Seagate Expansion 2TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive (STBX2000401)

Seagate Expansion 2TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive (STBX2000401)..

Special Price Seagate Expansion 2TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive (STBX2000401) By Seagate

Most helpful customer reviews

462 of 484 people found the following review helpful.
Great drive, but short warranty
By Ed
I've purchased a lot of different hard drives over the years and used to build my own external drives using internal drives and external enclosures. It used to be cheaper to build your own external drives. These days, external hard drives are very competitively priced, like the Seagate Expansion drive.

PROS:
- Quiet
- Stays cool
- Fast USB 3.0 performance
- Backwards compatible with USB 2.0
- Works with Mac OS X 10.4.8 and up

CONS:
- Measly 1 year warranty

DESIGN & BUILD
The Seagate Expansion portable hard drive's enclosure is made out of matte plastic that feels pretty well made, though I'd prefer aluminum for durability and better heat dissipation. Glossy plastic enclosures are hard to keep looking good, so kudos to Seagate for using the matte plastic instead. The back of the drive has the USB 3.0 port and there's an itty bitty blue power/activity light on top of the drive, towards the back. Also, there are small rubber feet on the bottom, to keep the drive from sliding around on your desk. The USB 3.0 cable is short, so it's best suited for use with laptops.

PERFORMANCE
CrystalDiskInfo identified the internal drive as a Seagate Momentus Thin ST500LT012, which is a SATA II (3Gb/s) drive with a 16MB cache. It has a height of 7mm and runs at 5400RPM. 5400 RPM drives are the standard for portable external hard drives because they don't run as hot as 7200 RPM drives. 5400 RPM drives are perfectly suitable as storage drives.

I tested the Seagate Expansion drive over USB 3.0 with CrystalDiskMark and got sequential read/write rates of 107MB/s read and 105MB/s write. That's likely about 3 times the rate of what you'd get over USB 2.0. So yes, the Seagate Expansion USB 3.0 drive is great for transferring large multimedia files, like photos, movies, and music. Of course, there are plenty of other USB 3.0 drives with similar performance.

MISCELLANEOUS
The formatted capacity of the 500 GB drive is 465 GB. On the drive, there's a small registration utility for Windows that's safe to delete after you register. I deleted the utility, but kept the autorun.inf and SeagateExpansion.ico files so the drive would show up with a Seagate icon in Windows Explorer.

Online, the bare 500GB drive can be bought for around $65-$75, so the external version is a decent value if you like the enclosure and internal drive.

Though the Amazon product description doesn't mention compatibility with Mac OS X, Seagate's website shows compatibility with OS 10.4.8 and higher. It comes pre-formatted in NTFS, however, so you'll need to reformat it if you intend to use it with a Mac.

The Seagate Expansion portable hard drive comes with a measly one year warranty. The Western Digital My Passport 500 GB USB 3.0 portable hard drive costs nearly the same as the Seagate Expansion drive, but comes with backup software, has hardware encryption, and a two year warranty. For a little bit more, you can even get Seagate's own Backup Plus 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive , with a two year warranty. As far which company makes better hard drives, well, that's hard to say. I've used drives from both companies for many years and I've had drives from both companies fail. In fact, it's not unusual for hard drives to fail over time, which is why the length of the warranty can be a significant factor in deciding which drive to buy.

CONCLUSION
The Seagate Expansion portable hard drive is a very nice drive. It performs very well and is a pretty good value overall, however, the short warranty is a concern. I like the drive a lot, but I'd personally look for a portable hard drive with a longer warranty.

122 of 129 people found the following review helpful.
Perfect for media files for tv usage
By Jayhan
I also have the big brother version of this drive (3TB external hdd, AC powered), and both were very easy to use, plug to the USB port, and then start transferring files.

This is the portable version, which means no addition AC power supply needed, everything is powered by USB. Portable also means smaller compared to the AC powered external HDDs. Maximum capacity for portable HDDs right now is 1TB compared to 3TB for AC powered external HDDs.

Besides media files, this is also perfect for backups, documents, etc., and if you have a laptop equipped with SSD, you'll gonna need more space and this is perfect.

So far so good, no problems at all. Used it on my old HP laptop with usb 2.0 port, works good (slower transfer speed of course). Used it on an alienware m14x with usb 3.0 port, works good again and now with fast transfer speed. Used it on my LG 3dtv to watch full hd movies saved on the drive and it works great! I hope it stays like that, can't comment on the reliability yet..

Warranty: Only 1 YEAR. Why did Seagate shorten the warranty? I have no idea.. If you want other drives with longer warranty, here's some options:
Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive STBU1000101 (Silver)
Western Digital My Passport 1 TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - WDBBEP0010BBK-NESN (Black)

PROS:
- Portable, no external power supply needed
- Maximum capacity of 1Tb for portable drives (as of now..)
- Matte casing, so its not prone to scratching and fingerprints
- Fast usb 3.0 transfer rate and compatible to usb 2.0 (all usb 3.0 devices should be compatible to usb 2.0 port)
- Plug and play, works after removing out of the box. No need to reformat

CONS:
- Only 1 year warranty. Another year or two could provide more peace of mind..

What's included?
- Seagate Expansion portable hard drive
- "USB 3.0 cable", Amazon's product page says it's a usb "2.0" cable. The included cable is 3.0. One side of the cable is USB 3.0 and the other side is micro USB 3.0.
- Quick start guide
- 1-year limited warranty

Two thumbs up for this external hard drive, highly recommended!

435 of 482 people found the following review helpful.
Good drive, needs better instructions for the tech impaired
By Gracie
I am not terribly computer savvy. I use a computer for my work all day every day. But I do not understand how many things work. I don't understand most technical talk/gibberish. But I do know that I need to back up my files as my desktop is limping towards a slow and painful death.

I was surprised at how tiny and light the drive was. I plugged it into the USB drive. It was silent. But here is where I ran aground. The interface is not in the least bit intuitive. The only thing that readily pops up to be done is registering the unit. I did that but since I actually wanted to save things to the drive rather than just registering it, I was a little frustrated. While there are a great many tech lovers in the world they are by no means the only people using these products. I was frustrated that there were no useful instructions or a program to help me use the drive.

Eventually, I was able to figure out how to go through the control panel, back up my files, and set future back ups. It just isn't obvious up front.

And yes, I know that people are laughing at my limited technical capabilities. But idiots use products too.

See all 1563 customer reviews...More...

HGST Travelstar 7K1000 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200 RPM SATA III 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive 0J22423

HGST Travelstar 7K1000 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200 RPM SATA III 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive 0J22423..

Special Price HGST Travelstar 7K1000 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200 RPM SATA III 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive 0J22423 By HGST

Most helpful customer reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
Works with PS4 upgrading is easy and fast - Less than 30 minutes.
By Chuck Bittner
If you're someone like me and wants to upgrade their PlayStation 4 from its 500GB hard drive to something more spacious this drive is a good choice. With PlayStation 4 games weighing in at near 30GB+ for a lot of games and hard drive the size will eventually be a must upgrade. And if you're interested in upgrading your PlayStation hard drive it's a pretty straightforward process.

At the time of this review this 7200rpm drive was $10 cheaper: This is 7200rpm 1TB drive: HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive

UPGRADING YOUR PS4 TAKE LESS THAN 30 minutes - You need to download the firmware from Sony*. If you need better instructions just google "PS4 hard drive replacement"
Step 1: remove the gloss section of your PS4. It's the part above the Blu-Ray slot.
Step 2: Remove the 500gb drive (requires 1 screw to be removed) Unscrew the 4 screws holding the drive in the cage.
Step 3: Put the PS4 back together.
Step 4: Insert your usb flash drive into the PS4 usb slot.
Step 5: Press and hold the power button on the PS4 for 8-10 seconds.
Step 6: Choose the bottom selection (I believe it's number 10) Reinstall firmware.
Step 7: That's it you are done only about 30 minutes and done.

*One thing you need if you're replacing a hard drive on the PlayStation is the latest firmware update from Sony's website and you need a 1 GB plus thumb drive formatted in fat32. And you just set up your thumb drive with a folder called PS4 an inside that folder another one called UPDATE. Then inside the update folder you place the firmware.

If you have a questions just ask them and I'll try to help.

I'd get this external case for your old 500gb drive: Vantec NexStar TX 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure ATM it' only $7.00. Takes only 3 minutes to install.

Here is another drive to consider for your PS4:
This is a 1.5TB hard drive: HGST Travelstar 5K1500 1.5TB 2.5-Inch Mobile 5400 RPM 9.5mm Internal Bare Hard Disk Drive 0J28001

Thanks reading please like if this was useful so others can see it.

PS personally I went with a 1TB 72000rpm drive in my PS4 as I wanted faster load times for my ADD personality.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
HGST 7K1000 1TB 2.5 9MM Laptop Hard Drive.
By ToeKnee
In and out in less than 2 minutes. What a difference as second drive on HP DV7 I7!

Replaced 5400 WD Scopro Blue and HGST 7K1000 1TB is now the second drive to Intel SSD 180GB drive with 6 TB of Hitachi Touro USB 3.0 Externals.... 16GB RAM.

Using KeepAliveHD to stop all of the hard drives and partition from going to sleep all of the time. Nothing else worked as everytime an update came it would revert to sleepy sleep.

HGST are now the premiere drives with dual platters, 7200 rpms. MAKE SURE you are getting the 7K1000 as the other HGST 2.5 inch 1TB drive is single platter and no where near as fast and they are dumping them at $10 less.... still a good drive but nothing like the 7K1000.

