(Old Model) WD My Passport Ultra 1 TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Auto Backup, Black

Hey Amazon community, I recently purchased this and as an avid lover of WD, this does not disappoint. The transfer speed is great when at 3.0 - I get about 96-100mb/s or if youre on 2.0 I get about 20-26mb/s. Now mind you, thats using a software called Teracopy so your mileage may vary. I like this drive because you dont need an external power source for it, so to me its just a huge flashdrive. Now before I get called out on that, I know, I know.. its like one, not that it is one. I bring this up because I pondered how I seem to like 3.0 flash drives yet.. This seems to do the job so very well and its got a lot of storage. I formatted mine to NTFS because I can transfer single files that are over 4gigs without the restriction of FAT32 telling me that it cant transfer the file so thats something to keep in mind for when you have a hard drive. I take this everywhere with me and overall its an awesome product. Im just a PC user as my current macbook is in the shop so I never got to test this on a mac yet but its not a problem to get this going. Extremely easy set up right out the box, no hassles, no complaints.

I did a careful product analysis before I purchased this product. Looking for additional highly portable storage I had originally looked at installing a hard drive in my laptop optical bay using a spare 500GB 5400RPM HDD I had laying around. Unfortunately another laptop had a hard drive failure and it became necessary to use that spare drive as a replacement for the failed drive. At that point I was no longer sure how to proceed. The last time I shopped for external storage was 5 years ago. I bought a WD My Book at the time. 2 years later the enclosure took a nosedive but the drive was still good, needless to say that drive got transplanted into a new enclosure and is still running fine today, problem being it is pretty large (3.5 form factor), has its own power supply, and not very portable. So going into this process I was looking for something powered only by a USB connection, and preferably smaller than a thick trade paperback. Well, I was in for a bit of a surprise. The new portable drives were about as big as my iphone and all were powered by USB connection. Big plus for me. At that point it became a maximum dollar to storage to quality equation, with a optical bay HDD still being an option. Since I could do that for $65 or so and use an older 250GB HDD I had laying around that became a base line for my budget, however I wanted at least 500GB since I am busy backing up my media library, and wanted it handy for travel. Essentially the more storage the better. Speed was not so much of a factor, raw storage was, and since I run a machine with Ubuntu 12.04 the various manufacturer provided apps and encryption software for Windows or Mac were a complete non factor. So basically the biggest bang for my dollar is what I was looking at. Upon further research I discovered the best storage range was definitely items in the 1TB range. Not only were they the same size as 500GB solutions, they only cost roughly $10 more. 2TB solutions were thicker, and the price jump was much larger. 1TB it was. I narrowed it down to three choices. The Seagate Backup Plus, the HGST Touro Mobile, and the WD My Passport Ultra all priced at roughly $70. So why the Ultra? It fit all my requirements, had a smaller form factor, lighter weight, equal storage, similar price, best benchmarks, and I have had great luck with WD HDDs in the past. It arrived yesterday, took one minute to set up and less than half an hour to get all my data transferred. It is very quiet, and gives off very little heat. Pretty sturdy construction. I will definitely update this if any problems occur, but for now I got exactly what I was looking for, quickly, and at a great price.

I love that this is the Old Model. Dont know exactly what that means. Im guessing that the newer version is sleeker and sexier (isnt that why one trades in an old(er) model for a new(er) one??). But this worked for me exactly as is. Its light and easy to set up and use. I desperately needed an external hard drive because I had two work laptops crash and lost all my documents. But more importantly, all my pictures and videos (dont tell my boss... Oh, wait - thats me!). Sure, I knew I needed one before - just to back up my files. And I had had one when I worked in an actual office. I just didnt think about it, until I lost everything. The computer geniuses found a way to get to my data, despite the fact the laptops wouldnt even turn on (might not be a huge feat in the IT world - but it amazed and thrilled me!). Then they offered to sell me a smaller drive - for $100 more! Jumped on Amazon. Found what I needed at a great price. Got my 2 day shipping and spent the last day smiling and laughing and explaining the photos to my kiddos. So while this may be the OLD model - it still worked just as it was supposed to... perfectly!

