WD My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 3 0 2 0 Portable External Hard Drive Midnight Black

This is probably the best portable hard drive on the market today. The Seagate drives are second. Western Digital and Seagate are the most reliable drives on the market today. I have another one of these that is about 3 years old and is still works great after much use. I have even dropped it a couple of times and somehow it still works 0: This brand of hard drives seems to be one of two brands that has yet to fail on me, even after many years of use. The software that comes with these things is the only thing that I would say could use some minor tweaks. For me, I ditched the software anyways and formatted it to use it like a giant flash drive. I formatted it in NTFS; It works great. The speed of these is great, but if you do not have a newer computer with USB 3.0 ports you be able to see the full speed potential of this beauty. However, it is still really fast even if you only have USB 2.0. If you are looking for a portable hard drive that has cost value, reliable, capacity (They make these in Terabytes), reputability, speed, compatibility, and portability then look no further. The hard drive you are looking for is right here. (: Read more

I purchased this drive to use as storage for, and to play my backed-up Wii games with. I was tired of finding scratches on the Wii games from my kids taking them in and out of the cases and the Wii, so I researched a solution that allows you to backup your Wii games onto a USB drive. I have used Western Digital products in the past and haven't been disappointed. This does require a modded Wii. When I received the the hard drive I took it out of the package and examined it. It is very compact, and it feels like it is built solidly. The USB cord fits into the drive very snugly. Also, the glossy finish was very similar to that of my Wii. I connected it to my computer running Windows XP. The computer recognized the drive and installed the driver software. I did not install the WD Smartware as I would not be using this drive for backup purposes. I then rebooted the computer with a Gparted Live CD in the drive so I could format and partition the drive. I formatted the drive to FAT32. I then safely removed the drive from my computer and plugged it into the usb port of my Wii. I started up the Wii and ran the USB loader which recognized the drive. I was immediately able to start backing up games to the USB drive. Once backed up the games could be played directly from the drive. The games load from the drive at least as fast as they do from the discs, if not faster. I have had this drive for about 2 weeks and I am very pleased with this purchase, as the drive has satisfied my purposes. I intend to purchase another one to use as a backup for pictures and documents on my PC. Also, the "Real Red" color of the drive matches the color of my limited-edition Red Wii almost perfectly (See Pictures). The USB drive has very tiny rubber feet that allow it to sit on top of the Wii without moving. The drive and the Wii look like they are part of a matched set. Read more

My primary line of work is as a self-employed PC tech and this little 500 gig drive has been the most reliable piece of equipment I've owned in the last 5 years. Great for constantly backing up customer hard drives before modifying them, backing up my hard drives routinely and loading it up with all the computer tech apps I can find for a "jack of all trades" sort of portable drive. It's got enough space for it all. My only regret is that I didn't buy the 1 tb version. For the non-techies, 500 gb will be more than enough for your music, videos, docs, pics, etc. For techies, I'd recommend grabbing the 1 tb version of this drive. Very sleek and fits in your pocket quite easily. A lot of the other portable USB hard drives haven't quite gotten the concept that not everyone wants a brick-sized version to "carry around" :) Other than that, durability has been solid. Haven't had to replace the hard drive and I've managed to drop it only once, which I'm sure has contributed to its longevity. -Travis Stein Read more

I've had a number of these WD USB drives, all in USB 3.0 trim, and have had several failures (one head crashed and now rattles like there are loose pieces inside, the other lost its formatting out of the blue and lost hundreds of GB of data just before I did a backup). Also worked as a technician for awhile and lost count of customers having these and other brands of USB-powered externals fail. I don't necessarily think it's WD's fault (my variety of WD 3.5" desktop internal drives have held up great over the years) but the nature of a mechanical hard drive that's A) powered by a weak USB source, B) cramped into a small plastic enclosure, and most importantly C) subjected to the shocks and vibrations of transportation and whatever unsteady platform you set them on means that these things are bound to fail faster than a nice internal drive. They're handy for transferring large things but I wouldn't store anything important on any flavor of USB external drive (primary or backup). Read more