Product Description

Western Digital HD Passport Ess500GB 25 USB20 Light Blue WDBAAA5000ABLEESN Storage External Hard Drives

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1752 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Western Digital
• Model: WDBAAA5000ABL-EESN
• Released on: 2009-09-10
• Dimensions: .59" h x 4.33" w x 3.27" l, .44 pounds
• Hard Disk: 500GB

Features

• You can pack up your office files and take them home with you thanks to the My Passport Essential from Western Digital! This glossy blue hard drive has a huge capacityof 500 GB, yet it's so compact and lightweight that you can pop iteasily into your pocket. You don't need to use the mains to power upthe My Passport Essential just plug it into your computer's USB port and you're ready to transfer photos, videos and music files. The My Passport Essential is compatible with PC and Mac.
• WESTERN DIGITAL My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive - blue USB 2.0 Portable external hard drive Storage
• Portable external hard drive

Manufacturer's Description
The world’s most popular portable drive is now smaller than ever. And it’s smarter than ever with WD SmartWare™ data management and backup software that backs up your data automatically and continuously, shows your backup as it happens, and restores lost files effortlessly. Password protection and military-grade, 256-bit hardware-based encryption lets you secure your data. One of the five beautiful colours is just what you need to make you look smart (and very stylish).

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.

Big capacity that fits in your pocket - This compact drive fits easily in your pocket or purse, weighs only a few ounces and with with massive storage capacity, you can take tons of photos, videos, files and music with you wherever you go.

USB powered - Powered directly from the USB port on your PC. No separate power supply is needed.

Synchronized and secure - 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)

Compatible - Use with Windows and Macintosh computers.

Ideal for storing or backing up your digital music, videos and photos, carrying important files and e-mail between work and home or on the road and keeping them in sync, plus sharing large files between office and home, between PC and Mac.

Box Contains

Customer Reviews

Great hard disk, just works!
Hello everybody,

I bought this hard disk a week ago. Even though before buying it I read all the reviews of the black version and I was expecting a hard disk that would corrupt my files, disconnect all the time and slow down my OS with the provided software.

So here are my comments:

Appearance: *****
Price: *****
Cable: ***
Speed: *** (but it is same with any other drive)
Software: *


Positive:

* Just works! You don't have to install any of the provided software to use it. If you don't need a password for your data or backup services just don't install anything. I am running Windows 7 and ubuntu 9 10 and it just works out of the box.

* No disconnection. Cable if fine. I have transferred all my files from my laptop (Gigabytes of movies, music, pictures, software and data) aprx 300Gb on the first night the drive arrived with no problem at all. The cable is short (and some people say that this is bad) but short cable means faster transfer and less data loss(You don't see the data loss, but your OS will see it and ask from the drive to resend the data which will cost time). Also on my cable there are two pins on top that help to fit firmly.

* Appearance: 5 Stars. Smaller and lighter than the previous version and looks very nice.

* Good price: I bought that drive from Amazon for 60 gbp where all other drives where 75 and above.


Negative:

* Bad reviews. Everybody complains about the new version of WD and this means that there really is a problem.

* Cable: I really like Buffalo drives that the cable and the drive are one part. You will never loose or forget your cable and you won't need to plug and unplug it which will cause problems later on.

* Mounted cd: Very bad idea from WD. Please remove it as soon as possible. Nobody wants it. Even though is helpful if you want to install your drive on an old machine that requires drivers or if you want to set up a password.

* Provided software: Looks terrible. It is good if you want the drive for backing up your data automatically or set up a password but if you are willing to use it as a piece of extra memory it is really useless. And Yes it is true that it takes a lot of memory. As I said above don't install it unless you really need it.


Why 5 stars?

Because this drive does what I want it to do. It simply works. 60 pounds for 500 Gb was a very good purchase. I didn't have any problems upto now and I hope I don't. I am not taking the responsibility if yours comes faulty. Read all the reviews here and the reviews of the black version, decide how much you want to spend, what do you need it for and decide if you can take the risk. I will update my comment if I have any problem with the drive, but I hope I don't need to.

If you can't take the risk you can go for the previous version or for another brand. Personally I believe that Buffalo is good but you can't find on Amazon anything else from them except their bottom line and it is expensive. Also you may want to wait for a better version from WD but this is probably going to take a while.


Thank you for reading my review.

Small, and svelt, works as planned...
It's a USB powered external hard drive, works for me (tm)... although I was kinda irritated that it has a build in rom that mounts as a CD drive with some windows drivers on it. I'm using Linux and I've encrypted the hard drive... but there's this virtual driver CD that's always there, shame.

Otherwise I'd give it 5 stars.

Western Digital 500GB losing connectivity
The device opens up 2 connections and also the USB kept losing connectivity. Was not impressed.