western digital 320gb passport 2.5" external hdd

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=206608584

check it out its already in the passport series!!

 

they have been selling them for a while (several weeks) but yeah, thats a good price.

 

It's funny that it's about $10-20 less than just the 320GB bare drive. Cheaper to pull it out of its case, than to buy it without one. Club it has the 250GB version for $109 AR.

 

Does this have the Western Digital Scorpio WD3200BEVT inside?

 

I read on another thread that the Maxtor OneTouch Minis have Seagate 7200.2s, so you can pick up an external drive with retail packaging and USB cable for $50 less than the drive itself in an OEM anti-static bag off Newegg.

 

Thats a very good point

 

wd has them priced logically on their site. this is what i did with my 2 250gb drives for my laptops. saved money and got a nifty case. the first one was a sum***** to get out though. the second one was a snap though after figuring it out.

 

fyi, if you send questions to wd's email support, you could get a coupon code for $15 off orders over $150 after completing a 5 second survey. just got one but i'm not sure if you can let someone else use it for their order. they currently offer free shipping over $200. so in theory, you could get a 320gb drive for $185. i could not get free shipping online as the drive is actually $199.99 and misses the free shipping by 1 cent. i'm sure if i call them i could get something worked out.

 

is there a way to know for sure that the 250gb passport or 320gb passport externals are sata before we buy it? i want to get one and swap it with my current 160 in my laptop. im leaning more towards the 250gb tho because of price.

 

if you are referring to the 250gb, buy one from a store that will let you return open items. take the drive and connect it to your computer and check device manager for the model number. vista should give you the full model number. XP, at least for me, did not. should show as WD2500BEVS. all the 320gb drives should be sata. wd does not currently have a 320gb 2.5 ide drive. i bought mine from best buy when they were on sale and told them what i was doing and they said as long as i did not open the enclosure kit, they would refund my money. i was very specific about being able to get my money back.

 

they are sata.. i have bought 2 of them now

 

hmm i might have to do this then. 250gb + enclosure for 129.99 (circuit city price match).

 

AFAIK, WD only has 2.5" drives in 250GB and higher in SATA models only. So the 250GB and 320GB should all be SATA. The 250GB could be a 2MB cache model and not 8MB but I haven't heard of the 320GB having the same variations

 

Can anyone confirm this works? I'm thinking about buying the 320gb model. Can anyone confirm the model in the passport is the same as the bare bone model? How hard is it to take apart? Does the case work with other drives?

Thanks,
Jacob.

 

It will work

Yes it is.

It is a little tricky, but it can be done.

Yes it will.

 

Hi,I saw,that 320GB Passport have only 2MB cache buffer(in same internet stores)...So I'm not sure,if is it a mistake,or if they have two modificaions of this drive..

 

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/ProductMatrix.asp

as you can see, wd only makes an 8mb cache 320gb sata drive. it doesn't even make sense for them to even have a 2mb version. they're going from sata1.5 to 3.0 with the 320gb. after opening up the 250gb enclosure kit, i realized that the 2mb is in reference to the on board cache, not the hard drive cache buffer. the only thing i can think of offhand as to why the controller in the enclosure is 2mb would be to lower power consumption allowing the drive to be powered with less complications over usb.