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
Click Click Click
By Ben Holt
Attracted by the price, speed and capacity, I bought this hard drive (model # 0S03563) to replace the 500gb 5400rpm Seagate drive that came with my mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro. It fits perfectly, and installing a fresh copy of Mountain Lion was a breeze. My laptop boots up and launches applications faster than before. While the hard drive is seeking and working hard reading and writing, it's nearly silent. However, when the hard drive is idle, it emits a very annoying click once every 3-10 seconds that sounds like metal slapping against metal. The stock hard drive did not do this. This may not bother some people, but for me it's so irritating and frustrating that I have a hard time concentrating on what I'm doing. I have done some online research and found that many other owners of Travelstars experience this same problem. If I had known this before buying, I would have chosen a different brand.

Update January 17th 2014:

I found a small, free program called "hdpam" that made my hard drive stop clicking. I don't know who deserves more blame; Apple's Mac OS for asking the hard drive to park its heads every few seconds or Hitachi for building the hard drive in such a way that it makes a loud noise when it parks its heads.

See all 124 customer reviews...More...

Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive with Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (Red) STDR1000103

Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive with Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (Red) STDR1000103..

GET Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive with Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (Red) STDR1000103 By Seagate

Most helpful customer reviews

170 of 199 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent very slim, light, fairly fast 500-GB hard drive; the Windows version works on Mac and the Mac version works on Windows
By ƒůŽźŸ ωŬ≥ζŷ ♥☮♭♩♪♫♬♮☯☺♡✈
இ Fuzzy Wuzzy's Summary:
ѾѾѾѾѾ Highly recommended with warm fuzzies!

փ Positives:

փ This hard drive is indeed very slim, with its 9.5mm thickness being comparable to an internal laptop hard drive.
փ The read/write transfer speeds are pretty fast for a 5400-RPM hard drive (but performance will feel slower if you are accustomed to using 7200-RPM drives).
փ By installing a Windows or Mac driver, you can use either the Windows or Mac version of this drive on both Windows and Mac computers, which is great for transferring files in between both platforms.
փ This drive comes in 500-GB, 1-TB, and 2-TB capacities with five different color options for the top metal panel.

ჯ Negatives:

ჯ While the Seagate Dashboard software that is pre-loaded on the hard drive includes very useful and flexible backup software, the other two parts of the software to share files to social media sites and save files from social media sites are limited in their usefulness and flexibility.

With a thickness of 9.5mm for the 500-GB drive, this very portable little drive is only slightly thicker than an iPhone or pencil, and its thickness is comparable to many internal laptop/notebook drives. But while 9.5mm-thick internal laptop drives do not have an external case covering them, this drive is housed inside an attractive anodized aluminum metal case, with a plastic bottom base, that gives it a solidly rigid feel to the drive. The hard drive that is housed inside the case may even be thinner than a 7mm internal hard drive. So this external hard drive is actually thinner than most internal laptop/ultrabook hard drives. And the 500-GB drive weighs only 5 ounces, making this an extremely portable drive to carry around. With a thickness of 12.0mm, the 1-TB and 2-TB versions of this drive are 2.5mm thicker and slightly heavier than the 500-GB version. But a 12.0mm-thick drive casing is still tiny for a 2-TB external drive. There are some 15mm-thick 2-TB internal drives that are thicker than this, and they do not have an external case.

This hard drive comes with an 18-inch USB 3.0 cable. While this cable length is adequate for plugging into a laptop, I wish that the supplied cable was just a little longer in length (24 inches would be ideal) to allow more flexibility when connecting the hard drive to a desktop computer. My desktop computers are connected to USB hubs located on my desk so the cable is not too short for me, but many people will plug this hard drive directly into their desktop computer's USB port.

This drive is whisper quiet and when it is plugged into the USB port, a thin sliver of light glows near one corner of the top of the case to show that it is operational. While this drive is either reading or writing data, the glowing light pulsates, slowly shifting between dim and bright, instead of just blinking like most hard drive status lights. The pulsating hard drive status light looks more unique than the usual blinking light used by other external hard drives, as if the hard drive is breathing in and out while it works. My one minor quibble is that I wish the light would pulsate at a quicker pace. With a blinking hard drive activity LED, I can quickly glance over at the light and see if it is blinking. With this slowly pulsating light, I have to stare at the sliver of light for several seconds to see if the drive is reading/writing. As with all non-SSD hard drives, when I hold this drive in my hand, I can feel its body vibrating due to the spinning platter that is inside, and if I press my ear right up to the case while the drive is reading or writing data, I can just barely hear the read/write head moving around inside. So this hard drive is as quiet as the quietest of internal drives designed for notebooks.

I have seen various reviews erroneously mention that this Seagate Slim drive is either a 7200-RPM drive or a SSD drive, but both of those descriptions are incorrect. While Seagate previously used 7200-RPM drives in their GoFlex Slim drives, this Slim drive uses a 5400-RPM drive. For a 5400-RPM hard drive though, its transfer speeds are pretty good. This hard drive connects through a USB 3.0 cable, and as with all USB 3.0 devices being backwardly compatible with USB 2.0, you will only get the faster USB 3.0 speeds if you connect this drive to a USB 3.0 port. Connecting this drive to a USB 2.0 port will result in slower transfer speeds. When tested using the "HD Tune" hard drive performance benchmarking tool on an older laptop with USB 2.0 ports, I get an average read speed of 28 MB/s and an average write speed of 21 MB/s. Connecting this drive to a newer laptop having USB 3.0 ports, I get an average read speed of 92 MB/s (with maximum peaks of around 112 MB/s) and an average write speed of 86 MB/s. Even though most 7200-RPM notebook-sized hard drives will be faster, these speeds are pretty fast for a 5400-RPM hard drive. If you want the fastest speeds using this Seagate Slim drive, you need to plug it into a USB 3.0 port. This rule applies to any external storage device that uses a USB 3.0 cable. Perhaps Seagate chose to not include a faster 7200-RPM hard drive inside this tiny thin enclosure because of potential heat and reliability issues?

If I read or write hundreds of megabytes of data, the exterior of the drive does get warm over time since there is no internal cooling fan or ventilation holes in this drive's casing, but it usually does not get too hot. On one occasion, however, I was copying many very large HD video files onto this drive, and after twenty minutes of transferring HD videos back and forth where this hard drive was reading and writing non-stop, the drive's enclosure felt very hot when I touched it, so I undocked and unplugged the drive to let it cool down because I was worried about adversely affecting the drive's long-term reliability by continuing to operate it with the temperature inside its enclosure being so hot. The drive enclosure's metal top surface cooled down after about fifteen minutes, and I then plugged the drive back into my laptop and proceeded to edit the HD videos that were now loaded onto the drive. Because this tiny hard drive is housed in such a small totally-sealed enclosure, you should let it cool down sometimes if feels too hot after extended periods of reading/writing data. Avoiding repetitive overheating is a good idea for any external hard drive that lacks a cooling fan or ventilation holes in the hard drive's enclosure since heat can degrade a hard drive's performance and reliability over time. With most electronic components, repeatedly overheating the electronics can cause hardware failures and overheating is the primary cause of hard drive failure. Also avoid bumping, jarring, or dropping this hard drive, especially when it is plugged in.

About 800 MB of this drive's space is used up by the pre-loaded Seagate Dashboard software and brief tutorial videos on using the Seagate Dashboard software to protect and back up your files, save social media files, and conveniently share image and video files that are stored on this drive to Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. If you are certain that you do not ever want to use this Dashboard software, you can delete the 'Seagate Dashboard Installer.dmg' Mac software file, the 'Seagate Dashboard Installer.exe' Windows software file, and the 'Video' folder to free up hundreds of megabytes of disk space. A 'Seagate' folder that is in the root directory contains a 'SerialNumber.xml' file that has the model number and serial number of the drive. The model number and serial number are also printed on the bottom panel of the drive however. In the Windows version of this drive, the 'Seagate' folder has a 'Seagate-Release.exe' program that you can run to register the drive with Seagate. After you finish registering the drive, you can delete the 'Seagate' folder.

If you want to leave the software and tutorial videos on the drive, you can still delete either the 135-MB 'Seagate Dashboard Installer.dmg' Mac software file or the 156-MB 'Seagate Dashboard Installer.exe' Windows software file if you only exclusively use Mac or Windows computers. In the 'Video' folder, there are eight folders - 'en-US', 'fr-FR', 'it-IT', 'ko-KR', 'ru-RU', 'sv-SE', 'zh-CN', and 'zh-TW' - that each contain the same set of four tutorial videos: 'Introducing Seagate Backup Plus', 'Protecting Your Files With Seagate Dashboard Tutorial', 'Saving Social Media Files With Seagate Dashboard Tutorial', and 'Sharing To Social Media Sites With Seagate Dashboard Tutorial'. These eight sets of videos are identical in the video and audio, and only differ in the subtitle language used: English (no subtitles), French, Italian, Korean, Russian, Swedish, Chinese, and Taiwanese. If you keep the 'en-US' English video that has no subtitles and delete the other seven folders, you free up almost 350 MB of space.

Of the three components in the Seagate Dashboard software, the "Protect" function offers the most usefulness and flexibility, while the "Share" and "Save" functions for sharing/uploading to and saving from social media sites are limited in their capabilities. With the Dashboard's "Protect" function, you can schedule backups of your files based on a regular hourly/daily/weekly/monthly schedule, or have your files backed up whenever they are added or modified, or make backups on an as-needed basis by manually initiating a "snapshot" backup of your files. I am always surprised by how many people never back up the files on their computers, either their work-related files or their personal files, including documents, email and Microsoft Outlook files, photo/music/media files, or other files that are often irreplaceable if their computer's hard drive suddenly fails. If your computer has years of files accumulated on it that you have never backed up to another disk, to a CD/DVD, or to an online cloud-based backup service, this Seagate Slim hard drive can be used as your backup device where you can store a duplicate copy of all your important files. If you have already been using a backup process, as mentioned, you do not have to install the Dashboard software and you can just completely delete all the pre-loaded software from this hard drive if you want.

