Home > Consumer Reviews > Western Digital WDXMS1200TN Passport 120 GB USB 2.0 2.5-Inch Portable Hard Drive

I read scores of user reviews, on this site and others, then bought a competing product and immediately wished I hadn't. Given my previous experience, I gritted my teeth and ordered this little gem (yes, there were some detractors).

I used this drive as a convenience tool and "security blanket" while on a 9-day trip to New England to find dead relatives (OK, family history research). The point of the tool was to move files from four different digital cameras (did I mention I was traveling with my brother and his gear), to two different laptops (Dell, running W2000 Pro; Mac laptop running OS X). And to cross-back-up folders on both laptops once content was uploaded to them. It sounds more confusing and complicated that it actually was.

I must say, the WD Passport gave me everything I'd expected. The old Dell I was using had a USB 1.x interface, so that was SLOW (not the Passport's fault). However, with the Mac, and with my USB 2.0 systems at home--- blazing fast.

If you use a laptop, be prepared to carry along a powered USB hub. As advertised, a lot of laptops don't generate enough power through their USB jacks to run the Passport. This was especially true of the older Dell I was using; the Mac powered the drive fine without assistance. But that was a minor irritant, given the overall performance of this drive.

Would I repeat this purchase? In a heartbeat.

***UPDATE*** [23 July 2009] I've taken this drive on 10-15 multi-day trips. I use it as a triple-backup system for digital photographs and digital scans. It continues to perform flawlessly.

This is my 3rd WD external drive (the first was a 120 GB bought about a year and a half ago. never failed without even formatting, works with both windows and mac/ the 2nd is a 320 GB with card reader which i formatted for mac, so windows cannot read it, works flawlessly). This one is extremely small, needless to say, it comes without the power cord. So one USB connection and you are all set. I did not format it, nor do i intend to (so i can use it while i dual boot on the macbook pro from OS X to windows and vice versa).
I do not know how other reviewers could not have their macs read it. I just got it so i cannot judge whether it will eventually fail on me. But judging from my past with WD, all their hard drives work perfectly. Highly recommended for both mac and windows users, who (1) need their files on the go (media, documents, applications, etc.) and (2) those who want to save space, and work without the always-intruding power cord. The hard drive also looks pretty sleek. Check the Western Digital website for the carrying case.

Update: ok, turns out, the drive was flawed. I started hearing squeeky noises, and the loading speed on the drive was fantastically slow. So i called customer service up. Judging from two replacements i underwent at the same time, WD customer service is trash. Here is what happened (the other being a PS3):
Phone-holding times were way too long on both sides, but I believe it is to be expected for Sony, given that it is a new product.
I had to pay shipping for WD which was twenty dollars to have it one day and tracked. They never collected the drive from the courier for several days. Why? I have no idea. It took Sony about a week to deliver the empty box in which I would put the PS3.
The replacement drive took about 3 weeks to show up since the beginning of the nuisance. It wasn't even in its retail box. It was just bubble wrapped and in a dirty-looking, punched-in cardboard box. For my PS3 however, after shipping it on a Wedn. (with a free supplied one day UPS shipping label), I received the brand new replacement (in its brand new box) on Friday morning.
I understand i was one of the few unlucky ones to receive a flawed WD hard drive, and i really did not mind. But, after dealing with their customer service, I will defintely think again before buying another one of their products. For an alternative, check Seagate's new portable hard drives (up to 750 GB).

Okay, after 20 years of working with PCs (and an Apple or two), I'm unique in that I've never used up a full drive. In the early days, most of what I saved was word processing and spreadsheets. Today, I'm all the way up to 2 gb pix of my grandchildren and nature photos. Maybe a few QuickTime and MS MediaPlayer "movies," but I'm selective so on my primary hard drive, I've used 40 of 60 GB.

When I first got this Western Digital drive, I used it primarily for backup for my laptop. But then, with at least 80 GB left over, it became a second hard drive (most programs can be run off the drive) and it became a secondary storage drive for those pictures I wasn't sue about keeping.

I haven't found a negative to it except *perhaps* the synchronization utility and software. I have three PCs, one that I travel with all the time. Yes, I should have loaded the software. I didn't. What I simply do is copy the three mail programs onto a USB drive and transfer them over before I'm taking a trip. (email, billing, spreadsheets, employee handbooks - that's it.) And something tells me that this is a short cut that save time...

The pros are that it's relatively small, and will fit into a jacket pocket. It's 2.0 USB is fast. And I like the fact that the cable is only about a foot long (and detaches easily if you need to detach it).

