Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive (Intense Blue)

List Price: $286.08 Discount Price: $114.85

Features:

• Box Contents - My Passport Essential 320GB Portable USB Hard Drive, USB 2.0 cable, Quick Install guide
• 320GB Hard Drive Capacity
• Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive; you just plug it in and it's ready to use. There is no CD to install; the included software loads from the drive the first time you plug it in
• USB bus powered, no separate power supply is needed
• This ultra-portable drive fits easily in your pocket or purse, weighs only a few ounces, and holds tons of valuable data

Accessories:
Caselogic PHDC-1 Small EVA External Hard Drive Case (Red)	Caselogic PHDC-1 Small EVA External Hard Drive Case (Black)

Customer Reviews:

Western Digital Passport 320 GB - Nice Looking Portable External HD [Posted on 2008-06-12]

The Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive (Intense Blue) is the largest capacity in the portable essentials line-up. This comes in a variety of colors including black, red, white and blue. They say that this is the update to the regular Western Digital 320 GB Passport 2.5" USB 2.0 Hard Drive and I own both of them. In fact I also own several other portable hard drives in the Western Digital passport lineup and so far I couldn't be happier. All of these are great for mobile backups of data, though slower to copy large backups than their A/C powered MyBook big-brothers.

Pros
+ Largest current capacity available in this line of products
+ Nice portable form factor that easily connects via USB
+ USB powered, no A/C required, which is great for portability
+ Works well on Windows Vista, XP and Mac OS X
+ Easy to set up disk encryption for security and privacy
+ Nice looks, and cool color options for those that care about that
+ Turns on and off with your computer or easily ejected via system tray
+ Easy plug-and-play installation
+ Integrates nicely with my growing stable of WD MyBook drives
+ Included software may be useful for some novices
+ 320 GB capacity is just about right for most users

Cons
- Somewhat slow file transfer speeds for larger backups
- Included software not useful for power users
- Shiny body attracts scratch, fingerprints and dust
- Have to spend your cash to get a case that should have been included

The Looks

The drive has a nice shiny exterior. The case can scratch in transit and the surface also attracts fingerprints and dust. But the look is still nice and you can easily purchase a case or holder for the drive if it bothers you. Most versions don't ship with the included case, but you can pick it up for $10 or $15. CaseLogic Small External Hard Drive Case (Black)

The Features

I had no problem connecting this drive to any computer, including Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X. Keep in mind this is a USB 2.0 device so ancient computers may not yield the same results.

Transfer speeds are ok but definitely slower than the A/C powered MyBooks. This guy is still limited by the 480 Mps connection speed of USB 2.0, but performs somewhat slower than this when performing large backups. The USB2.0 speed rating can not really be achieved in production and you will get a fraction of that. But it's a trade-off that's worth it since it's USB-powered.

The software utilities included with this device will be most useful for beginners. I tested the backup software in particular but found it to be slow and impractical. I mean REALLY slow. It works, but cutting and pasting is better. Take my advice: don't use these utilities and just do cut and paste backups and saves to this drive.

Reliability

I've had good luck with the passport line of drives. They seem to have lower failure rates than many MyBook drives, though I also own those and haven't had issues there either. Maybe my gentle care has helped me to get lucky with these guys so far. Maybe it's because these drives are generally off when in transit. Regardless, these guys have held up fine.

Conclusion

This drive is great or those who want a portable drive for backups on the run. It's nice getting the 320GB capacity in one drive. There are smaller drives but other than capacity there is no real difference between them. Watch the price changes and choose the sized drive that's right for you.

Enjoy!

Very Cool [Posted on 2008-07-05]
I was referred to this product by my brother who is a computer/tech geek. It is real slim and made well not to mention that I have loaded 8 years of information on it(pics/videos) and I have only reached 90% of my space. I only didn't like that it put a bunch of google advertisments and what not, but I removed them later.

Great Portable HD [Posted on 2008-07-12]
Great portable HD that I can store my music on and carry with me for gigs!

Very satisfied with the product [Posted on 2008-07-16]
Hi. Amazing product, I'm useing a bunch of these, I'm looking forward to the 500G ones:).

Regards,
Arama Cristian,
Senior I/S Manager

Good drive [Posted on 2008-07-19]
Opened it up and used the WD Scorpio 320GB 5400rpm SATA drive contained inside to replace the HD in my Dell E1505 laptop. The whole drive cloning process was an utter CLUSTER but after all was said and done, the HD works totally fine. The online reviews of the 320GB Scorpio drive itself are pretty good. And now the old HD (120GB Seagate) is in the intense blue WD enclosure and works fine. (BTW I don't know what A. Langston's review is about -- the drive I received was a 320GB.)

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