Important: If you do use the pre-loaded Seagate "Protect" software to back up your files, or if you use other kinds of automated backup software, you should randomly spot-check some of the duplicated backup files and folders every one or two months to verify that the files are correctly being copied and that they can be read correctly. Spot-check the backup files more frequently if they are important and you really value their integrity. Backup software is still a software application and, just like firmware and other software, and also taking into account that a hard drive may start to slowly fail with read/write errors after years of usage, there may be a software or hardware glitch that causes a file to either not be backed up by the backup software, or to be backed up but unreadable. By occasionally spot-checking the integrity of your backup files, you reduce the possibility of having an unpleasant surprise if you really need to recover the files from the backup copy. A data error can happen with any electronic storage media. For example, if you back up files by burning data to a CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc, you should spot-check their integrity by accessing some of their files at least once a year. The same rule applies if your backup files are stored by a cloud-based backup/storage service. There are also integrity-checking software that will automatically verify the integrity of hard disks or optical media. I am an avid photographer, and with terabytes of hard disk space becoming more inexpensive each year, my favorite way to back up files is by manually copying files and folders to two separate hard drives in a "manual RAID 1" setup where I manually back up and mirror the photo and HD-video files between both drives, instead of relying on backup software to perform the function. I previously used a dual-hard-drive RAID 1 storage unit, but I like being able to directly access either drive and I also do not like how RAID 1 simultaneously deletes files from both drives if I ever type or click too fast and have an "oops" accidental file deletion.

The Dashboard software's "Share" function lets you share files that are stored on the hard drive by uploading to either Facebook, Flickr, or YouTube. And the "Save" function lets you save photos from Facebook or Flickr. Unlike the "Share" function, "Save" does not let you save videos from YouTube. But there are many freeware software and online sites that can convert and save YouTube videos already. I really did not care for how either these "Share" or "Save" functions worked because they are quite limited in their flexibility, and it is very easy to perform the same functions directly using the Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube sites without having to go through an intermediate step of using the Dashboard software to upload files. Perhaps Seagate added the "Share" and "Save" options for computer newbies or social media newcomers. But the irony is that even though this Dashboard software "dumbs down" the uploading of files to Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube, the computer newbies who would most benefit from using the "Share" and "Save" options may not even have an account on Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.

This pocket-sized drive is quite small and light: 4.5"x3.0"x0.4" and 5.3 ounces (including the USB cable) for the 500-GB version, with the 1-TB and 2-TB versions being slightly thicker and heavier. You can use this portable drive to shuttle files back and forth between Windows and Mac computers, dragging and dropping folders and files to transfer them between the computer and this external hard drive. Note that there are two versions of this Seagate Slim external hard drive: a Windows version formatted for NTFS and a Mac version formatted for HFS+. You should get the version for the platform that you work on the most. If you mainly use a Mac and you use Time Machine for your backups, you should definitely get the Mac version of this drive. If you mainly work on Windows and Mac is more of a secondary computer, you should get the Windows version of this drive.

Since Windows NTFS and Mac HFS+ file systems do not automatically play well together, use of this hard drive on both Windows and Mac computers does require the download and installation of a driver. If you get the Windows version of this drive, when you plug the drive into a Mac, it will download from the Internet a necessary Mac driver (NTFS_for_Mac_with_restart.dmg) that lets the Windows-NTFS-formatted drive work with Macs. NTFS drives are normally read-only on Mac OS, and this driver lets Macs both read and write on the NTFS-formatted version of this hard drive. Note that because Mac's Time Machine requires a Mac-HFS-formatted drive, when you use the Windows version of this drive with the Mac driver, this setup cannot work with Time Machine unless you reformat the drive to be a HFS+journaled file system... in which case you might as well just get the Mac version of this drive if you intend to also use it with Time Machine. If you get the Mac version of this drive, when you plug the drive into a Windows PC, it will download a necessary Windows driver (HFS4Win.exe) that lets the Mac-HFS+formatted drive work with Windows. You can also download both the Mac-driver-for-Windows-NTFS and Windows-driver-for-Mac-HFS+ drivers directly from Seagate's Web site. See the 'Comments' section of my review for the URL locations. Seagate should have pre-loaded both of these Windows/Mac drivers on the hard drive just like how they pre-loaded both the Windows and Mac versions of their Dashboard software.

Overall, this is a great little drive that is sized for maximum portability. It includes a 2-year limited warranty. And at the time of this review's writing, Amazon is offering this hard drive at a great price of less than $70 for the 500-GB size. It was not that long ago when a 500-GB portable hard drive costed hundreds of dollars and was at least three times larger in size. I rely both on my own research and the opinions of others to help me make informed buying decisions. I hope that this review helped you to be a wise shopper! :)

107 of 127 people found the following review helpful.
Fast little drive - Dashboard software not perfect
By Roberta V. Russo
Here are the impressions of a non-techy about the Seagate Slim 500 gig external hard drive. This drive is amazingly small - about 3 by 4 inches and 1/4 inch thick. Nice - because it doesn't take up much shelf or desk space and is easy to carry around. I like to take a backup drive with me whenever I travel with my computer and this drive is the perfect size for that. The USB cord that it comes with is approximately 18 inches long (give or take). It also comes packed with a small instruction pamphlet describing how install the backup software called the Seagate Dashboard that comes pre-loaded on the drive. Its a pretty simple and straightforward process so there is not a lot to the instructions. There are also 4 short instruction videos pre-loaded on the drive: "Introducing Seagate Backup Plus Video"; "Protecting Your Files With Seagate Dashboard Tutorial"; "Saving Social Media Files With Seagate Dashboard Tutorial"; and "Sharing To Social Media Sites With Seagate Dashboard Tutorial". If you watch them they give a pretty good overview of the features available with the Dashboard software.

I usually don't load the software that comes with hard drives, but I decided to give the Seagate Dashboard a try. I am using a laptop with Windows 8 operating system. Basically you just plug in the drive, navigate to the installation file and double click it. That brings up the registration screen, the software loads, and then you must re-start the computer to finish the install. It took maybe 5 minutes and installed with no problems.

Once the software is installed you open it by double clicking its desktop icon. From the home screen you get 3 choices: Protect (backup and restore your data); Share (upload your pictures and videos to your Facebook, Flickr and YouTube accounts); and Save (Download pictures and videos from your Facebook and Flickr accounts).

Protect:
You can schedule backups at specific intervals like hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Or you can select continuous backup which basically creates backups in real time as you add or change files. If you don't want to set a regular schedule you can instead click the "snapshot" button to start a backup whenever you want. By default the backup includes anything that is not a system or program file but you get the option to pick the files you want to include. The first time you run backup takes a little longer because it is backing up all the files, after the first time its faster because its only backing up new or changed files. I have the drive connected to a USB 3 port and the first time I ran backup it took about 20 - 30 minutes to backup roughly 100 gig of data files. I selected "continuous" and keep the drive connected all the time. I haven't really noticed any lag time or slow down using the continuous backup feature.

The drive comes with a free one-year subscription to the Nero "cloud" drive which you can also select as a backup location. You get 4 gig free for 12 months - after that you have to pay for the subscription. You can also buy extra space. You have to create an account and set a password. I did set up the account, but haven't used this feature and don't really plan to in the future.

Share:
You can use the Dashboard to upload pictures and video to social media sites: Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. I don't use Facebook or Flickr (hard to believe in this day and age, I know) but I do use YouTube, so I gave it a try. From Dashboard click the Facebook, Flick, or YouTube icon. The first time you access one of these sites you have to enter your account log-in information and give the software permission to access your account. Here is how it worked for YouTube. Once logged in it brought up a file manager screen where I could browse to and select a video on either my Seagate external hard drive or my computer hard drive. Once the file is selected you choose one of the standard YouTube categories for it. Then the file uploads. After uploading the video using the Seagate Dashboard, I deleted it from YouTube and uploaded it again using the standard upload directly from the YouTube site - just to see the difference.

First of all the video took longer to upload using the Seagate Dashboard than it did directly from the YouTube website. I suppose that might not be the fault of the software - maybe the internet was just running slower when I used the Dashboard, but I did upload them within 1/2 hour of each other. The biggest fault I found using the Seagate Dashboard to upload videos is that you don't get any of the options that you do when you upload directly from the YouTube site. When you upload a video directly from the YouTube site you get a lot of options. You can enter a Title for the video, you can enter a description, and enter tags (e.g. Chicago, dogs) so that the video comes up in searches, you can pick a thumbnail to use for the video, select a privacy setting (public or private) and select a category for the video. When you use the Dashboard, it automatically uses the name of the file as the title of the video (you don't get to choose). The only choice the Seagate Dashboard gives you is to select a category for the video - that's it. It also automatically posts it as a public video. You don't get any other choices or options. Once you have uploaded a video using the Dashboard you can always log on to your YouTube account directly from the YouTube website and edit these choices, but why bother with 2 steps if you can just do all this directly on YouTube in the first place? Given the results of this test, I would not use the Seagate Dashboard to upload videos to YouTube. I can't speak for how Facebook or Flickr uploads work because I don't use Facebook or Flick.

Save:
You can use this to save files from your social media sites (for example, save the pictures you posted on Facebook). The only 2 social media sites you can do this for with the Seagate Dashboard are Facebook and Flickr. YouTube is not an option. I don't use Facebook or Flickr, so I couldn't test this. I am disappointed that saving files posted to my YouTube account was not an option.

Overall I would give the drive 3 stars. What I liked most was the size and speed - its small and very fast. I give the Dashboard software mixed reviews. The backup function seems to work great but the Share and Save options left something to be desired. I would have rated the drive higher if it hadn't been for the software. I just got the drive, so I can't speak for durability, but it seems like well built little drive.

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
Contains standard SATA version of Samsung M9T
By Chris Burston
I ordered one of these in the hope that it would contain the long anticipated 2TB 2.5" 9.5mm Samsung M9T hard disk. I'm happy to report that it does and that said drive has a standard SATA interface.

My MacBook Pro is now sitting pretty with 2TB of internal storage. Happy Days!

