(Old Model) WD My Passport Ultra 1 TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Auto Backup, Black

I've used a single 1 TB Passport Ultra with SmartWare backup utility since late 2013 for both my desktop and laptop Windows 7 PCs. After some initial SmartWare glitches it's worked so well I'm getting another - the first 1 TB Passport Ultra is full now.Regarding SmartWare, some 2013 criticisms were valid then but are out of date now. And other criticisms misinterpret the purpose of SmartWare. WD continues to update SmartWare and the bugs in the 2013 version have been resolved. I use file/folder backup rather than category backup, which resolved the glitches I experienced back in 2013.The main misunderstanding is about the purpose of SmartWare - which confused me at first. It's not two-way syncing, like some cloud storage (Google+ Drive is an example). SmartWare is designed to be a goof-proof backup. Anything backed up via SmartWare cannot be deleted from the backup drive. And you can delete files from your main drive without fear of also losing the backup (not so with Google+ Drive in full sync mode). SmartWare isn't two-way syncing, isn't network attached storage and isn't merely rewritable external storage. It's true backup, designed primarily to protect data.The downside is that it's inflexible. If SmartWare fills up the backup drive with junk files, duplicates, etc., the only way to recover drive space is to start over. That's what I'm doing with my original Passport Ultra, by transferring data to another external drive, getting a second Passport Ultra, and recycling the first PU for a new round of backups.Also, if you have Windows 7 or later, you're not locked into SmartWare. You can use the free Windows Backup included with the OS. It works fine, is very simple, and compacts files and folder structures into zip files in a familiar hierarchy. Or you can use Acronis - Western Digital provides a free version of Acronis for download. Or you can simply drag and drop files and bypass any backup utilities altogether. Just depends on your data needs. I'm a photographer and need true backup because it's more secure and runs well in the background or as scheduled.I also bought a 3 TB My Cloud a couple of weeks ago for pseudo-NAS, and for the Red drive reliability. I'm considering a 4 TB My Book with the Green drives, but prefer the compact size and USB powered Passport Ultra. However SmartWare is painfully slow on My Cloud (transfer speed is about 1 GB per hour or slower). But it's fine on the Passport Ultra, even via USB 2.

Bought it back in May 2015 and it's great. Works as expected on my Windows pc. I use it to keep my files on in case something happens to my computer. Still works fine. I think it was kind of hard to figure out how to manage on my computer at first and during installation but it's actually very easy, on my computer I just plug it in drag and drop files like I would with a regular USB flash drive. I bought it for around 60 dollars so there are cheaper ones out there though. But not bad.One complaint I have is that I'm not sure where to store it but I just keep it in a little cardboard box I have in my closet. I'm forgetful though so I also have a tendency to just leave it out where ever haha, but it still is in good condition so it's fine.Also I feel like it looks slightly different than in the picture but that may just be the lighting but to me the little circles on the front aren't that bright or noticeable. Also in the pictures they have it might look a little bigger or smaller than it is, but it's about 21 cm vertically, 9 1/2 cm horizontally, and 2 cm thick, and it comes with a USB cable that's around 48 cm long. So it's kind of too big to put into a regular pocket but you could probably put it in a medium sized bag pocket. Though I do worry about the USB cable because there's not comfortable way to pack it with you without bending it all up unfortunately. That might end up being a problem in the future if the USB cable breaks but so far it is fine.

It's been working great for a couple of months now. As soon as I got it I used it to back up about 500GB of videos and pictures. Seems like it's pretty happy - no problems yet. The software seems to do it's job and automatically keep things backed up. I love how small it is. the non slide little rubber feet are a really nice addition as it keeps it quite and stops it from skidding around. I really like how quite it is. Hardly can tell weather it's running or not. Transfer rate seems decent as it only took a couple hours to sync those initial 500GB of pictures and videos. The only problem is it slows my computer down. It seems to constantly run background checks for new files when ever it is plugged in. This really seems to eat up CPU/internal hard drive read write. So I normally just leave it unplugged unless I put some new files on my computer. Price is another great thing about this! These drives have really come down in price in recent years! All around solid product.

I have four of these which I use for backups. They are very convenient since they are small and they run off of USB power. I do not use them as portable storage so I cannot speak to how they respond to rough handling. My oldest Passport, a 128 Gig FAT system, recently stopped working so I bought this one to replace it. The old drive is probably 10 years old, and disks wear out, so no fault to WD for the failed drive. That is why we keep backups of backups.The disk has a USB 3 interface and a standard USB 3 cable. My computer has only a USB 2 interface, and this drive works fine with it, albeit at the slower USB 2 data rate.The file system on the drive is NTFS. My computer is running Mageia 3 Linux, and the drive worked fine with it right out of the box. There was nothing extra to install (e.g. drivers). Since I run Linux, the auto-installs and auto-backup software and all that other software does not run. That is fine with me since I did not want to use it anyway. I wrote my own backup software, and I like it better than the commercial stuff.Since I do not use this drive on a Windows platform, I cannot speak to the quality of the software contained on the disk.