finally, the report above and below, references USB 2.0 ports, not 3.0. I can't report on 3.0 interaction. The WD is designed for 3.0 USB ports. Original review follows below (at the === marks). I didn't change the number of stars, due to the WD cord; it's too stiff and too short. It can be replaced with a cord here in Amazon. I don't use its backup software, so my review excludes that. OH: and for cloning, get Clonezilla. The CD is only $8 here in Amazon, but they also sell two flavors of USB booting clone and backup software. It's a Linux product, but it does well with Windows. When my Windows 7 machine crashed, the only way I could restore it was to clone back the drive I made using Macrium, via Clonezilla. (Even Macrium hadn't worked.) Of the two USB versions of Clonezilla, I'm getting the bigger one ($60), even though I have the CD. I don't know the difference between the two USB versions sold here. Yet. ================== This is the third WD red Passport I've bought for my XP Pro machine. This one just arrived today, 1 TB. I bought two 500 GB drives a few weeks back (or less). The first time you plug one of these in, XP can't recognize it, but if you let it search for the driver, it will recognize 'WD SES device' and install the right driver. After that, you don't need to install the driver for your other ones. For example, I'd installed the first one and didn't even need to go through the driver step. Then when detaching it and the next day attaching the other 500 GB, I got the infamous message for a need to install a driver. I hit cancel, and XP could still read/write to the 500 GB. But the backup program I was trying (then Rebit 5, which I've uninstalled, see my review here in Amazon) -- couldn't read the drive. So, I unplugged it, then plugged it in again, and let Windows find the driver for me. This worked well. Today, the new 1TB came in -- really 931GB, why I don't know -- and I just now plugged it in, voila! Windows recognizes it, and ready to use! I have no idea what's the speed of the USB port, but I suspect it is 1.1 or at best, 2.0 . I can never tell from System information or any other device reader on my machine, which USB port has what speed. But I got no warning from Windows that the speed was too slow for the device. For I plugged this puppy in my monitor's USB, which is 1905 FP /1707 FP Dell with USB hub, both of which I bought here at Amazon, used. That saves power consumption on the computer. (When you have a big drive which is USB connect only, plug it into something with a separately-powered hub, not directly into the computer. Make sure the separate hub doesn't have too many USB ports: 2-4 is okay, but not more.) Cord length is way too short. They need to add about 3-5". Since the cord is proprietary, not a typical USB cord, that's a significant minus. I'll try plugging the drive into a USB extender I also got here at Amazon.. yeah, it registers fine, even with a USB extender (I used AmazonBasics meter-long cord)! No lag when accessing the device properties or doing files. UPDATE, 8/2/12: I've crammed the thing now with files, deleted, automated backups daily, etc. Lots of activity. Neat thing about this drive being hooked up to a monitor hub, is that when the monitor goes to sleep, the drive doesn't. When the root drive goes to sleep, the drive does. It's asleep, if its little bluish-white light, flashes. If you want to turn it off, just turn off the power button on your monitor, or unplug it from the monitor. Very convenient, versus USB hookup at the back of your computer, especially given WD's short cord. I don't use the WD software on the drives, so this review doesn't cover that stuff. I'm not a fan of syncing software. For disk cloning and backup software -- disk cloning is the ONLY way to get quickly back up-to-speed when Windows crashes -- I'm newly happy with the latest Macrium Reflect 5 Pro; and long happy with the earlier Retrospect Express 6.5. The latter came with my big old WD 250 GB drive, purchased new in 2006, which is backwards-compatible with Win98SE. You can get Retrospect Express (no longer sold new), here in Amazon.

