The My Passport Essential Portable Hard Drive from Western Digital is your answer to sleek, 'future-proof' portability. With this bus-powered drive, you can have up to 5Gb/s USB 3.0 speeds with complete backward compatibility with USB 2.0, allowing you to take full advantage of your drive immediately while still ensuring future usability.
| Interface | USB 3.0 (backward compatible with USB 2.0) |
| Data Transfer Rate |
USB 2.0: Up to 480Mb/s USB 3.0: Up to 5Gb/s |
| System Compatibility | Formatted NTFS for Windows XP / Vista / 7, requires reformatting for Mac OS X 10.5 / 10.6 |
| Operating Temperature | 41-95°F (5-35°C) |
| Storage Temperature | -4-149°F (-20-65°C) |
| Dimensions | 0.6 x 4.3 x 3.2" (1.5 x 11.0 x 8.3 cm) |
| Weight | 0.31 lb (0.14 kg) |
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Reviewed by 6 customers
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Comments about Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB Portable Hard Drive (Blue):
I use this external hd to backup my photography, music and financial documents.
This has become the backup for my computer and I have another backup too, however I like this Western Digital hd so much that it is my primary backup now. The size and portablility and reliability is great too.
Nothing so far. I've only had it for a few months though.
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Comments about Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB Portable Hard Drive (Blue):
It was working great then a mandatory update suggested I should "Back up my My Passport Essential... Except I wasnt allowed to do so, it locked me out of the My Passport Essential so I was unable to back up what was my backup
So now its competely useless to me. IF you do buy it, and I wouldnt recommend it, make sure you are disconnected from the internet while it backs up so it cant force you to update it and mess up all your hard work and important backups like it did for me
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Comments about Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB Portable Hard Drive (Blue):
This thing is tiny and fast! WD created a stable and small backup drive. I love it!
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Comments about Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB Portable Hard Drive (Blue):
My only complaint about this product is that the process for reconfiguring it for a Mac was a little cumbersome. It is totally Mac compatible and will work with Time Machine and everything, but the process to get there is not completely clear. I would probably recommend that a Mac user who wants to "plug and play" get an external hard drive that is pre-configured for Mac use. Once I figured it out it was really easy. Like most other people who reviewed this product, I gave up on the software that came with it and it made my life easier.
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Comments about Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB Portable Hard Drive (Blue):
I am a professional photographer and I use these as my off site storage. I dropped this into a bucket of water and it worked fine after, talk about durable!
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Comments about Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB Portable Hard Drive (Blue):
I didn't like because I couldn't view the photos in the passport on the TV or other devices. You can only use it from computer to computer to copy files.
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