See all 413 customer reviews...More...

Sabrent USB 2.0 TO SATA/IDE 2.5/3.5/-INCH Hard Drive Converter With Power Supply & LED Activity Lights (EC-AHDD)

Sabrent USB 2.0 TO SATA/IDE 2.5/3.5/-INCH Hard Drive Converter With Power Supply & LED Activity Lights (EC-AHDD)..

Special Price Sabrent USB 2.0 TO SATA/IDE 2.5/3.5/-INCH Hard Drive Converter With Power Supply & LED Activity Lights (EC-AHDD) By Sabrent

Most helpful customer reviews

199 of 202 people found the following review helpful.
An excellent computer troubleshooting tool to check hardware and backup data quickly!
By jjceo
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3ESNLGUA27DL0 I build a lot of computers and servers and fix a lot of systems for my family and friends. Having good computer trouble shooting tools is a real benefit when trying to solve problems. If you have to back up somebody's boot drive in an effort to save their operating system this kit is always a good thing to have. It is also nice to be able to back up their files. This USB 2.0 converter allows you to attach SATA and IDE storage devices to your computer in order to test their hardware or to try to save their files.

You can attach a 2.5 inch hard disk drive, a 2.5 inch SSD drive, a SATA or IDE 3.5 inch HDD or a 5.25 DVD or CD player/burner quickly and easily to your computer for testing. One of the most common problems with computers is that the hard disk drives fail or DVD or CD drives fail. With this very nice testing tool you can quickly help to solve the problem and troubleshoot the issue.

Installing a drive is fast and easy and only takes seconds to do. In my testing I installed a SSD drive rated at 3 GB/second and I connected the unit to a USB 3.0 port. I ran speed tests and I have included them in my video.

Inside of the box you will find:
* An AC power supply and the cable is 30 inches long
* A 48 inch long AC power cord.
* There is an USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA converter. It will connect to a 1.8 to 2.5 inch IDE drive or a 3.5 to a 5.25 IDE connector or a SATA connector. The USB cable is 27 inches long.
* An instruction manual
* A power converter cable to power a SATA HDD and the cable is 4 inches long.
* A SATA to SATA extender cable and the cable is 4 inches long.
* A two pin power converter cable 8 inches long.

The kit contains a very nice power supply that will power different styles of drives. It outputs 12 VDC and 5 VDC at 2 Amps for each voltage. That is important because some drives like a DVD burner need both voltages and 1.5 amps for each voltage to operate. Even a 2.5 inch laptop HDD can draw 600 mA. It is beyond the capability of a USB 2.0 port to provide more than 500 mA DC so this power supply is a wonderful and needed addition to this kit. The power supply can operate on 110 to 240 VAC and 50/60 Hz.

The converter has a USB 2.0 output port that is downward compatible to USB 1.1. The top of the unit has 3 LEDs. They are for the USB activity, the SATA drive activity and the IDE port activity. Remember that drives are sensitive to electrostatic discharge and you must make sure that you discharge yourself before you handle any drive. Many times I even lay the drive onto a static discharge bag to protect it while it is powered and I am testing it.

I connected a SATA SSD drive and did some speed tests to check out the unit's performance. In my read and write tests I had a maximum write speed of 46.281 MB/Sec and a maximum read speed of 44.369 MB/Sec. Overall this is a good external drive testing tool. You can see the test graph in my video review. I rate this product as a 5 star item and I recommend it as a must have for computer geeks and people who repair computers.

I was supplied a sample for test and evaluation and I promised a fair and honest review.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
A very handy and useful device
By J. Chambers
A couple of years ago, my wife's desktop PC failed. Most of the data was backed up, but there were a few files that I needed to get from one of the 250GB hard drives. I was sure that both internal hard disks had not failed, so I pulled them and inserted them into a 3.5" SATA HDD USB docking station (aka a "toaster") that I bought for about $40. I quickly learned that the disk drives were okay, that something else had caused the crash. The PC was old, so we replaced it, but I kept the two drives in case I ever needed one. I used one of those drives to check out the Sabrent hard drive converter.

First of all, the slim little user's guide that comes with the kit is worthless. There are no illustrations, and the instructions are vague at best. Fortunately, there's a card directing you to Sabrent's website, where there are PDF downloads for their products. There are a lot of products listed, but scroll down or search for product #DSC5 - that's the one you want. The PDF file includes color illustrations and clear instructions, and I was able to get everything connected in a couple of minutes. With the 3.5" hard drive, I needed the AC power supply in the kit. If you use the power supply, be sure to connect it first before connecting the USB cable to the computer. With everything connected, I was able to see the drive and could have copied the files if I needed to.

This is a handy little device, and a very useful one. It's also much less expensive than a hard drive toaster, and with the toasters, you have to buy a separate one for SATA and IDE drives. The Sabrent kit works for either type of drive.

A product sample was provided by the manufacturer for review purposes.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Works like a dream
By JimHCNMT
Plug-n-Play(well...work, really). Works as advertised. Didn't even realize such a thing existed until reading one of those CNET or How-to-Geek articles (can't remember which). But, I had a stack of old hard drives and they had a solution. Never wanted to hastle with powering down my desktop, opening the case, installing the hard drive, powering back up, etc., etc., just to see what was on an old hard drive. This makes it RIDICULOUSLY easy: plug the AC-DC adapter in to your wall socket, plug the IDE connector in to your hard drive (make sure HD control is set to "Master"), the USB connector into your computer, the power cable into the hard drive and you're done! Open Explorer on your computer and scroll down to where your hard drive is recognized as just another readable device (like a USB thumbdrive, etc.) Couldn't be easier .

See all 344 customer reviews...More...

Toshiba 3.5-Inch 3TB 7200 RPM SATA3/SATA 6.0 GB/s 64MB Hard Drive DT01ACA300

Toshiba 3.5-Inch 3TB 7200 RPM SATA3/SATA 6.0 GB/s 64MB Hard Drive DT01ACA300..

Special Price Toshiba 3.5-Inch 3TB 7200 RPM SATA3/SATA 6.0 GB/s 64MB Hard Drive DT01ACA300 By Toshiba

Most helpful customer reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Great Drive.
By MaxP
I have purchased four of these in the last six months and the have all been flawless. They are plenty fast, have a large cache and will hold more data than I will ever need for not that much more than either a two or one terabyte version. I monitor them carefully as they are installed in a NAS and run 24/7 and to date, the oldest one has been working perfectly. I am very pleased and highly recommend it.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
3TB - split space - partition as GPT, not MBR
By shomizu9
After reading a few other reviews on here and elsewhere, thought I'd clear up a bit of confusion about large drives.

If you have Windows and you are going to initialize the disk for the first time, you are usually prompted to partition as MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition Table). If you chose MBR (like I did at first), you will notice the unallocated space is split in two.

If you choose GPT instead of MBR, or convert the disk to GPT, you will have your contiguous 3TB of unallocated space. For why this is so, search for "GPT vs MBR" or something similar on the internet.

So far the drive has performed well, no issues.

Hope this helps!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Good for RAID use, price is ok
By INTRAX
These are from the Hitachi drive division sale to Toshiba. I use them in RAID for nearline storage and so far so good.
Bought previous batches and so am a repeat customer of these drives.
No problems with it, packaging from AMAZON direct is the best! Individually boxed for protection.

See all 94 customer reviews...More...

Rearth Ringke Slim Better Grip Premium Hard Case Cover with Free Premium Screen Protector for iPhone 5S/5 - Retail Packaging - Black

Rearth Ringke Slim Better Grip Premium Hard Case Cover with Free Premium Screen Protector for iPhone 5S/5 - Retail Packaging - Black..

Grab Now Rearth Ringke Slim Better Grip Premium Hard Case Cover with Free Premium Screen Protector for iPhone 5S/5 - Retail Packaging - Black By Rearth

Most helpful customer reviews

254 of 296 people found the following review helpful.
Simple snap on case, good price, rubber coating so less slipping
By BoaltGeek
The case is just what you might expect in terms of fit and finish (both are good to excellent). It's thin so protection from drops is limited (still better than nothing or even a Zagg type plastic adhesive) but protection from scratches is excellent.

From Facebook and the comments here (Rearth responded to my questions quickly), you should know that the SF is different from the LF:
SF = Soft feeling = rubberized coating, same as the well reviewed and similarly described SF Matte Black Samsung Galaxy S3 Rearth Ringke Soft Feeling Case
vs.
LF = Light feeling = plastic with texture for grip but no rubberized coating (also sold on Amazon here).

I've hard other rubber coated cases (like this SF model), which I prefer for grip and the matte look (which I think matches the iPhone 5 case rear section, which is non-glossy, though not necessarily "matte," aluminum). However, I understand some people prefer the easier to remove from your pocket non-rubber coated models like the LF (I do hate when my pocket get turned out as a rubber edge catches the fabric of the pocket, though you learn to accommodate that quickly). Also, the rubber coating on some cases I've owned has rubbed off at the corners, hopefully this case rubber coating will be a bit more durable, but for 10 bucks it's hard to go wrong.

There is a very slight "lip" so you can put the phone down with the screen side on a table but the lip keeps the glass *just* off the surface. With a adhesive screen protector it might be exactly on the same level as the lip; it's very thin which I prefer. The InCase snap on case for the iPhone 4 has too high a lip for me, but this lip is just right for limited protection while maintaining the form of the phone.

This plus a decent adhesive cover over the glass front is exactly the size and degree of protection I want. It keeps he phone about the same size (it's surprisingly small/thin/light) while giving decent protection to the corners and back side of the phone. My co-worker didn't even think there was a case on it because it was still thinner than his "naked" iPhone 4S. While I hope competition drives the prices down, the quality of the case is excellent even at the current price. If I had to choose a replacement, I'd buy the same case again without regret.

