Electronics : Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black)

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from: Western Digital

: Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black)
List Price: $174.99
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Binding: Electronics
Brand: Western Digital
Color: Midnight Black
EAN: 0718037735092
Format: CD
Hard Disk Size: 500 GB
Label: Western Digital
Manufacturer: Western Digital
Model: WDME5000TN
Publisher: Western Digital
Sales Rank: 61
Size: 500 GB
Studio: Western Digital
Warranty: 3 years warranty

Features:

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
These elegant portable drives are simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter -- they are powered directly through the USB cable. Pack up your office files and take them home. Carry thousands of songs or pictures. Synchronize files between home and office and encrypt everything on the drive for added security. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you take your critical data with you. Plug My Passport into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer. Your data is protected with 128-bit encryption (Windows only). Perfect for the business traveler who needs to transfer large amounts of data from laptop to clients or just daily backups in case of accidents from mishandled luggage to coffee spills. Also comes in handy if you're worried about laptop theft and someone else having access to your important data, you can store it on this portable encrypted drive instead. For all those precious pictures, videos, music and data files, this external hard drive is a must have. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you save your critical data and take it with you. Plug your drive into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer (Windows only) Search your drive, manage your photos, and simplify Web searches with included Google software (Windows only) Up to 480Mb/sec Bus Transfer Rate with USB 2.0 System Requirements - Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X (10.1.5 or later), Available USB port Approximate Unit Dimensions - 0.59 (H) x 4.96 (L) x 3.14 (W) Approximate Unit Weight - 0.23lb



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - Hard Drive Failure at Three Weeks
This drive failed on me at three weeks. It first began acting funny on my co-worker's machine, but we didn't make the connection to hard drive issues at the time. The next day, it began randomly disconnecting and then reconnecting on the USB port. Shortly after that, Windows XP began issuing alerts that cache writes to the drive were failing. Then read/writes of various files. When I then ran chkdsk on the drive, it would get to about 25% of the second phase (out of five, I believe), issue an audible *thunk*, and then hang. My attempted recovery of the files on the drive got me a small portion of my data -- most of it was unrecoverable.

(This was a minor inconvenience to me, as I routinely backup and replicate my data. If you don't let this be yet another warning: BACK UP YOUR DATA.)

A secondary complaint about this drive is that the case construction wasn't very sturdy. The edge between the face plastic and the thin edge (with rounded corners) was not secure at all, and would easily separate. Subsequent web searches revealed that the case slides away along this edge to reveal the drive inside. I would have preferred a much better containment of the drive. I don't know if this contributed to the drive failure, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I'm giving this drive a single star because a premature drive failure (especially at three weeks) is as serious as it gets for this kind of product. If mine was a rare occurrence, then it will be drowned out by more positive reviews.

As for pros, the drive holds half a terabyte in a package that fits in your hand. Drive speed seemed to be as good as my internal drive, at about 23 MB/s. It was nice while it lasted.

Burned once, I exchanged this drive for the one I originally wanted to buy in the first place: Seagate ST905003FAA2E1-RK FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Black). This drive is a 500GB/s drive with read/write speeds in the 23MB/s range as well. The packing is much better than the Passport, and smaller as well. I'm only into my second day of use with this drive, but I'm alreadier happier for having this one. I'll review the Seagate drive after a month or two.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - worth the price
I brought this hard drive for storing and transferring my data. It works pretty well with my Dell laptop.
Pros:-
1. very small and handy
2. no additional power needed

Cons:-
1. Slightly slow in data transfer rate, it took about 20 minutes for transferring 20 GB of data)
2. the USB cable is slightly small

Haven't used the sync software hence no comments on that


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Good size, memory for a long time...
I already had bought a WD HD (120 GB). Then, I decided to buy one with more memory (500GB). It's excelent!


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - reliable, easy to use, but why such bright light?
Not much to add to what's been said here. I use one of these daily for Time Machine backups on OS X, and I keep a clone of my laptop's drive on a second WD Passport drive, stored offsite in case of a fire or theft. They've performed perfectly, if a little slowly.

My one gripe about these things: the LED status light is easily as bright as a pocket flashlight. In a darkened room, it's totally obnoxious. I don't know why electronics manufacturers think it's necessary to use the brightest LED available for a little indicator light. This one's pretty easy to solve: just cut out a tiny piece of electrical tape and place it over the status light. It's bright enough that you will STILL be able to see it through the tape, but at least it won't light up your whole bedroom every time your computer backs itself up.


Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - LASTED FIVE (5) DAYS!!!!
This absolute worthless piece of junk lasted for five days of mild use and I lost 500 gbs of photos. This is the 2nd Passport that I have problems with. Stick to a Lacie Rugged, Much better product. Oh yeah and DO NOT PURCHASE FROM "INFINITE SURPLUS" !!! They refused to take it back and asked me to go thru Western Digital directly even though it's only been 5 days. Scumbags. Stick to a decent company with a decent return policy.

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