I'm going to get a 200GB WD soon. That I will use as a second hard drive for my primary PC, probably rarely to be disconnected and hooked up to my subnotebook or laptop. And when WD comes up with a 200GB drive half the size (and they will), I'll get that too.

I give the Western Digital 5 stars. I've also tried Iomega (2 stars) and Maxtor (2 stars). Iomega makes it too complex, and the Maxtor didn't last the first week. (I try not writing about products that fail: that's often the users fault or just an anomaly and not fair to the manufacturers.)

I purchased this drive yesterday to use with my mac powerbook (G4). When I plugged into the USB port the drive would click and was not recognized by the computer. I plugged it in my wife's Windows PC and it was immediately recognized. I plugged the drive into an AC powered USB hub and then into my powerbook and it was immediately recognized and I am able to use the drive. The problem is insufficient power from the USB port on the powerbook. There are three options 1. Use a powered USB hub (this sort of takes the "portable" out of this portable hard drive) 2. Purchase a USB Y cable that conects the drive to two USB ports simultaneously (uses up most if not all of your available USB ports). This cable is available for $9.99 on the Western Digital web site but is currently out of stock. or 3. Return it. Personally I think WD should include the Y cable in the box to make the drive live up to their claim of OS X 10.1.5 compatability

UPDATE - 11/06/07

Just keep noticing others with all sorts of issues that probably are variations of what I troubleshot and resolved early on on the 2 Passports we bought back in August.

I might repeat that anyone USING AC-powered USB hubs that only have the smallest USB connector on them to mate via a cable with the full-sized USB connector on the computer almost guarantees failure - in out experience documented below.

One of the medium-sized (the almost square) USB connector-equipped AC USB hubs also failed to drive either of our 2 Passports.

In the update below, we attributed this smaller connector conpatability to Plug & Play issues. But it could also be that these (less expensive) hubs cannot supply the corrent/voltage required to run thse hard drives.
Or both issues could exist.

Avoiding such small connector AC hubs seems to be the way to avoid all sorts of problems...

UPDATE - 10/31/07

AFter using both 120 GB Passports for about 2 months with no real issues that weren't solveable logically, I had more troubleshooting tips.

Trying to use one of these drives on an AC-powered USB 2.0 hub that uses (computer to hub) the smallest USB connector size (like the one on the Passport under the little rubber cover) may get it apparently recognized, but it doesn't usually work - write errors, read errors, loses drive recognition....

We had several hubs lying around and only those using the full-sized USB connector to the hub from the computer, or the next size down (the nearly square one), actually were able to correctly perform Plug & Play to identify the Passport correctly, followed by no errors in use.

My conclusion was that trying to use the Passports on any AC-powered hub that didn't use at least the medium-sized connector was a waste of time.

And one of these also failed to work.

The best results were when the Passport was plugged (using the short cable provided) into either a laptop or an AC-powered hub that used the largest USB connector from the computer.

Probably the real answer is that most less expensive AC hubs with smaller conputer to hub connectors may not be able to actually successfully perform Plug & Play on large capacity drives... or other complex devices...

We've had no problems or power issues on a notebook, a laptop and multiple hubs following the simple connector rules noted above.

======================original comments=================

Having bought 2 of the 120 GB Passports, I tried them out separately.
Neither would work plugged into a 6 ft USB extension. Failure to recognize the drive in XP was typical (unknown device). Failure to find sectors was another.

A little troubleshooting found that most (even a hyped up HP workstation)
failed to deliver enough voltage with any cable longer than the ~8 inch supplied USB cable. Using only that cable connected directly to any of our various computers (Averatec notebook, Toshiba laptop, HP workstation, etc.,) had no issues. Connecting to an AC powered hub with the short supplied cable was always OK.

My conclusion about some of the startup problems & possibly the later failures (considering the typical high MTTF of 2.5" sturdy hard drives) is that many may be traced to trying to use Passports by not plugging directly into the computer (or AC powered USB hub) using only the short USB cable supplied.

Failures would be the same for plugging into a NON-AC-powered USB hub.

I converted the format on one from FAT32 to NTFS via the Convert RUN file found in the XP SEARCH HELP, Also formated the other (after copying the SW files off) using the format options from XP's Computer Management screen.

Both drives are tiny, appear sturdy and are fast writing & reading.
Use them to carry data from location to location. Synching one with the other periodically. Tried the backup SW with encryption and decided to go
with simply synching folders with other SW. So the folders are open access.

Always use the short supplied cable as noted above to avoid voltage drop
that probably causes most of the failures noted in these user comments.

Bought two of the double USB power/data cables from the WD web site, plus 2 little soft drawstring pouches. Just in case...

So far so good...