WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 Black

This external hard drive does what it is supposed to: write, store, and read back large quantities of data at high speed. It must also do so reliably for a period of years, but at this early stage I cannot vouch for that. Ease of installation is also essential; a mass storage device should be completely plug-and-play; and it is helpful for it to be preformatted--this one is formatted NTFS for Windows XP and above. These are all the qualities that I want in such a device, but this drive also provides a couple of bonuses: portability and backup software. Although I use the drive with a desktop, portability, i.e. small size and ability to be powered from a USB port, are nice to have anywhere; not having to have an extra cable with a transformer plug that takes up a lot of space on a power strip is a convenience to cheer.As to reliability over a period of years, I have only had my new drive for a week, so I cannot speak to that; however, I will try to make it a point to update this review should the drive fail prematurely (I expect about a five-year lifespan--knock on wood). Thus far, I have written 340 GB of data to it; and from it I have played back HD video (full-frame-rate, full-HD mpeg-type, not just Flash) without a hitch or a glitchAmong these reviews I noticed a lot of complaints about the backup software. They may very well true; and this is not to excuse WD; but I have to say that I have never met a backup program that I liked. Most, including some top-rated, have vital functions that simply don't work. I currently use Windows 7's own backup program; it isn't great--not much flexibility and control; but it's free, and it works (so far).My main motivation for writing this review is to try to provide a little help with installation, which should reassure prospective buyers disturbed by the experiences reported by some other customers. I said above that installing mass storage should be a simple matter of plugging it in, and under the right conditions that is all that this drive requires. But "under the right conditions" can be a big "if"; and a variety of issues can plague the installation of this drive as a USB 3.0 device. In my case, I had never attached a USB 3.0 device to my system before; and I found that Windows would not recognize the device when plugged into a USB 3.0 port. As a search on "WD Passport USB 3.0 Installation Problems" reveals, there are several problems that can occur; and dealing with all those is not the purpose of this review; however, I simply want to do two things: (1) reassure you that this device does in fact come with a good USB 3.0 cable, and that it transfers data at a considerably higher speed over USB 3 as compared with USB 2; and (2) to warn the buyer that (s)he may require a driver update for his/her PC. Regarding the first point, I am getting better than 2.5 times the data transfer rate with USB 3.0 versus USB 2. Regarding the second, the updated driver required will most likely be the one associated with the USB hardware on the motherboard of your PC; if you have problems using your WD passport on a USB 3 port, but not on a USB 2 port, visit either your PC vendor's website, or that of the maker of the motherboard, and do a search on USB 3 drivers. WD also provides firmware updates for its drives; but in my case at least, the Passport's firmware was already up to date as received.While I am in the business of giving tips related to the purchase of an external HD, be aware that if you want a hassle-free installation you might want to avoid drives with over 2TB of capacity. I, and others, have had issues, especially with Windows Backup, with 3TB drives. It turns out that the solution is fairly simple: use the WD Quick Formatter tool (available on WD's website) *before* attempting to use the drive (reformatting will wipe out any data you've already put there). As long as you're willing to take that extra step, it's fine to get a 3TB drive; and I have had no further problems with a 3TB drive. To be clear, the drive I am reviewing here is a 2TB drive; but I just thought I'd throw in this extra tip for people who are reading these reviews and are still undecided about what size to get.

PROs:* Performs well when using good cables* Low cost option for this low-power drive.CONs:* bus errors may hang until unplug/replug.* Drive native connector is the USB3 exposed port. If you break the connector, you can't replace the case.HOW I SOLVED MY PERFORMANCE PROBLEM:This is a narrative on trouble-shooting performance issues. If you have performance issues with this drive straight out of the box, then it is most likely not the drive itself. Here's how I verified exactly what the problem was with mine.System One is a Core 2, 2.93GHz, and 8GB of RAM, on Windows 2008 R2 x64.I have a 2-port PCIe USB 3.0 card with an NEC chip.Second system is a Lenovo Thinkpad W530 with 24GB, i7 Quad 2.6/3.6 Turbo on Windows 7 x64.USB 3.0 is an integrated Intel XHC chip.I have a 500GB WD Scorpio Blue I pulled out of an older passport case and loaded into a generic USB 3.0 case.* This works fine, both in the old case, and the new one.* USB 3.0 performance is around 85MB/sec.I have an existing 1TB WD My Passport that has been in service for a year. This replaced the 500GB unit (upgrade, no failures).* This also works fine, and gets around 85-90MB/sec.* I have a recurring task to ping the drive every 15 minutes to keep it from going to sleep.* The old and new tools won't turn off sleep, and it never wakes up from sleep.* Keeping it from going to sleep works fine.The new 2TB WD My Passport was plugged in to the second port today. This is to replace the 1TB unit (upgrade, no failures).* This is USB 3.0, so 900ma is available per port, which should be more than enough for the extra platter in this.* I was able to copy the WDWare tools off, and install them on both systems.* The drive shows up, and is preformatted NTFS.* I can copy small files onto it just fine.* Diagnostics show no problems, and their custom SMART tools say it passes, though it does not show the actual smartctl output.* I tried copying the WD tools off of the drive, and this ran about 50MB/sec.* I tried copying the WD tools back onto the drive (250MB), and this hung the drive 4MB into the copy.* The activity LED stayed blinking, but this hung the SES drivers and crashed explorer.* I had to unplug and replug the drive. It shows up again; however, retrying the copy runs at 1MB/sec.* I disabled antivirus and am getting 750KByte/sec or so.* I killed off everything else running. CPU is at 5-6% and it's still 750KByte/second (large hangs between writes.* I turned off sleep mode, and there's no change.* After about 5 minutes, I get error 0x8007045D - I/O Device error. The device goes completely offline.* I updated the Renesas USB 3.0 drivers and used their tool to disable power management on the card, but no change.At this point, I tested on System Two:* System 2 had performance of 95-125MB/sec. What's different?* Cables used on my laptop were always short (the one in the box, and another I had handy).* I tried on system 1 with a short cable, and it works at 119-140MB/sec.My default USB3 cable is a quality cable, but it's about 6 feet long. It runs into a fireproof safe.6 feet (2 meters actually) is well within the limits for USB 3.0.I emailed the cable manufacturer, and they replace the cable under warranty.This drive is back into the safe, and all tests show it works fine.***The moral of the story? ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CABLES FIRST.***Alternative failure modes might be clicks, squeaks, etc during data access. That might indicate media damage (a drop, bump, manufacturing defect, static discharge, heat damage from leaving it in your car in TX, etc). Usually, manufacturing defects are detected and resolved during initial format at the factory. Shipping damage is usually automatically repaired as you write data to the drive. If SMART tools show "Offline Uncorrectable" is anything other than 0, then your drive's days are numbered. Copy off what you can immediately.

Still use this to migrate data and store files, has held up for years. Solid portable HDD.