WD passport?

right now im trying to decide between the western digital passport or the mybook. i would prefer the passport because i have a laptop and it'll be easier to take that one than the my book but with the passport all the reviews ive read either said it was terrible or that it was great. the mybook however ive only heard great things about. so i was wondering if any of you own/have used the passport and how well it worked.

passport
mybook

 

I've got the passport. I love the small size.

 

Hey I have a 120GB black passport drive. I love it, though at first I did not.

first the negatives:

it says and is advertised and you will TALK to people who use it purely on usb power, straight out of the box. Mine would not work, so I had to order the double-usb plug from WD for 10 dollars to get it to work.

Now, it works fine with that setup and I love it.

**I tried it on my Vaio laptop and Gateway desktop, neither were powerful enough to power the usb of the passport, even though WD tried to convince me otherwise.

So the point? Be prepared to spend at least a few bucks more for the extra cable, and youre fine!

 

western passport sucks really bad...which is suprisng as it is from western digital.

i myself got a formac 160 gb 5400rpm that runs from a single usb lead and the speed impressed me greatly from a usb2 powered drive.

i have seen reviews that older machine need the y usb lead as the usb sockets they have dont give out enough juice to power them tho i think they have usb1 rather than usb2 as i never needed it.

had mine over a week now and well happy with it.

speed is aprox the same as the sata drive i have in my machine, ranges from 5-37mb/s depending on size of file and the your system setup.(memory..hardrive speed..programs runing..etc etc..) tho mine was never below 10 and highest i had was 37 .

also it has one awards from computer shopper and pcpro for speed and reliability and i got mine from ebuyer for £60 free delivery.

hope that help

 

oh and the formac doesnt need software just partition and format and plug and play like a usb pen drive.

easy.

 

I've got a WD passport 120 Gb, black. It works just fine and is my main back up.

Never had any problem running it straight from either USB port on my MBP.

 

I don't have a passport but I do have a generic 2.5" portable drive with a Y split USB cable but it doesn't seem to need both USB to be plugged in on my MBP which is lucky since the 2 USB ports on th MBP are on opposite sides.

 

I also have the WD Passport 120GB and have had no problems with it. I also own a Seagate FreeAgent 500GB and another Seagate 400GB external HD.

 

haven't used a new external 2.5 hd yet but my cheap case and old hd work on a reallly old Fujitsu life book ( 8 or 9 inch screen, 400 celeron 64 mb ram 60 gig hd internal, touch screen ) it is my really old game / minor media book. so I would say that it running on usb power with only one connection can widly vary depending on size of hdd and manufactour of hdd and of the usb port in the notebook,

heck even my desk top has ran out of usb juice a couple of times when I plug in to many things

 

I recently bought a 120GB Passport, and it's working just fine. I love the small size and the fact that it comes without an external power connector, it makes it very portable in my opinion.

If I remeber correctly, there's usually only two *powered* USB ports on laptops, even though there are more physical ports. Try using another port if you encounter problems.

 

As you noticed, the passport is a very edgy product. They use a mix of parts for them, so you could buy two at the same time and get two very different hard drives. I'd recommend this drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822204047

I use Fantom whenever I can. They're cheap and they use quality hard drives consistently.

 

alright system that one looks pretty nice. thanks

 

Sorry to drag out an old thread, but I am looking at the WD Passport (160GB) on sale this week at Staples ($90 after MIR). Anyone using it on the MPB? Will it really run using just one USB port? I have a wireless mouse in one port, and don't want to give it up for an external drive that doesn't have its own power supply. Still, after seeing the size of the drive at the store, it looks great! Thanks in advance.

 

I've got the 120Gb passport and it runs fine on my MBP... I use it to back up all my data about once a month. When I do this I drag and drop a total of about 100Gb on to the drive. This has so far gone without a glitch every time.

 

I've been using the WD Passport 120GB external drive for about 6 months now. It works out of the box and I've had no data loss so far. The reasons that made me buy it were the small size and the fact that it needs no external power supply. Else I'd probably would have gone in for a larger capacity disk.

However some of my friends have had varied mileage with the same product. Also found that the USB cable which came as a standard accessory, was a bit too short. I have to put the disk on a thick book or my coffee mug to avoid the disk from dangling by the cable, when using it with my workstation.

Other than that I am satisfied with it.

 

My 250GB WD passport works just fine out of the box as well with my Macbook. The only problem I have with it is the fact that it scratches quite easily, much more easily than my Lacie at least.

 

Black 120GB Passport here, Ive been using it everyday for a month now and it's one of the best 2.5" external drives I've used.

 

Thanks for the feedback. As I said, the size looked great for tossing in a bag with the MBP, I just wanted to be sure there's enough USB power available to run the beast. It's back the Staples this morning to get one!!!

 

why not get seagate freeagent go? i have one, and love them the orange glow really feels alive, and it is a good performer. comes with Y splitter cable. one for data and one for power.

the WD passport has problem of some computer not being able to supply ennough power through one USB plug. thus making it sometimes goes dead. get the seagate. it is a safer choice.

 

I was eyeing the Seagate FreeAgent Go myself...but my dad managed to dig up an external hard drive he didn't need anymore, so I didn't need to get it. Good to hear you like it .

 

120 GB Silver Passport here. I've had it for 18 months. Love it! I keep my iTunes library on there. I've also used it as a scratch drive for video editing. Considering it is a phantom powered 5400 rpm drive, I was very surprised that I was repeatedly able to capture video directly to this drive without any dropped frames. Excellent buy in my opinion.

 

Picked up the 160 this morning. A little Velcro and it's safely mounted under my iLap, and chugging away. Seems like the perfect addition for photos, videos and music. Saves some of the MBP's 160 GB for other stuff. (I'm always fretting about running out of space, although I never have.)