Having recently purchased the WD My Passport (2TB) I was immediately impressed with it's size, weight, speed, and usability. On my self-built Windows 7 PC, set up time was hardly (3) minutes. Shouldn't be much more for an beginner-to-intermediate PC user. I use this drive between three different computers (especially for travel) and it's been a superior device. As an artist who depends on the Adobe Creative Suite, an interesting fact is that in Adobe Bridge I can allocate the My Passport drive (or any of it's folders) to my Bridge's favorites - and the files load and operate at exactly the same speed as my internal drives. I've attempted everything from transfers to copy, paste, and deletion - both through other software and on the drive itself- and it's kept solid speed and functionality. I opted for the 2TB model, which lacks SSD in favor of a traditional drive. No complaints. I do hear it spinning (as I expected) but it's surprisingly quiet. Certainly not audible enough to be distracting. In fact It's quieter than most of the other ambient noise in my office. On the negative side: I don't care for is the included software. The software interface is a little clunky and offers functionality I really don't need. That said, some of you out there may want to use it. I do like using the WD Quick View that asserts itself into the Notification area of your Windows Taskbar. I find it easier to eject the drive using this than the natural "Windows USB" icon, simply because it's easier to see in every aspect. So while I don't use the actual software that aspect of it I use nearly daily. Last, can't help but to wish that the LED light was positioned in a place more easily seen. It's currently to the right of the USB port (which I refer to as the back)... leaving the only sure way to see if the drive is working/thinking is by watching the LED glow on whatever it's laying on. Considering the LED is a bit bright, it's better where it is; but a a more subtle light on the top or the side which faces me would have been a bit more convenient for monitoring. Even so, if I was going to recommend a portable HDD to anyone, I'd definitely recommend this one. It's convenient, light, small, and utterly amazing!

After 6 years, my wife's computer crashed last week. It was so bad, you could hear the "Thud" downstairs. After ordering a new computer, we also ordered this 500 GB USB Passport to replace the 3 year-old Passport we used to back up her files (and some programs). Now she has a 500GB backup for a 250GB internal drive. (Her old Passport is now retired and in a safety deposit box.) In 1989, we learned the importance of backing up mostly data, but every once in a while, there's a program that can be run from an external drive. With that in mind, we back up once a week, and if we've had a good day taking pictures (we are both into nature photography), we'll back up daily. While you can usually get back data, you can't recapture a photo or video. With my wife's new computer and the Western Digital Passport, copying whole directories and hundreds of photos is lightening fast! It's so fast that after dragging a folder to the new drive, I wasn't sure it copied, but it did. (In the good old days - listen kids - I used to back up my business computers with a TAPE drive, and less than a gig would take 8 hours!) And, of course, since this is USB, "installation" was as simple as plugging it in. Last, it takes up no space on her desk. In fact, since she has a mini-tower, the drive sits on top of it. So basically it has no "footprint." We'll be taking it with us on vacation and back up a day's "shoot" onto that drive instead of our laptop. Well, our laptop has only a 60 GB hard drive... What's not to like? Well, there is one thing, and since this is our third Passport and fourth Western Digital drive, the auto-backup program is more trouble than I wanted to deal with. It is initially cumbersome, and once I was done reinstalling her programs and files, I didn't want any more work. I did not install the auto-backup or synch. Simply put, it's just a heck of a lot easier to backup our computers as needed and/or every weekend. It still gets 5 stars. Software aside, since it's left plugged in, it's simple to just backup new files every night if there's anything that important. I don't want to jinx anything, but thanks to our Western Digital drives, we haven't lost a file in 7 years. For $90, this is the cheapest and best insurance you can buy! EW

You're here because you're reading these reviews to see if you should get this. Well, if your computer is more than 2 years old (and you won't be upgrading any time soon), you likely do not have USB 3.0, at which point you should consider a relatively cheaper USB 2.0-only portable hard drive. (USB 3.0 hit mainstream around mid-2010) Now if you do have USB 3.0, then this is a great hard drive, as technical specs state that USB 3.0 is up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0. On this Product Description page and on Western Digital's website, it states that this particular drive is 3x faster than USB 2.0. 3X faster is pretty significant, do you want to wait 10 minutes or 30-40 minutes ? 20 minutes or an hour? I've owned a number of portable/external hard drives and the reason I like the Passport series of Western Digital is because you don't need a separate bulky adapter to power it. It uses one cord for data transfer and for power. It's compact and fast, and the silver color is stylish. I've never been a fan of the bloatware software that comes with these hard drives, as I just make it a habit to routinely copy up photos, videos ever so often. I only have a laptop, so I don't want to be tethered to an external hard drive hanging off the USB port, as I move from the couch to the office to the kitchen, etc. You buy this because you want to back up data that you likely have never backed-up, you don't buy it for the software. It's a simply drag/drop or copy/paste to the hard drive, for MY uses. The slim size fits in my laptop bag seamlessly and I have a little extra peace of mind that family photos and videos are backed-up. I can take this to the grandparents and give them photos of the family without having to carry my laptop. (I have USB 3.0 in my new laptop, they have USB 2.0 on an old desktop, but this one works for both USB 3.0 and 2.0) Overall, a great buy if you have USB 3.0 to take advantage of the faster transfer rate.