[Update upon receipt:]
The SF soft feeling matte black is excellent: not very grippy at all but enough to keep it from sliding around on my car's dashboard or on my desk. I was able to scrape off the white text on the back without removing the rubber coating so I suspect it will be quite resistant to rubbing off at the corners of the case. The fit is excellent but not perfect (I suspect it will get pretty dang close to perfect after warming up a few times in my pocket, the plastic is hard but somewhat malleable with heat I expect). The feeling is a bit less grip than a similar snap on InCase case; honestly in my subjective opinion it's just right. Enough to stay in place even when the surfaces are not flat but not so much that it pulls the pocket out of my pants when I take the phone out. Less grip than the rubber surrounds on the Apple Bumper protectors, but with more protection over the back of the case.

** The case comes with a slicker on the portion facing the back side of the phone; I was not certain that this should be removed but I found the fit to be better without the sticker and I don't think it provides any additional protection. I'd try your case with the sticker first and if you need a little more room to get the edges to "snap" into place, remove the sticker. If your case is too loose, the sticker may improve the fit. However, my case was just right without the sticker and I suspect others will be manufactured to the same specs so forego the sticker.

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful.
I have 2 break in 8 months and they both broke in the same place
By Mr M J Gosnell
I initially bought this as it has the best reviews for an iPhone 5 case that wasn't bulky. I bought my first one at Christmas when I got a new phone when it was time to renew our family plan. That broke on the top right hand corner as you look at front of the phone, not by dropping it I might add. I thought I'd stick with the same product as I like the look and feel, however 4 months on the case has just broken again in exactly the same place. I will now look for an alternative iPhone 5 case.

67 of 79 people found the following review helpful.
Great design but poor quality.
By Joe D.
I purchased this case because of the countless four and five star reviews for it. I love this style case as I can't stand to have a lot of bulk on my phone. I like a nice sleek case and this one would be perfect (or at least I thought). I received my case and immediately put it on my iPhone 5. The case was very loose around the edges, so much so that when I grabbed my phone from the sides it would make a popping sound because the case wasn't flush with the phone. I removed the case, squeezed it a bit to see if I could fix it myself and had no luck.

I contacted customer support who was great. They responded immediately and advised me to do what I had already done. I removed the case again and tried squeezing it. No luck. They quickly replied and apologized and sent out a replacement without asking me to send the other one back. I received the replacement a few days later and have the exact same issue. I suppose many who left the reviews didn't mind that this case wasn't as tight as it should be or didn't notice. I noticed and I wasn't impressed.

Sorry Rearth but something needs to be done about this.

See all 3707 customer reviews...More...

Case Logic QHDC-101 Portable EVA Hard Drive Case - Black

Case Logic QHDC-101 Portable EVA Hard Drive Case - Black..

Special Price Case Logic QHDC-101 Portable EVA Hard Drive Case - Black By Case Logic

Most helpful customer reviews

155 of 157 people found the following review helpful.
Sturdy, Reinforced Top, Nice Strap Inside
By Tiger
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1AQLVR9O3723H Overall, this is a quality case. Whether it fits your device well is entirely up to whether your device dimensions fit the dimensions of the case well. There is no foam padding inside, but it has a nice one inch wide elastic strap that runs the length that holds the device fairly well. But without foam, it will not have much shock resistance if you want to throw it around. But you do gain a slim case without a lot of foam padding. The shell is quite firm, not foam, and seems to protect very well. The top is reinforced and is stronger than the bottom half, so I would orient any LCD screens face up. Like any case, the weak point is if compressed in the center you can flex in if you squeeze it. But it seems significantly stronger than foam or some cheaper alternatives. It would have been nice if the bottom was reinforced as much as the top, but the bottom is still quite firm, just not as resistant to compression. I just wouldn't this at the bottom of a suitcase.

The outside dimensions are 6" wide, 4" long, 1.25 " thick, with rounded corners. Inside dimensions are 5.25" wide, 3.25" long, with rounded corners. My Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB Portable HD (measures 4.3" x 3.25" x 0.5") fit easily with room to spare width-wise and in thickness. The strap held it in place well thickness wise and fairly well length wise where there were gaps, but you could still shake it end to end if you tried. It was more than enough for tossing in my laptop bag and toting with me. Just for some versatility and other dimensions that might fit, my Magellan RoadMate 3065 4.7-Inch GPS (5.375" x 3.312" x 0.625") just fit with being able to zipper around it without forcing it, but was tight. I would definitely orient my Magellan LCD screen up for better protection. It might be a bit tight for shock absorption, but seemed okay for tossing in a glove compartment or purse.

There is a netted section on the top half to hold accessories with another fairly strong elastic band 0.375" thick and held about 0.25" from the back. You are probably pretty limited to fit something small with your device in here. Maybe you could put a small USB cable or something. But you could also be adding a pressure point that if compressed from outside would transfer to your device through the object held here. I suppose you could put your own piece of foam here for added protection, but it seem unnecessary.

65 of 68 people found the following review helpful.
Recommended for Seagate 1TB Portable - won't fit
By Douglas Hughes
This case was recommended by Amazon to fit the Seagate 1TB portable. Got the case and it really doesn't fit. You can almost force it in but it doesn't fit. I have 2 WD passport essentials and the cases all give plenty of room and work well.
I would NOT buy this to use a Seagate 1TB portable with it will not fit

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
100% Protection
By JDP
The Case Logic QHDC-101 Hard Drive Case comes in a well constructed design that certainly won't be mistaken for a cheap knockoff. After taking it out of the box I tried it out with my Transcend StoreJet 500GB hard drive. Not surprisingly there's room to spare for both cable and the hard drive.

For me I like the overall feel, look and quality of the hard shell casing. Securing is easy with an all metal zipper. I found that the exterior stitching to be top notch. The rubberized company logo is firmly glued on the front. Unlike other Case Logic products, this item only comes in a black finish. The EVA padding is first rate and holds up well when dropped.

The manufacturer did a great job lining the interior with a non abrasive black cloth. This particular model also has an interior netting designed as a slip in pocket for storing SD cards or cable. The expandable nylon restraint securely held my hard drive unit in place. The Case Logic QHDC measures 5.3" x 3.5" x 1.5" and weighs in at 3 ounces.

Speaking from personal experience, I can say that Case Logic has for years lived up to their billing as having one of the best lifetime limited warranties anywhere. Four years ago I had a problem with the zippers on one of their products. I sent it to the factory for repair and surprisingly received a new replacement. That alone speaks volumes about this product and the company. Like my other Case Logic products, I never have to worry about my gear getting scratched or banged around. Its 100% top quality protection.

See all 1210 customer reviews...More...

WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 Black

WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 Black..

Buy WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 Black By Western Digital

Most helpful customer reviews

1419 of 1463 people found the following review helpful.
Great drive - Faulty USB cable
By Jon Anderson
Over the recent years I have purchased quite a number of these drives. I have a couple of USB 2.0 drives and about 12 of the USB 3.0 drives. They all performed flawlessly with my old computer. I purchased that computer in 2006 before these USB 3.0 drives existed and so the computer had only USB 2.0 ports. All the USB 3.0 drives worked perfectly in the computer with the USB 2.0 ports.

Then in December 2012 I purchased a new computer and it has USB 3.0 ports. I connected a drive and was anticipating the "blazing speed" for file transfers. But there was a problem...

The drive would lose connection and I would get an error message saying that the transfer did not complete and data was lost etc., etc.

I contacted the computer manufacturer and they claimed it was a Western Digital problem. I thought they were just passing the buck, but I did some research and found that there are very many complaints all over the Internet about the Passport USB 3.0 drives losing connections. The descriptions were fairly consistent: it happened most frequently when transferring large amounts of data (such as 2 Gb, for example).

There were two theories:
(1) The Passport drive uses only a single USB connection and therefore it draws all power through that USB port. The USB port, being compliant with the USB 3.0 protocol, does not provide enough power for the drive to spin the hard disk fast enough for the data transfer at USB 3.0 speeds. That results in the errors and lost connection.
(2) The USB cables from Western Digital are defective.

So I thought I'd test theory (2) first. I got on Amazon and found a seller for a compatible USB 3.0 cable, ordered it, received it, plugged it in - and the drive works just fine. I selected a folder that had a large amount of data (8.4 Gb) and copied it to my C drive - no problem. I copied it back and forth several times and it always worked (with "blazing speed", I might add - 100 Mb per sec - WHEW!!). I tried different drives - they all worked just like I expected. That seemed to confirm to me that the cables were defective in some way.

I called Western Digital support. The Technical Support person sounded happy to help me. I described the problem to him. The first reply was that the support person put me on hold to discuss it with his supervisor. He came back and thanked me for bringing it to their attention and asked if there was anything else he could do. I said, "Yes - you can replace the cables." I have 7 drives that are still within the warranty period, so I would expect a replacement for at least those drive cables.

After discussing with his supervisor again, he said only one cable could be replaced. I said that was not acceptable. He said it was a problem with the system that would not allow him to process more than one. I said that was not my problem and I expected to get the cables replaced for at least the drives that are in warranty or I would become a Seagate customer. He spoke with his supervisor again and said he could do it. I guess his supervisor must have somehow fixed the problem with the system.

Anyway, he said I would be receiving replacement cables. I asked if they would be the same identical cables which would also not work. He discussed with his supervisor - again - and said I would be receiving y-cables. At that I explained to him that this indicates to me that Western Digital has identified the cause of the problem to be a power issue - that not enough power is being pulled from using just one USB port. He said, yes that was correct.

I asked what I should do when I need a new drive and the market is filled with product that was shipped with the inadequate cables. Am I supposed to just wait until that inventory sells off or should I instead buy Seagate drives... He said I can buy a Western Digital drive and call them right away. They will send a replacement y-cable. He didn't sound very happy at this point.

Note that when I first called Western Digital, the response was to appear like they had never heard of this before and to just blow me off.
After I pressed, the next response was to try to mollify me with just a single replacement cable.
Finally, they essentially admitted that they knew all about this all along and also had a solution that they never offered to me until I pressed hard.

