What's the life expectancy of the Western Digital My Passport Essential USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive I'm looking to store mainly pictures and important documents and was wondering how long can one of these hold data before I should worry about backing up the back-up? What's the life expectancy of the Western Digital My Passport Essential USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive I'm looking to store mainly pictures and important documents and was wondering how long... » Read More What's the life expectancy of the Western Digital My Passport Essential USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive I'm looking to store mainly pictures and important documents and was wondering how long can one of these hold data before I should worry about backing up the back-up? « Show Less
1120022
I bought a western digital 500Gb external hard-drive for back up. I was always afraid of this hard-drive crash, so one day I started to backup my WD backup hard-drive, that's when I get a error message saying IO error from this cursed WD hard-drive. All my precious pictures are gone, I still regret until now that I should have second backup for my data. Never buy from WD again. The good news is that there are data recovery services, but they will cost you an arm and a leg.
1120023
So is better having DVDs for back up?I have a SimpleTech external HD I use to back up my data maybe once a month, I don't use it that often. I have one year with it, it's never failed. But I wonder if I'm only using the external HD for from time to time back up it will last longer or not.
1120024
I have a "very old" External Hard drive...not this make/model...I turn it on once/quarter to backup recent files...it's probably over 3 years old. Recently, I bought one of these WD Elite 500GB models...my plan is to backup on two externals...in case one fails. I know this seems lame, but it is the only way to ensure everything sticks around. Seems like its worth the extra $100.
1120025
One of my music tech professors said about 2 years, but of course he is a audio expert, not exactly a computer expert. I had my 320 GB passport for 10 months now which I use everyday and never had problems, but I don't know for sure how long it will last though, so I definitely would suggest a backup.
1630901
Western Digital offers two Passport Edge hard drives...one for Windows the other for Mac. I purchased one of each. The Windows version is plastic, top to bottom. The Mac version is aluminum. It is sturdier and visually more appealing than the Windows version. I have since purchased another Mac drive to use with my Windows laptop. For anyone interested in this drive...BUT the MAC version and format it for NTFS. The drive is fast and small, but has a lot of storage space, overall...a great buy.
1867066
Do the external drives to be connected to the hub have their own power source? If they are intended to run off of the power of the hub, you may have problems. This is my speculation based on the note under the product description stating the product should not be used with WD passport hard drives. I have several of those, each 1TB, and they run off the power of the hub. Currently, they are plugged into USB 2.0 ports, but they are USB 3.0 compatible products used as "backwards compatible," and run very slowly with USB 2.0, but they run. With USB 3.0, there is evidently a reason they are not supposed to be used. So, I would say it depends on whether the external hard drives have their own power source and, specifically, if they are WD passport drives, the product information I saw said they should not be used with this hub.
1339935
@Book WitchI should think that it is. You may be able to use Western Digital's software included on the drive to aid you in your backup. If, however, you do not want to use their software, preferring to use another backup program, it is easy to delete the WD software (the easiest way to delete all of it is to merely reformat the drive in NTFS format).
1819658
I have two, one for the laptop and one for the desktop. I've had both for about 8 months, and not a single problem. These things can take more of a beating than regular HDDs (not like you should be beating them:( )but alas, as with all technology, some do fail. I'm good so far though! Not packing them full of files helps.
822812
I believe a Western Digital drive would work fine. I bought 2 of them for myself.
704264
Candidly, I think it really doesn't matter what the ratings are. I know it is somewhat the same as the WD Red drives. The key is whether they continue working and last a while. I have had drives by other makers that had 3 year warranties and lasted over 5 years before I retired them (all were still working). Lots of the numbers thrown to the consumer by drive companies have little meaning when it comes to mean fail times as everyone uses drives differently and it also depends on what drives you get and what shape they were in.
2211851
As this is made for the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex it has a cable with USB connections and an adapter to SATA. The Western Digital Passport has Mini USB, but the model called My Passports looks like it has the same flat USB 3.0 socket, so in that case you just need this. http://amzn.com/B005K6G7BU
402921
At this moment I am pulling data off an external USB drive that appeared to be totally dead. Clack, click, whiirrrrrrrr and never came online. I froze it. Not kidding: http://www.emergingtechs.com/posts/put-your-hard-drive-in-the-freezer-to-recover-data/ Mine works for about 1/2hr until the drive warms up again, then back into the freezer. Given this scenario it makes sense to know what is critical, get it first, and get the non-essential stuff later. All my important stuff is already recovered and now I'm copying over 40GB of "nice to have" stuff. As soon as this process is over I'm going to improve my backup scenario!