Wow. So many mixed reviews here, and like those of you who are pondering over whether it is worth purchasing this Western Digital MY PASSPORT, there may not be a clear answer. Let me tell you my story. Recently bought the new Retina Macbook Pro with its 500GB SSD drive. For a person like me who puts a lot of software on my laptop and does quite a bit of movie editing, hard drive space is a premium. So, when figuring out how to handle nearly 200GB of music, I decided it would probably be best to run iTunes off an external drive instead of taking up space on the Macbook. Again...Wow. Reading these reviews on Amazon was quite unnerving. So many great experiences with this drive followed up by a handful of negative experiences -- many talking of total hard drive failure. It's almost as if you are rolling the dice as to whether you'll receive a drive that works or doesn't. ...then there's the reviews from people who claim they are having problems using this drive on their Mac. Well, I picked myself out a RED 1TB drive. Thought it was a cool color and didn't mind paying the premium price for it. In addition, I picked up this fantastic Case Logic QHDC-101 Hard Case on Amazon for $10. It's the perfect compliment to the red hard drive that fits snuggly inside. Using the Western Digital MY PASSPORT on a Mac couldn't be easier than opening the package, plugging the USB cord into the Macbook, and then formatting it using Disk Utilities. From package to format took under 4 minutes. And for anyone claiming to have a problem using this drive with their Mac, this is all you need to do... 1. Plug in the drive via USB connection 2. Go to APPLICATIONS -> UTILITIES -> DISK UTILITY 3. Click on the hard drive icon located at the very top left sidebar 4. Select the ERASE tab and FORMAT in Max OSX Extended (Journaled). Assign your drive a name if you wish. That's it. Easy. The drive works incredibly fast thanks to its USB 3.0 compatibility, which is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0. The drive is extremely quiet, and I didn't notice it getting warm. And, yes, you can run your iTunes off the external drive.

Have a problem connecting to main PC but no problem with laptop. Great for shareing video and pics. No brainer for that price

Does exactly what it's supposed to do and has given me more space when I travel. Easy to install, just follow the instructions, although you'll find with the inbuilt software that you'll need to do upgrades straight away. However, this is no problem, again just follow the instructions.

This is the second external Western Digital hard drive I've bought for myself, and I've also bought a couple for other people as gifts. Their hard drives are no nonsense, easy to use and reliable. I also love these little Passport drives for being so compact and not requiring a separate power cord. Great portability. I bought this one for use with my new MacBook Pro, and am very happy with the speed offered by USB 3.0. If you don't want to spend the money on Thunderbolt, go with USB 3.0 - just check to make sure your PC supports it. Of course, these are backwards compatible with USB 2.0, so if you just want to be a little future proof, you can't go wrong here. It's a product that'd work with PC, too. Highly recommended, whether you need a backup drive, or just something to ferry around larger files.

My previous 1.5 To portable hard drive was full (a very good Seagate USB 3) and I was looking for a bigger one. The choice was very limited but I found this WD 2 To in UK (I leave in France). Received it quickly and very easy to use : just plug and play. My comments : Pros - it's 1.8 To and not 2 To but it's the same for all hard drives and it's a pretty high storage capacity - there is a password protection : good when you're traveling a lot - the USB 3 works well and is a plus for transfering big files - the device is very compact, even smaller than my previous 1.5 To drive Cons - the drive is not protected by any soft/silicone part. Could be an issue for the hard travelers - the plug on the drive side is thin and looks fragile. No issue after one month of use but will see after extensive use. In summary, very happy with this drive : fast transfer and seems to be the biggest storage capacity at that time. Looking for a 3 To now :-)

Bought it as a gift so I could only try it for a couple of tests. Speed was ok, around 50 MB write and 150MB read for a large .iso file. Still impressive by how light it is, highly recommended for traveling. Surprised by seeing that two other friends also had similar WD usb hard drive. Only (almost) issue, usb connector on the drive side might get disconnected if moving the HD, also, USB cable seems too short for a desktop (might be ideal length for a laptop though).