So I still think Western Digital hard drives are among the best. But they have an identified, known, and confirmed defect in the USB 3.0 drive design (really just inadequate cables). Their response is to keep silent about it and hope people don't notice or just put up with it.

Therefore, I would have provided a 5-star rating for the drive, but because of the poor approach to Customer Service I knocked them down a couple of notches.

Shame on you Western Digital!! I place a lot of stock in the Customer Support a company gives, and in the honesty of the company to their customers. My confidence in you as a company is seriously undermined by this. Seagate may not be my provider for my drives at this point, and although I never seriously considered them before, I *AM* considering them seriously now.

Note this, Western Digital: I WAS a very satisfied customer. I continued to purchase drives even though I never posted an evaluation of the drives. Now I have become a somewhat dissatisfied customer and I have taken the time and made the effort to post this evaluation. Think about that...

2896 of 3019 people found the following review helpful.
An essential storage backup tool in a digital world
By Techie
I'm a computer repair technician, and one issue I have all the time with my customers is, the famous, 'a virus hijacked my computer and those precious pictures are inside'. Yeah, the prom, the honeymoon, or the newborn pictures are usually held without ransom. Most of the time we are dealing with malware of some sort that affects the Windows operating system files, but leaves the data intact. So, before I repair the computer, I rescue the pictures, and any other file they might value. However, not all repair technicians do this, most allege that the files are corrupted, which might be the case, but usually it really means they are too busy to rescue anything, don't know how to do it, or will not do it unless paid big cash.

For one own's sakes, the best thing to do is backing up the data before the computer gets infected, or the hard drive fails. For pictures I recommend backing up the original files into data discs, but for faster everyday files backups (music, movies, games, software etc.) is better to use an external hard drive.

The Western Digital My Passport 2 TB is an awesome way to carry large amounts of data in a tiny container, that is always available and secure. I love its dimensions, both physically and in bytes.

Also, the truly fast data transfers done with the USB 3.0 interface save time every day. Speaking of the USB connector, another great feature is that only requires a single USB port for power, while many external hard drives and enclosures, with form factor 2.5", require two USB ports.

This drive is great not only to keep multimedia files, but also for storing documents in digital form, because it saves space. Besides, in case of an emergency it's faster to grab it then a folder. I've been doing backups using both hard drives and discs, and it has been of great help throughout the years. For example, the last time I moved, the new school district wanted my daughter first vaccines' records. I knew I have the original card somewhere in a box, but I needed it fast. Then I remembered I scanned the card years ago, and that print-scanned image, which was storage in my daughter's digital folder, inside my external hard drive, saved me hours of search and quickened her registering process at the new school.

About the WD SmartWare software offered by the manufacturer, I hesitated before going for it, because in the past WD back up software didn't work well for me. However, when one is dealing with such a big amount of data, doing it manually is a pain, and the alternative of using the backup and restore features included in Microsoft Windows 7, is something I would only do for a complete system image, not for the everyday backup. So, I installed the WD SmartWare software and so far, it's performing well, it does require time and attention to learn its functionality though. If you decide not to use the WD SmartWare, you can still use the hard drive right out of the box, like any other external hard drive.

Besides reading the user's manual, I strongly suggest that before plugging in the drive into your computer, you go to the Western Digital My Passport's support page, and read how to use it.

Because there are a few details to know before starting backing up your data. Among these topics, How to install WD SmartWare from the external drives, How to create a category backup using WD SmartWare, How to backup specific files and folders using WD SmartWare, How to retrieve a backup using WD SmartWare, Setting up security to lock or unlock a WD external drive with WD SmartWare, (videos are provided in some of these), and How to partition and format a WD drive on Windows (7, Vista, XP) and Mac OSX etc., etc.

I can't post links here, but one can do a search for WD Support / Downloads / My Passport and will find the page where a variety of software that works with the Western Digital My Passport 2 TB, can be downloaded for free.

However, the most important fact of reading Western Digital's support information for this drive, is to learn how to use it 'before' entrusting your valuable data to it. Specially, if you choose to install the WD SmartWare software.

There are very important steps everybody should know while setting up these drives, so it's clearly stated on the Western Digital's support pages.

For example, while installing the software, it will ask if you want to apply any security (password & encryption) to the drive. Before setting up the password you must check an, I understand box, certifying that you understood that if you forget the password, the data is unrecoverable. I repeat, and excuse the capitals, but this is crucial, IF YOU FORGET THE PASSWORD, THE DATA IS UNRECOVERABLE.

Since there is no way to retrieve your password if you forget it, please write that password in a secure available location. If you want, it's possible to change your security settings, remove security or/and change the password, but in order to do either, you still need the original password entered the first time.

If you forget your password, you will not be able to access the data storage in the hard drive, but you can continue to use the drive again if you format it. Of course, the process of reformatting the hard drive will erase all the data inside the unit, and remove the password.

I highly recommend the Western Digital My Passport 2 TB external hard drive.

I do have an warning though, the only proven and trusted way to preserve important files is to burn them into data discs (CD/DVD/Blu-rays). Because hard drives have a limited lifespan, and will fail sooner or later, usually without any warning signs. An external hard drive is very convenient to use, but the stuff that cannot be easily replaced, should always first be backed up on discs. Trust me, it will give you peace of mind. Also you can have two different hard drives with the same information, like I do. If you really don't want to keep discs around anymore.

964 of 1005 people found the following review helpful.
The PERFECT External Storage Drive For My Macbook Pro
By Ronald Epstein
Wow. So many mixed reviews here, and like those of you who are pondering over whether it is worth purchasing this Western Digital MY PASSPORT, there may not be a clear answer.

Let me tell you my story.

Recently bought the new Retina Macbook Pro with its 500GB SSD drive. For a person like me who puts a lot of software on my laptop and does quite a bit of movie editing, hard drive space is a premium. So, when figuring out how to handle nearly 200GB of music, I decided it would probably be best to run iTunes off an external drive instead of taking up space on the Macbook.

Again...Wow. Reading these reviews on Amazon was quite unnerving. So many great experiences with this drive followed up by a handful of negative experiences -- many talking of total hard drive failure. It's almost as if you are rolling the dice as to whether you'll receive a drive that works or doesn't.

...then there's the reviews from people who claim they are having problems using this drive on their Mac.

Well, I picked myself out a RED 1TB drive. Thought it was a cool color and didn't mind paying the premium price for it. In addition, I picked up this fantastic Case Logic QHDC-101 Hard Case on Amazon for $10. It's the perfect compliment to the red hard drive that fits snuggly inside.

Using the Western Digital MY PASSPORT on a Mac couldn't be easier than opening the package, plugging the USB cord into the Macbook, and then formatting it using Disk Utilities. From package to format took under 4 minutes.

And for anyone claiming to have a problem using this drive with their Mac, this is all you need to do...

1. Plug in the drive via USB connection
2. Go to APPLICATIONS -> UTILITIES -> DISK UTILITY
3. Click on the hard drive icon located at the very top left sidebar
4. Select the ERASE tab and FORMAT in Max OSX Extended (Journaled). Assign your drive a name if you wish.

That's it. Easy.

The drive works incredibly fast thanks to its USB 3.0 compatibility, which is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0. The drive is extremely quiet, and I didn't notice it getting warm.

And, yes, you can run your iTunes off the external drive.

See all 6026 customer reviews...More...

WD Red 1 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD10EFRX

WD Red 1 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD10EFRX..

Special Price WD Red 1 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD10EFRX By Western Digital

Most helpful customer reviews

1001 of 1090 people found the following review helpful.
Regular consumer drives in RAID are accident waiting to happen
By Gary E. Peterson
Here is a quote from a review at pcper.com

I'm going to let the cat out of the bag right here and now. Everyone's home RAID is likely an accident waiting to happen. If you're using regular consumer drives in a large array, there are some very simple (and likely) scenarios that can cause it to completely fail. I'm guilty of operating under this same false hope - I have an 8-drive array of 3TB WD Caviar Greens in a RAID-5. For those uninitiated, RAID-5 is where one drive worth of capacity is volunteered for use as parity data, which is distributed amongst all drives in the array. This trick allows for no data loss in the case where a single drive fails. The RAID controller can simply figure out the missing data by running the extra parity through the same formula that created it. This is called redundancy, but I propose that it's not.

Since I'm also guilty here with my huge array of Caviar Greens, let me also say that every few weeks I have a batch job that reads *all* data from that array. Why on earth would I need to occasionally and repeatedly read 21TB of data from something that should already be super reliable? Here's the failure scenario for what might happen to me if I didn't:
* Array starts off operating as normal, but drive 3 has a bad sector that cropped up a few months back. This has gone unnoticed because the bad sector was part of a rarely accessed file.
* During operation, drive 1 encounters a new bad sector.
* Since drive 1 is a consumer drive it goes into a retry loop, repeatedly attempting to read and correct the bad sector.
* The RAID controller exceeds its timeout threshold waiting on drive 1 and marks it offline.
* Array is now in degraded status with drive 1 marked as failed.
* User replaces drive 1. RAID controller initiates rebuild using parity data from the other drives.
* During rebuild, RAID controller encounters the bad sector on drive 3.
* Since drive 3 is a consumer drive it goes into a retry loop, repeatedly attempting to read and correct the bad sector.
* The RAID controller exceeds its timeout threshold waiting on drive 3 and marks it offline.
* Rebuild fails.

At this point the way forward varies from controller to controller, but the long and short of it is that the data is at extreme risk of loss. There are ways to get it all back (most likely without that one bad sector on drive 3), but none of them are particularly easy. Now you may be asking yourself how enterprises run huge RAIDs and don't see this sort of problem? The answer is Time Limited Error Recovery - where the hard drive assumes it is part of an array, assumes there is redundancy, and is not afraid to quickly tell the host controller that it just can't complete the current I/O request.

