I recently bought my Passport Essential 500gb External drive and have love how easy it is!! I had a Hitachi 1tb external hard drive, which was good but just too bulky. This WD is so small, about the size of a wallet, and I can easily fit into my pocket or in my laptop bag without any problems. It is also super lightweight. It can be used as a backup or just an external hard drive, and I chose not to install the WD software onto my computer. I use it mainly as an external hard drive which holds a bunch of movies, songs, and photos. Frees up alot of space on my laptop. The best thing I like about it is that it is super fast!! USB 3.0 is amazing, so much faster than 2.0. I can get things transferred at least 4 times faster, which saves me time.
If you let it do everything on its own, you'll probably be fine. But if you want to think things through, you could make it more difficult... Initially, I was disappointed by the lack of installation information. While it was straight-forward (select the executable), the one page leaflet just indicated plug it in. Many (like me) disable auto-start for safety. A short note would've been useful. After the installation, which went smoothly, it backed up the files on my notebook PC. Then I wanted to back up my desktop. Nowhere could I find any information about backing up files from more than one PC. Just a comment would've helped. After installing the software (must be installed on each PC to be backed up), it backed those files up easily and quickly.
This external hard drive was VERY easy to connect through the USB port. Although I expected the WD SmartWare backup software to be on its own disc, I found it pre-loaded as a zip file on the hard drive. The software can be configured to backup on a schedule or in a constantly updating mode (similar to Carbonite). Just leave the HD connected through the USB port and you have your data files easily backed up. The only drawback is that I could not find the option to make a disc image. But I am using the Microsoft Windows 7 backup program to do that.
Western Digital claims to have created the first truly all-in-one back-up system with the release of the MyPassport Essential 500GB. Instead of buying an external hard disk and going to the trouble of setting up a third-party application such as Acronis True Image, you simply plug in the My Passport Essential drive, run the software once, and forget all about it until you need it.
This external hard drive I bought because I needed to back up my files on the hard drive on my labtop. WD chose the brand because he knew and worked well, plus its size is very comfortable to walk with the I bought other refurbished products and have had no problems with them, also have lower cost, why I chose this type.
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Best Selling in Internal Hard Disk Drives
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Save on Internal Hard Disk Drives