Home > Consumer Reviews > Western Digital My Passport Essential 160 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDMEPN1600TN (Vibrant Pink)

As I had just spent hours transferring about 300GB of Data into the new drive, It just stopped working and stopped being recognized by both my MacBook, which is brand new, and my PC. Ok, this stuff happens from time to time, but Western Digital has by far the worst customer service I have ever experienced as an owner of tons of different electronics. After bugging me on the phone for about an hour with stupid questions and requests (plug it and try this and that, etc...), they finally accepted the obvious fact that the product was defective, and told me to ship it to them AT MY OWN expense to send me back a REFURBISHED one. Conclusion, I ended up paying more than the cost of a new drive and ended up with a refurbished one. It works fine but I will question the reliability every time I use it and ended up keeping my old (non-portable) hard drive as a back up of my back up. Rock on, WD!

I purchased 2 of these units for backup of data. 0ne failed in 13 months and the other failed in 16 months all data was lost. They want $100 to evaluate the drive and $500 plus to recover the data if in fact it is recoverable.

The Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB Portable Drive adds a larger capacity to a brand of hard-drive I have come to rely on. For the longest time, I have used these WD passport drives for my portable backups. Finally a 500 GB model is here. The Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB was the largest capacity you could get for a while.

WD has been increasing variety by adding a variety of colors including black, red, yellow, white and blue. But other than that these drives are basically all the same. Considering how I've been buying different brands lately to get larger storage, I was happy to get my hands on this drive.

PROS:
+ Largest current capacity available in this line of products
+ Turns on and off with your computer or via system tray
+ Nice looks, though it does collect finger prints
+ USB powered, no A/C required
+ Works well on Windows Vista, XP and Mac OS X
+ Easy plug-and-play installation
+ Nice portable form factor that easily connects via USB
+ Integrates nicely with my growing stable of WD MyBook drives
+ Included software may be useful for some novices
+ Easy to set up disk encryption for security and privacy

CONS
- Slow file transfer speeds for larger backups
- Included software not useful for power users
- Shiny body attracts scratch, fingerprints and dust
- No case included

FEATURES

I have owned a bunch of these drives and used them with no problems on computers running Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X. 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 the CaseLogic Small External Hard Drive Case for $10 to $15.

Transfer speeds are 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.

I've had good luck with the passport line of drives. They seem to have lower failure rates than many MyBook drives, though I only had one issue with one of those. But these guys have held up fine.

CONCLUSION

It's nice to finally get the 500GB capacity in one of these drives. This drive is perfect for portable drive for backups on the run. There are smaller drives but other than capacity there is no real difference between them. I also own a LaCie Rugged 500GB Portable Hard Drive, and that drive seems more durable. It includes an additional fire-wire interface, but it does cost a little more. Considering how many of these I have to buy, I don't mind having a mix and match of both.

Enjoy!

I have this drive for about half-a year now. It is recognized both by Windows XP and Mac OS X (Leopard). I did not use any software to do backups, just grab the files myself and drag them to the drive, or use a script (.bat file). Operation is exceptionally simple: you connect it - it is recognized by the computer, you use it, and then use disconnect/eject command (I am guilty of not always doing this, but no problems so far) and disconnect it. The drive comes in a soft case, does not have and require any power supply, works via USB cable, and no problems whatsoever so far. I am thinking about buying another one, maybe slightly bigger (there is a 320G version).

-software package prevents me from giving this a 5 star review.

The drive comes in a shiny black plastic case which appears to be very vulnerable to scratches. The drive has a small connectivity/activity LED light at the back of the unit so you can tell if it is on and functioning. Included with the drive is a couple of nearly useless programs. Seagate's Free agent software included with their drive is a bit more useful then this although if you are really serious about backing up your system you will need to invest in some decent backup and imaging software like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image.

The drive is Formated FAT32 which really won't do this day and age. This will limit the max file size to 4 GB. The very first thing that I needed to do was format the drive to NTFS. This allowed me to comfortably backup my laptop using Norton Ghost without worrying about file size limitations. Ok lets move to the pros and cons

Pros- This hard drive provides a great deal of space and is very quiet. It is very lightweight and compact. USB powered is a nice plus. Overall a very nice piece of hardware.

Cons- Poor software package with drive. Does anyone really use this stuff? Small USB cable. Scratchable plastic case. A front mounted LED conectivity/activity light would have been nice. The rear mount light is just awkward to use.

With the right backup software this is great for backing up your laptop!