Here's how that scenario would have played out if the drives implemented some form of TLER:
* Array starts off operating as normal, but drive 3 has developed a bad sector several weeks ago. This went unnoticed because the bad sector was part of a rarely accessed file.
* During operation, drive 1 encounters a new bad sector.
* Drive 1 makes a few read attempts and then reports a CRC error to the RAID controller.
* The RAID controller maps out the bad sector, locating it elsewhere on the drive. The missing sector is rebuilt using parity data from the other drives in the array.
*Array continues normal operation, with the error added to its event log.

The above scenario is what would play out with an Areca RAID controller (I've verified this personally). Other controllers may behave differently. A controller unable to do a bad sector remap might have just marked drive 1 as bad, but the key is that the rebuild would be much less likely to fail as drive 3 would not drop completely offline once the controller ran into the additional bad sector. The moral of this story is that typical consumer grade drives have data error timeouts that are far longer than the drive offline timeout of typical RAID controllers, and without some form of TLER, two bad sectors (totaling 1024 bytes) is all that's required to put multiple terabytes of data in grave danger.

The Solution:
The solution should be simple - just get some drives with TLER. The problem is that until now those were prohibitively expensive. Enterprise drives have all sorts of added features like accelerometers and pressure sensors to compensate for sliding in and out of a server rack while operating, as well as dealing with rapid pressure changes that take place when the server room door opens and the forced air circulation takes a quick detour. Those features just aren't needed in that home NAS sitting on your bookshelf. What *is* needed is a WD Caviar Green that has TLER, and Western Digital delivers that in their new Red drives.

End quote and back to reviewer.
I've got 5 of these in a Synology DiskStation 5-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage (DS1512+). It is really a sweet setup.

The Synology software has a S.M.A.R.T. test that can do surface scans to detect bad sectors. I have their Quick Test check every disk daily and the Extended Test set to automatically run on each of the 5 disks every weekend. (The Extended Test takes about 5 hours per disk so I separate the tests by 12 hours.)

96 of 104 people found the following review helpful.
Nice hard drives for NAS or storage server with RAID.
By T. Mccleary
If you're looking at this review, you're probably in the market for some honkin' big drives to stuff into a server or a NAS box. These Western Digital "Red" series drives are probably a total waste of money if you're planning to put them into a regular PC. If you're not doing a raid array of some kind, then save your money and buy the green or black series drives instead. If you're looking to set up a raid array of some sort, these are a bargain. They aren't the fastest drives, but they are rated to run 24x7 serving up data! Their 3 year warranty is above the current industry standard for consumer hard drives.

For my home-made FreeNAS (google it!) NAS/Server, I bought 5 WD Red drives from Adorama (purchased through Amazon) and 1 drive directly from Amazon.

The one drive from Amazon came very well packaged, double boxed in what looks like a WD cardboard box with a shock absorbing cradle. Very well packaged for shipment. Honestly, Amazon has been stellar for packaging boxes for shipment.

The 5 hard drives from Adorama came in a big box which 'clunked' when it was tilted. Opening the box revealed some big plastic pillow air strips, and 5 loose smaller boxes. Inside each of the smaller boxes was a few pillows and a factory bagged hard drive. There were not enough pillows in each box to securely cushion the hard drives against rattling around, so there's a high likelihood of damage in shipment. BAD SHIPPERS! NO DONUT!

Anyway, getting on to the performance of the drives... I'm running 6 drives in a ZFS RaidZ2 array. They are all controlled using an IBM M1015 PCIE 8x SATA 3 controller which has been flashed to be an HBA providing JBOD to the ZFS OS. That's a lotta acronyms! The speed of the array is quite fast... more than fast enough to saturate a gigabit network. I currently have about 5TB of data stored on the 10TB array.

On to the bad stuff...
One of the drives (I haven't checked the serial number to see which shipper it came from) is starting to give signs of premature failure after about 70 hours of operation. During a scrub of the data pool, drive DA5 is experiencing unreadable sectors. Luckily ZFS is able to calculate the correct values for the corrupted data, and is busily recreating the data onto another part of the drive. ZFS rocks for data reliability! If the drive does turn out to be bad, I have a WD Green 3TB drive that I can put into the array as a hot swap temporarily until the failed drive can be replaced. *UPDATE* The ZFS scrub just finished, and it repaired 1.53MB of data, with no data loss. Did I mention that ZFS rocks?

Warning/Advice about Data Storage:
Note 1: If you're going to be using these drives, or any data storage device for that matter, make sure that you take into account that these are highly fragile and delicate devices which can be easily damaged in shipment, or just plain up and fail when you least expect it. You really need to use some sort of redundant array of drives so that if one drive fails, your data doesn't vanish. In my case, the final configuration is going to be 6 drives in a RaidZ2 (dual parity striping), which means that my data stays intact and accessible even if 2 drives fail simultaneously. Also, there is going to be a 3TB Green drive as a hot spare that can take over for any failed drive in the array. With the hot-spare, my data can survive the loss of 3 drives without losing data (as long as the failures don't happen all at the same time).
Note 2: Always, always, always have a backup. In my case, I have two external 3TB USB3.0 drives which will be used only for backup purposes. Every so often, I'll backup the critical data onto the drives and stash them in my locker at work. If you don't have TrueCrypt, google it and see why your backup removable drives should be using it. If someone steals the drives, they only get the drives and not my data.

I'm giving 5 stars for the drives that work... 1 star for the failing drive... averages to about 4 stars score! I'll update this review once I have details on how the drives do in a week or so. Currently it ain't looking too good for drive DA5!

139 of 160 people found the following review helpful.
NAS Best Friend
By Simon
After about six months of searching for the perfect drive, I finally settled on two of these Western Digital Red 2TB WD20EFRX hard drives. I was ready to purchase HGST enterprise drives, the former Hitachi, but WD came out with these drives just in-time. I wanted to get the 3TB WD30EFRX version for my Synology DS212 NAS, but the price difference didn't make that much of a sense, and 2TB drives are more than enough for a few years of my home office use. I am very happy that these drives MTBFs are rated at 1,000,000 hours, they use less power, and they are cheaper than other enterprise drives.

Upon receiving, I immediately installed them in my NAS. It took about 15 minutes to install DSM 4 and begin the inspection process. I neither chose Raid 1, JBOD, or SHR, and I took some online advice and created two separate volumes, one on each disk, to have two independent file systems. In this case, you don't have to worry about rebuilding disk arrays if any drives fail, and you always have a backup present. I was planning on using Folder Sync feature to sync all folders from Disk 1 to Disk 2 every other hour, but I found out this feature only works on two independent Synology Disk Stations; however, you can use automated backup feature to backup data from Disk 1 into Disk 2, and it produces about the same result as Folder Sync does, and it gives you a few more options for backing up system and application files as well.

Synology volume creation took about 7 hours for each drive with automatic bad sector reallocation feature. I later tested each drive with S.M.A.R.T extended test--each took about 4 hours--and I am happy to report that I did not have any bad sectors on either of the drives. That is, the "Reallocated Sector Count" reads zero in S.M.A.R.T report.

The drives are surprisingly quiet. I had an enterprise RE2 500GB in my NAS, and it was thunderstorm loud compared to these. The temperature is also very reasonable. When the drive is resting it is about 31C/88F, and under heavy usage it rises up to 35C/95F. Although these drives speed are only 5000 rpm, I don't see any difference in file transfer speed. The only downside that I could sense was the startup time from sleep. I feel that compared to my old WD RE2 drive, it takes a good 2 to 5 seconds more for the NAS to come out of sleep each time. Not a deal breaker, but something to consider when you invest in these drives.

I think WD has done a good job with these drives, and they are currently the best on the market for home or home office use. That being said, I still think WD RE4 drives are the best enterprise drives and ultimate in performance; however, if you are looking for a good set of drives for your NAS, and the power consumption and noise are important to you, these WD Red drives will work just fine. Compared to desktop drives, these come with a few enterprise features that come in handy and will save you some time and money down the road.

See all 1055 customer reviews...More...

HGST Deskstar NAS 3.5-Inch 4TB 7200RPM SATA III 64MB Cache Internal Hard Drive Kit (0S03664)

HGST Deskstar NAS 3.5-Inch 4TB 7200RPM SATA III 64MB Cache Internal Hard Drive Kit (0S03664)..

GET HGST Deskstar NAS 3.5-Inch 4TB 7200RPM SATA III 64MB Cache Internal Hard Drive Kit (0S03664) By HGST

Most helpful customer reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Works well enough
By Kyle Cronin
I bought four of these drives and put them into a Promise Pegasus2 R4 with RAID 5. With this setup I benchmark about 470 MB/s write and 360 MB/s read with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. These speeds are well in excess of the speeds you will be able to achieve with a NAS, the marketed purpose for the drives. Only time will tell whether these drives will be reliable, but with none DOA they're off to a good start.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Longest MBTF I could find
By Gadget Freak
Just what I was looking for, reliability. Obviously a 3-year warranty is a good indicator. The Deskstar NAS is a new product. It has the 1M MTBF vs. the regular Deskstar 7k4000 (HDS724040ALE640) which has a 0.8M MTBF. The NAS version also has a rotational stability sensor to help monitor the smart status better. I was looking for additional external storage for backups & videos. I installed 4 of these in an 4-bay external USB 3.0 enclosure (Dyconn Quartz 4). For around $1100 total installed cost, you can get nice 16Tb setup for all your "stuff". I've got mine connected to a MacMini. A good (non-SSD) 3.5" drive has about the same read/write speed as USB 3.0, thus in an external USB 3.0 setup, it will give you ~170-180 MB/s regardless of RAID setup.