893936
Depends on what youre trying to store. Typically, for normal/average use, then it should be fine for quite some time. A full computer backup, without any files, is about 13GB of space. I purchased the 2TB...the bigger the better. But, I store a lot of movies, TV shows, and music.
629562
Agreed superrabbit, my Passport died after 8 months. Thank god I have backed up everything to my other Seagate drive that I use as a secondary backup to my mac. I am looking to get either Iomega or Seagate 500G drive soon for my primary backup unit.
788727
I got a WD Passport 160 GB USB 2.0 Drive today. - It does not work on my 4-year old Compaq Presario 900 laptop (XP home with SP2). Nothing happens. - So far no trouble running it on my newer HP Pavilion dv4000 (XP home with SP2).With all the comments about working or not working with laptops I keep my fingers crossed! Noticed that reviews earlier this year were far more negative than more recent one's. Did they improve the product??
79878
I actually have the WD My Passport for Mac 1TB and it is functional with OS X Yosemite (version 10.10.1). I back up my MacBook Pro approx. every ten days.
513138
I would use nothing BUT these drives in anything I built or upgraded. They're a bit pricier, and no one ever thinks about it, but the warranty on THESE hard drives, the WD Black series, is a full 5Y. VERY few other mfrs even offer a 5y warranty. And WD drives earn that warranty reputation, I haven't had a WD drive fail, EVER. In each case -- over a dozen -- they've become useless through increasing capacity, never mechanical/electronic failure. That is, I probably have an 80gig WD drive that's still functioning. It's just not worth plugging in and taking up a SATA channel when I can get that capacity on a freaking flash drive nowadays... Yes, they're that good. You can "save money" by buying something cheaper. But you'll pay in the long run with headaches from lost data, or time spent rebuilding your windows/software/os and tweaking it back to the way you had it. The HD is the soul of your machine. Everything else fails, you can practically swap a part back in and you're up and running. But the HD fails and you've got a multiday to longer term headache to get things back to "normal". And, for general purposes, they're among the best drives in performance terms, too. Tom's Hardware may rate something else marginally faster, but not by much. And not by enough to drag you away from WD Black. As the old saw goes, once you go Black, you'll never go back. :-D
1893691
goto western digitals website and you can check the warranty status with the serial number that is on the drive. Most drives I have bought usually have 1 1/2 to 2 year warranties
629559
I just had a Western Digital 2TB My Book fail miserably (miserably!!! Dead!) after two months. I've never had any other drive fail (and I've used much smaller capacity WD external drives w/out issue in the past). But i'm now a Seagate (1TB Freeagent) user because I won't trust the larger WD's any longer. Once bitten! ;) Since the failure, many of my colleagues have admitted the same type of failure from their WD's and are using Seagates with good results. If you search online, you'll see very mixed reviews with similar negative views of the Seagates, but I can only speak from my own very frustrating experience with my WD. I just had a Western Digital 2TB My Book fail miserably (miserably!!! Dead!) after two months. I've never had any other drive fail (and I've used much smaller capacity WD external drives w/out issue in the past). But i'm now a Seagate (1TB Freeagent) user because I won't trust the larger WD's any longer. Once bitten! ;) Since the failure, many of my colleagues have admitted the same type of failure from their WD's and are using Seagates with good results. If you search online, you'll see very mixed reviews with similar negative views of the Seagates, but I can only speak from my own very... » Read More I just had a Western Digital 2TB My Book fail miserably (miserably!!! Dead!) after two months. I've never had any other drive fail (and I've used much smaller capacity WD external drives w/out issue in the past). But i'm now a Seagate (1TB Freeagent) user because I won't trust the larger WD's any longer. Once bitten! ;) Since the failure, many of my colleagues have admitted the same type of failure from their WD's and are using Seagates with good results. If you search online, you'll see very mixed reviews with similar negative views of the Seagates, but I can only speak from my own very frustrating experience with my WD. « Show Less
697990
Thank you for contacting us. I am not sure so I looked at other posts about this. It seems they are very close in performance but this stood out: "The other thing to keep in mind when choosing a drive is that Western Digital?s enterprise drives are meant to be constantly in use, 24/7. The consumer drives are rated for 300,000 load/unload cycles, whereas the enterprise drives are are rated for double that at 600,000 load/unload cycles. This means the enterprise drive is guaranteed to have a longer use-life than a consumer drive under identical conditions." Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.