Update 5-2016: Updated my computer to Win10 and have had no problems with this device. Also managed to buy a longer USB3 Y cable for this at a going-out-of-business Radio Shack for several dollars. ----------------------------------------- Works as advertised. Bought this to backup files and photos from a Dell computer running Win7. This external drive requires no plug-in power supply; it runs off USB power. A nice feature lacking from many external drives. My computer recognized the new drive immediately. Basic setup took less than five minutes. This drive can be encrypted, which I did. This took an addition several minutes. I did not set up multiple partitions, sticking with just one. With multiple, you can encrypt one partition without having to do them all. So far a good performer (3 months so far) and a good price. Only complaints: (a) the USB cord is only 17 inches long, limiting placement in and around the computer, and (2) the USB cord that attaches to the drive is one of the new USB3 mini Y connectors (power and data are split out), so a little more costly to buy a replacement cord if you lose this one. I couldnt find a replacement cord listed on the WD site, but theyre starting to show up on Amazon and other sites.

These are quite quick when running on native USB 3.0. I have several of these and they have proven to be easy to use and mostly reliable in both Windows and Linux. The enclosure is mostly plastic, but it seems sturdy. I said mostly reliable because I did have one that developed a worrisome spindle bearing rumble after about 32 days of use. To be fair, however, it must be noted that the rumbling drive was originally shipped to me in a PADDED ENVELOPE...not the customary box with peanuts or other suitable cushioning. Although it was a new-in-box unit, I dont think WD designed the retail packaging to serve as the drives only shipping protection. Amazon wouldnt do anything about it, as it was 2 days outside the standard 30 day return window. WD, however, shipped me a replacement unit in 2 business days!! No stars off as I see this as a shipper (whom I hazed) and not a hardware issue. Unfortunately, I do deduct one star because there is no external AC/DC power supply option, which leaves only powering through the USB port as the only option. This means no legacy USB support beyond 2.0 and the supplied interface cable is only 18 short. Also, the cable is the rather oddball USB A to micro-B format. Power, cable and legacy issues aside, this is a nice portable 1 or 2 TB storage solution from a top tier maker at a very attractive price.

First of all, I had wanted to purchase the non-ultra version of the WD hdd, but it seems they have phased out that version and consumers are now left with no other alternatives.. Prior to this, I had 2 other 1TB non-ultra WD hdd and Im no computer geek, so Im not going to go into the extent of comparing the speeds of transfer between this new ultra hdd and other hdds. I bought this hdd cos i ran out of space in other hdds, and as a storage device, this 2TB ultra hdd works as it should. In fact, WD is the only brand of hdd that I have trusted thus far and I had bought 4 other external hdd from wd, starting from way back in 2008 and Ive never had any problem with their hdd. In terms of build and appearance though, while the non-ultra version I purchased previously had their silver and blue color coming directly from the material used to make the hdd, the red color from this ultra version looked to be just a sticker that could be defaced in the future. Im someone who takes physical appearance of my purchased products rather seriously and this new design feature will take some points off my review score. Another reason why this ultra hdd only receives 4 stars, is that based on previous reviews of this product, I was expecting my purchase to come with a free soft pouch. But that is no longer true for my case and now Ive had to go through the trouble of purchasing another pouch...