Update #1
I was able to test drive speed vs various other drives. This drive performs as expected. I did not test in a RAID configuration. (sorry about the formatting, the last two nos. in each row are Read/Write in MB/s), all tests with BlackMagic

Mid--2011 Mac Mini
WD My Book Studio 4Tb, RAID 0 Firewire 800 800 megabit FW800 60 64
Apple 5400 rpm 750 Gb HD SATA III 6 gigabit SATA III 68 68
Toshiba/Apple 5400 500 Gb Laptop drive SATA III 3 gigabit Thunderbolt 63 63
Crucial M4 - 256 Gb SATA III 5 gigabit Thunderbolt 382 79
HGST 4 Tb NAS 3.5" Drive SATA III 6 gigabit Thunderbolt 163 160 (Seagate BackupPlus thunderbolt adapter)

2012 Mac Mini Server
Samsung 840 SSD - 500 Gb SATA III 6 gigabit SATA III 560 320
Samsung 840 SSD - 500 Gb x 2 - RAID 0 SATA III 6 gigabit SATA III 990 620
Patriot Magnum 64 Gb USB 3.0 Memory Stick USB 3.0 4.8 gigabit USB 3.0 242 120
Transcend 64 Gb USB 3.0 ?? Memory Stick USB 3.0 4.8 gigabit USB 3.0 15 15
HGST 4 Tb NAS 3.5" Drive SATA III 6 gigabit USB 3.0 131 126 (Dyconn Quartz 4, JOBD)
HGST 4 Tb NAS 3.5" Drive SATA III 6 gigabit USB 3.0 163 160 (Anker Uspeed adapter)

Update #2; I just tested four of these drives in RAID5 mode on the 4-bay USB 3.0 Dyconn.... way better than expected 250 Mb/s Read, 241 Write. Woo Hoo! So, double the single drive mode.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
This thing is FAST
By Jeff Welch
Other than using an SSD, this is by far the fastest drive I have ever had, that said I purchased it for its size and reliability. Size is great, speed is awesome. The jury is out on reliability for me, maybe I'll revise this in two years!.

I like to retire my drives after a couple of years to head off reliability problems before they happen. I am in the process of using this drive to replace two 2TB drives from another manufacturer. I lost a drive on a laptop a few years ago and ever since I have become very paranoid about loosing my data (basically everything that I have made for close to 20 years, plus many movies, songs and pictures, I delete NOTHING).

If you have read a lot of Hard Drive reviews, you are probably more worried about which drive to pick now then when you started. After several weeks of research and reading, HGST seemed to me to be the best choice. Time will tell.

Assuming this drive works well over the next few months, I will purchase a second one and mirror them for data backup.

See all 19 customer reviews...More...

WD My Passport Slim 2TB Portable Metal External Hard Drive USB 3.0 with Auto and Cloud Backup (WDBPDZ0020BAL-NESN)

WD My Passport Slim 2TB Portable Metal External Hard Drive USB 3.0 with Auto and Cloud Backup (WDBPDZ0020BAL-NESN)..

Grab Now WD My Passport Slim 2TB Portable Metal External Hard Drive USB 3.0 with Auto and Cloud Backup (WDBPDZ0020BAL-NESN) By Western Digital

Most helpful customer reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
Better in just about everyway than my previous drive. Data and comparisons included
By Chris Zee Shutterbug
WD 1TB USB3 slim external HD.

I routinely mirror (backup entire drive vs just the data) on all the family computers. (Over the years two laptop drives failed and we had about half dozen drive by viruses that required very lengthy repairs). The external drive I use now is a Toshiba Cavio 1TB drive, Toshiba Canvio 1.0 TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - HDTC610XK3B1 (Black)which is less than one year old and also USB3. I considered cloud backup, but at a midgrade internet cable connection, my upload speed (5-10 Mb/sec) is over 100 times slower than compared to using the external drives. I used CrystalDiskMark 3 software for comparing data rates.

The short story is that this WD drive almost 50% faster than the Toshiba (118 MB/s vs 80MB/sec). It is also 40% smaller (6.7cu inch vs 9.44, .496" thick). It also has a metal case rather than plastic, and as a consequence it's a teensy bit heavier at 5.6 vs 5.5 ounces.

Other plus is that it comes with a small black tie string silk carrying bag. Of the minuses, there is only one small one, the Toshiba had an activity light that glowed blue when plugged into a USB3 port and white when plugged into a USB2 port, the WD is always white.

Other notes. The USB cable is 19" long, and you can plug it into a USB2 plug or USB3 plug (the plastic on the inside of USB3 connector will be blue), however if use an existing USB cord (micro plug like on some phones) the data rate will only be USB2 speed. For USB3 speed you need to use the supplied cord, which has a double connector on the drive side, this is the same for the Toshiba drive. So how much do you give up when using USB3? Quite a lot, USB2 rate was 33 MB/s vs 118 or more than 3.5 times slower.

In summary this is the best external backup drive I have seen.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
A Passport Ultra Elegantly Repackaged (UPDATED)
By Stephanie Sullivan
I've been using WD My Passport Ultra 2TB drives to meet the backup needs for several of my clients' for a while. They are fast, reliable and compact. The My Passport Slim is essentially a My Passport Ultra in a slightly smaller and lighter package that is very attractive.

The Passport Slim became of interest when a client asked for a very portable external drive to take on the road where size and weight are especially important. The Passport Slim 2TB seemed a good fit for his purchase.

The Slim is "sexy and sleek" as it has been described in other reviews. It's about 1/8 inch thinner than the WD My Passport Ultra and just about 1/3 of an ounce lighter.

Like the Ultra it comes with a short cable, soft draw-string bag and has WD Smartware Pro on the drive for easy backup and sync to/from Dropbox (their "automatic cloud backup"). This Passport Slim drive was not purchased mainly for backup. It was intended to carry media, reference materials and work files on the road and as storage to off-load pictures.

To best take advantage of the My Passport Slim (or the WD My Passport Ultra) a USB 3.0 port is needed. Most modern laptops and desktops come with USB 3.0 built-in. Older computers can often be upgraded economically. I've used the ORICO PVU3-5O2I USB 3.0 7 Port PCI Express Card (5 Rear and Internal USB 3.0 20PIN Connector) on Windows 7 and Linux Desktops/Servers. If your laptop has an express card slot then a card like the HDE 2 Port USB 3.0 may provide USB 3.0 speeds to take full advantage of a drive like the My Passport Slim.

Having used Smartware on the Passport Ultra I find it a passable backup/sync tool. Calling a Dropbox client "automatic cloud backup" may be technically accurate, but I find it less than impressive.

The drive is very fast as is the My Passport Ultra. I did not run benchmarks on this drive. My time working with it was spent populating it with the files to be used in travel. With a USB 3.0 connection the drive felt much like the My Passport Ultra drive when copying files to and from the drive. Generally about 3X as fast as a USB 2.1 connected drive. The Passport Slim was more than fast enough for its intended purpose.

Here are the dimensions of the My Passport Slim and the My Passport Ultra from the WD site for comparison:
Passport Slim: H:0.70in, D:4.33in, W:3.14in, Weight 0.48lb
Passport Ultra: H:0.823in, D:4.35in, W:3.23in, Weight 0.50lb

Is the Passport Slim worth a 30% higher price, even with a more "sexy" look? The Slim is a slightly thinner and lighter version of the My Passport Ultra and for me I'm not sure. It does seems worth the extra for my client who really likes the drive.

If being ultra-portable or cool looking isn't important save about $35 (at the time I write this) and get the WD My Passport Ultra 2TB instead. If cool is worth the extra cost go for the Passport Slim. Both drives have virtually identical performance and features outside of the packaging differences.

Because the Passport Slim does what it's supposed to with very nice "style" the WD Passport Slim gets 5 stars from me.

Hope this is helpful!

Update: Mar 6, 2014
The price differential on Amazon is down to about $30 now for the 2TB Slim over the My Passport Ultra. Good looks and smaller size has become a more affordable.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Dual Toned SuperSpeed Slim Beauty!
By rbhatta
WD is known for making excellent quality hard disk drives. I have owned several WD internal desktop and external drives in the past and never had any drives fail till date. This Passport Slim portable 1TB capacity with metal top is very well made and will provide years of service. I do like the new dual tone metal design. The drive is small enough to fit in your shirt pocket and has large 1TB capacity.

The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface makes the drive work even faster on PCs and Laptops that have USB 3.0 interface and is fully backward compatible with older USB 2.0 interfaces. I ran some benchmark tests using HDTUNE application and here are the results:

(*)Using USB 2.0 Read Speeds: Min: 29.2 MB/s, Max: 31.2 MB/s
(*)Using USB 2.0 Write Speeds: Min: 14.5 MB/s, Max: 22.6 MB/s

(*)Using USB 3.0 Read Speeds: Min: 96.6 MB/s, Max: 106.3 MB/s
(*)Using USB 3.0 Write Speeds: Min: 54.6 MB/s, Max: 79.2 MB/s

The spindle rotational speed reported by HDTUNE application is 5400RPM. The drive runs cool even after extended period of time as the metal surface helps dissipate heat evenly. This is an 'USB BUS' powered drive. You do not need any external power adapter to run the drive and this makes it very portable.

PROS
[+] Very attractive dual tone design, Slim portable and comes with a carrying pouch.
[+] Does not need external power source. Runs with USB bus power.
[+] Speedy especially when used with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface.
[+] 3 years warranty

CONS
[-] It does not have rubber feet on the bottom and could scratch the bottom surface eventually.
[-] This drive uses WD proprietary hardware interface. Data recovery could be challenging if the interface were to fail especially if you enable hardware encryption.

When it comes to software included in the drive, you get 'WD Drive' Utilities, 'WD Security' and 'WD SmartWare Pro' backup software. These apps allow you to choose when and where you backup your data, The apps also allows you to password protect and encrypt the files on the drive or run disk drive diagnostics etc; You can also use your 'Dropbox' account to back up your files to the 'cloud' as an offsite backup.

Overall this drive performs well. It is priced right for 1TB capacity. Four Star Product! Recommended.

See all 105 customer reviews...More...