Western Digital WDMES5000TN 500 GB My Passport Essential USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive (Cool Silver)
Sunday, January 25, 2009 6:31
Binding : Electronics
ProductGroup : CE
Manufacturer : Western Digital
Brand : Western Digital
Label : Western Digital
Publisher : Western Digital
Model : WDMES5000
Platform : Windows
Studio : Western Digital
Lowest Used Price: USD $129.98
Lowest New Price: USD $149.99
- It's So Compact And Lightweight That You Can Pop It Easily Into Your Pocket
- Don't Need To Use The Mains To Power Up The My Passport Essential
- Easy To Transfer Photos, Videos And Music Files
- Handling Is Quite Easy
- Much Faster Due To Large Capacity
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). It's perfect for business travelers who needs to transfer large amounts of data from their laptop to a client's computer, or daily backups as insurance against accidents from mishandled luggage or 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.
Light Sleek Hard Drive Works Flawlessly as Mac Time Machine (2010-03-11)
I have used it for 6 months now and it has worked flawlessly as Time Machine backup drive. I wish the speed was a little faster, to some extent, hampered by the speed of USB 2 standard. It takes more than an hour to back up 320 Gb MacBook hard drive. I used it first in my MacBook and now it does not work with my Windows XP computers and I see that it is formatted as Mac OS Extended (case Sensitive, Journaled). I am not sure whether it came like that or Mac OS changed the formatting without me being aware.
Prior to this, I had used Western Digital WDXMS1200TN Passport 120 GB USB 2.0 2.5-Inch Portable Hard Drive for 3 years, again, without any problems with Windows XP and Mac OS. But I used that one with Windows XP first and then it needed to be reformatted as Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled) to work with Mac as Time Machine. The drive still works well after three years, but I had to reformat for the second time as MS DOS (Fat 32) to be able to use with both Mac OS & Windows XP as just an external hard drive, not Time Machine backup drive. WD Sync software for Windows XP backup that it came pre-installed with was painfully slow and imperfect and basically useless.
In the past I have used a Fantom hard drive that died in a few months and two Lacie hard drives, which still work but are noisy.
This Passport drive is very sleek, light, small, portable, quiet, USB powered, reliable and works well with both Windows and Mac OS with proper formatting. If you want to use with both, format as MS DOS (Fat 32); for Mac OS Time Machine format as Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled); and for Windows use only format as NTFS.
Horrible! Lost all of my data! (2010-01-14)
Within 1 year, my WD external hard drive suddenly stopped working on both my Mac and PC. It turned out to be a mechanical failure within the hard drive, which cost me $1,200 to send it off to recover my data. I would not recommend this to anyone!
Great portable drive. (2009-10-14)
The 500gb USB drive arrived about 10days after ordering (used Amazon free shipping option). It was in fine shape despite a less than optimal packing job by the retailer. The shipping box was 4x the size of the drive's packaging and only had minimal packing around the drive allowing it to get bounced around. Nonetheless, the drive operates perfectly. I use it as my TIme Machine backup for my Mac laptop. Works quietly (almost silent) and seamlessly. Setup for this was minimal to none, just plug in and the Mac automatically did the rest. Drive is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket if I had to. I would recommend this item.
Excellent portable hard drive (2009-10-03)
I wanted a hard drive big enough for backs and be portable. This one is perfect.
compact and efficient (2009-09-14)
Bought this little portable hard drive to store my photos and empty my cards while traveling. also to be able to carry my collection with me. Just plug it in and start using it. Easy! Fast! Compact!