I had been using a Seagate FreeAgent Go 640GB portable drive for about three years now, and wanted something with some more space and higher transfer speeds. I purchased this drive for its beefy 2 TB of storage space and speedier USB 3.0 interface. Out of the box, you get the drive, a 15 USB 3.0 cable, soft pouch, quick install guide, and a 3-year limited warranty. The drive looks nice, and appears to be of good construction. Doesnt look or feel cheaply made. I like how compact it is. Its about an inch shorter in length than my FreeAgent Go, and maybe a millimeter or two thicker. The included soft pouch is a nice addition and helps keep dust and dirt off of it. Not an ideal case solution if youre prone to dropping things or somewhat rough with your belongings, so you might want to invest in a more rugged case. It works fine for me though as I keep mine in a messenger bag when on the go, and its a nice addition considering most other drives dont come with anything. The included USB cable is long enough to plug into the USB port on the front of my PC and reach my desks surface. So, thumbs up there. Functionally, the My Passport Ultra 2TB works as advertised. Transfer rates are roughly 3x faster than that of a USB 2.0 drive. I noticed the difference in speed right away when transferring large files (1-5GB+), taking only 2-3 minutes instead of 5-10 minutes or longer depending on file size. I work with large media files all day long, so the bump up in transfer speeds is really nice. The drive is very quiet while running. You wouldnt even know that its on except for a tiny little LED indicator light to the right of the USB connector port. So, why only four stars? Hardware-wise, The Passport Ultra is no different from WDs regular Passport series of portable drives. Theyre the same exact drives, only slightly different in appearance. What the regular Passports lack from the Ultra is the soft pouch, the Ultra label, and WDs misleading labeling on the box that touts, Auto & Cloud Backup Plus Security. The Auto backup is merely referring to WDs abysmal backup software included on the drive, WD SmartWare (more on that later). The Cloud backup is basically instructions on the box for setting up a DropBox account. No kidding! Theyre advertising cloud storage on the front of their packaging like its a feature theyre offering. Flip the box over and youll see that its nothing more than an advertising gimmick for DropBox with instructions on how to set up an account.

I,m a semi elderly computer user of average tech savvy, so if I can setup and use an external hard drive anybody should be able to. The WD Passport ultra with one TB memory is probably much more memory than Ill ever need, but for the difference in price I went with the 1TB. Setup instructions I found by Goggling variations of “ installing passport external hard drive” was much more useful to me than the included user guide. I studied both before starting. Once I started I had it ready to go in just a few minutes. When I first got this new Windows 8 computer a few months ago, during setup and initialization it guided me thru creating an “operating system recovery partition” and copying it to a USB drive. With a little exploring I found I could also copy a O.S. Backup to the passport. I think I read in the user guide where passport would not do that but by all indications it did. Guess Ill know if I”m ever unfortunate enough to try and use it. Cant ever have too many backup plans. I got all my documents and photos copied to the pass port, then to verify success I took it to a friends computer and viewed what was on it. Every thing was there. I didnt set up the automatic back up software because my plan is to keep the passport disconnected and stored in a safe place and bring it out and update whenever I feel the need. My reasoning for this is if I ever get a virus or malware and the backup hard drive is connected it will be compromised also. I had been watching several venders for a device like this for a of couple months and was about ready to use USB drives for data backup which for no more data than I have would have been sufficient, but when I found this passport at Amazon for around $70 with free shipping I went this route. I also needed an Ethernet cable hub to hook up a VOIP phone but Amazon had a wireless router with four LAN connections on sale so I went with it. Now if I ever need a wireless connection Ill be ready. If you are reading this then you must be thinking about data backup. So remember, when dealing with technology sooner or later Murphy s law is going to bite you. So however you decide to do it – BACKUP-BACKUP-BACKUP.

Thank God i picked up this little guy, my computer got messed up and i was able to get everythign back because i had backed up everything just a few days ago.. Anyways, on to the review: Ok so i did my research before buying and went with Western Digital since i had already owned a previous external hard drive from them and know of its reputation. The price was perfect and I got a good deal of Amazon. I personally did look around and I dont think you will be able to find a better deal than the one Amazon is curently providing.. This portable hard drive is so light , im amazed how far these things have come.. it feels like it weighs less than my smart phone! The drive is pretty fast and has plenty of storage with the 1 TB option.. I usually dont install the software that manufacturers send with their devices but i thought why not, I was so impressed that this drive actually backed up my whole PC, and that too just the way i wanted it to and im sure most people would want, all the pictures in a seperate folder, music in another documents in another , videos in another... I mean it blew my mind, i just watched it do everything on its own and it barely took any time.. I backed up my own laptop and my wifes laptop the same day and it did it quickly and everything is well organized.. I would also recommend you to look at the Amazon Basics Case for this drive, thats the one i got and its fits perfectly..Highly recommend this drive to anyone.. Extremely easy to use.

Bought two of these in Nov. 2013 (a black one for my laptop, a red one for my wife), both seemed to work fine since - until today. Still well within the 3 year limited warranty, mine died today. WDs own Utility software couldnt read the drive to give a diagnosis, but Crystal Disk Info showed 767 Reallocated Sectors (100 is very high), the drive began to randomly click today, and Windows 10 file manager recognized it only as Local Drive but couldnt access it at all. Thankfully it was used for backups only and I didnt have anything one of a kind on it. The irreplaceable stuff is on my wifes WD Passport - so now to get that off in case it fails too. In my book, a product review also includes service (including warranty) after the sale. In order to get an RMA, I had to call their customer service operators last night as the WD website got stuck and repeatedly asked for my address - although I had entered it several times previously. When i called I ended up w/Jose who, though efficient, was a bit terse and bordered on curt w/me a couple of times. Dont know where WDs CSRs are located, but heard a young woman laughing and talking loudly quite a bit in the background. Im sure that she was probably just in the cubicle next door and laughing with a customer but, when youve just had a catastrophic hard drive failure, you want calm and compassionate reassurance - not laughter. While waiting for Jose to do his thing and listening to the laughter, it conjured up the image of the old Discover Card This is Peggy commercial with the man in a little hut inside the Arctic Circle taking calls for USA Credit. So a little unnerved I was as I gave them my address and credit card info for what WD calls an Advanced RMA - wherein they ship a new HD immediately, put a hold on my credit card for $127 (a new model on Amazon is $89), and give me 30 days to ship the dead HD back, or have my credit card docked for the overpriced, new (supposedly) HD. Ill update the review when we see if I get a new model or the older (possibly refurbished?) model from 3 years ago... I was nice to Peggy, so hopefully the rest of the story will turn out well. In the meantime, the WD SmartWare isnt very smart. It doesnt automatically update (though the box is checked to allow updates...), and never were really sure if it was backing up. Turns out that the software hadnt updated on my pc since July 2015 (two versions ago), and my wifes situation was even worse... the WD software on her pc wasnt backing up at all, and hadnt updated since November 2014. So we ran several manual backups just to be on the safe side. Strangely, we discovered these software issues over last weekend and, concerned that we may have more WD software problems, had begun backups with Windows 10 Backup utility, which is much less intrusive and draining on the computer than the SmartWare Continuous backups. Then today my HD failed. Coincidence? Bottom line... not sure if Im too enthused about getting another Western Digital 2TB Passport Ultra for free or not... UPDATE March 2, 2016. Received a replacement hard drive for the one that died within 3 days. WD did a good job responding and shipping quickly. I would have been surprised to see a new HD to replace my dead one, and sure enough, the HD that they sent was EXACTLY like the one that I bought more than two years ago, and is clearly refurbished (says Recertified in Vietnam on the bottom). While the recertified part isnt a big deal to me as Ive bought numerous refurbed products over the years with excellent results (typing this review on a wonderful little refurbed Lenovo T430s ThinkPad...), the part that has irked me since getting the HD is that when I registered the new/recertified HD with Western Digital on their online portal and checked the warranty, I see that it expires at the end of May 2016 - whopping four months after it was sent to me - and six months short of the November 2016 warranty expiration of my old dead one! The least that WD could have done was to extend the warranty of the recertified HD until then...or I could extend it myself until 2018 for an additional $25. Bad business practices, WD. To their credit however, my fears of Peggy in the Arctic Circle stealing my credit card info or at least not crediting the $127 for a new HD were, so far, unfounded. The hold that they had placed on my card for the full, inflated price of the replacement HD has since been removed (because I sent the dead one back to them post-haste, and at my expense!). Overall, the first HD lasted only two out of the three years of the warranty. But WD did replace it with a recertified model. However, I had to pay to ship the dead one back to them, then got shorted six months on the warranty as compared to the original. Im not impressed with WD and wont be buying anything else from them. Hopefully I wont also be updating this review later this year because the recertified HD dies out of warranty. The barely three stars that Ive generously given will then fall like rocks.