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Western Digital My Passport Essential 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDMEB3200TN (Intense Blue)

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Brand: Western Digital
Category: CE

List Price: ~~$127.99~~
Buy New: $79.97
You Save: $48.02 (38%)

New (38) Used (1) from $79.97

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

466 reviews
Sales Rank: 296

Format: Cd
Platforms: Macintosh, Windows
Color: Intense Blue
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Windows & Macintosh
Hard Drive Size: 320
Size: 320 GB
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5 x 3.1 x 0.6
Warranty: 3 years warranty

MPN: WDMEB3200TN
Model: WDMEB3200TN
UPC: 718037730684
EAN: 0718037730684
ASIN: B0015WOAVC

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Features:

•	Box Contents - My Passport Essential 320GB Portable USB Hard Drive, USB 2.0 cable, Quick Install guide
•	320GB Hard Drive Capacity
•	Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive; you just plug it in and it's ready to use. There is no CD to install; the included software loads from the drive the first time you plug it in
•	USB bus powered, no separate power supply is needed
•	This ultra-portable drive fits easily in your pocket or purse, weighs only a few ounces, and holds tons of valuable data

Accessories:

•	Western Digital Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive WDE1UBK10000N (Black)
•	Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player
•	Case Logic Compact Portable Hard Drive Case (Black)
•	Aluratek High-Speed USB 2.0 External 500GB Hard Drive - Silver (ACBS350500F)
•	Caselogic PHDC-1 Small EVA External Hard Drive Case (Red)

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
These elegant portable drives are simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter -- they are powered directly through the USB cable. Pack up your office files and take them home. Carry thousands of songs or pictures. Synchronize files between home and office and encrypt everything on the drive for added security. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you take your critical data with you. Plug My Passport into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer. Your data is protected with 128-bit encryption (Windows only). Perfect for the business traveler who needs to transfer large amounts of data from laptop to clients or just daily backups in case of accidents from mishandled luggage to coffee spills. Also comes in handy if your worried about laptop theft and someone else having access to your important data, you can store it on this portable encrypted drive instead. For all those precious pictures, videos, music and data files, this external hard drive is a must-have.

Customer Reviews: Read 461 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Nice drive May 22, 2008
Vladimir Kushnir (Darien, CT United States)
25 out of 26 found this review helpful

I have this drive for about half-a year now. It is recognized both by Windows XP and Mac OS X (Leopard). I did not use any software to do backups, just grab the files myself and drag them to the drive, or use a script (.bat file). Operation is exceptionally simple: you connect it - it is recognized by the computer, you use it, and then use disconnect/eject command (I am guilty of not always doing this, but no problems so far) and disconnect it. The drive comes in a soft case, does not have and require any power supply, works via USB cable, and no problems whatsoever so far. I am thinking about buying another one, maybe slightly bigger (there is a 320G version).

5 out of 5 stars

Compact, sleek and works great May 16, 2008
Nuknuk (Springfield, VA United States)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful

Works with my PCs and Macbook. (Make sure you are using the correct USB plug on your Mac laptop. Not all of the USB outlets in Mac laptops have sufficient power to drive an external drive. Read the manual to find which is which).

No review for the included software. Since most of my experience with softwares that comes with products like camera, external drives are rarely satisfactory, software was not installed in the first place.

Pros:
- Lowest price I found for a 2.5" external drive
- No need for a power brick. It is powered by the USB 2.
- So quiet, Just like an Ipod.
- Small enough to fit in your pocket. 0.59" (H) x 5" (L) x 3" (W)
- Comes with the USB cable

Cons:
- Shiny Black finish is easy to scratch
- No case included

5 out of 5 stars

Awesome portable hard drive April 7, 2008
PS3MyLuv (NY - USA)
16 out of 19 found this review helpful

This is my second WD Passport drive as the first (160GB) has been very reliable. I bought the 320GB to back up and share files between my home and office PCs. The speed is a bit lacking, but this is a portable drive and it doesn't require external AC, so I can forgive its slowness. Its convenience factor is just great, and 320GB (~=298GB as reported by Windows) is lots of storage for on-the-go needs. I recommend this highly as a portable storage solution -- and the drive is quite stylish.

5 out of 5 stars

Very easy to use with Mac June 13, 2008
S. Menon (Jersey City, NJ)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I bought this hard drive for Media Storage (Mac + Win) and also as a backup disc for Time Machine. The good news is that it comes in FAT32 format, which OS X can read/write. The bad news is that Time Machine requires the backup disc to be in HFS+ format (FAT32 or NTFS won't work).

However, this is easy enough to fix. I launched Disk Utility in OS X and partitioned the drive into 240 GB as FAT32 (or as MS-DOS format, as Disk Util calls it), and 80 GB as HFS+. Took less than 5 minutes for the whole thing. So now, I've got one partition for time machine, and another for my media.

Fine Print :

1. In partitioning the drive, it formats the drive first. So any free utils that come with the hard disk are erased. Not an issue for me as I didn't intend to use any of the free software. But anyone trying this should be aware of it.

2. For anyone thinking about doing the same thing, note that FAT32 does allow both Windows and OSX to read/write without the need for a 3rd party software. But the downside of FAT32 is that it doesn't allow a file size larger than 4 GB. This isn't an issue for me (I don't expect to come across many files that are larger than 4 GB each). To avoid this issue, you could create one partition in NTFS (instead of FAT32). Once you do this, you'll need a 3rd party software so that OS X can read and write to the NTFS partition. I've heard good things about MacFuse (though I haven't tried it myself).

Other thoughts...
- Nice and compact
- Fairly silent
- Pretty short USB cable (can be irritating for some. I prefer this to having a long cable dangling around).
- Wish it came with a soft case/cover (that's what I'm looking to pick up next).

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent value for the money and portable to boot September 15, 2008
Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

For the price, you can't beat the capacity and portability of these Western Digital My Passport Essential Portable Hard Drives.

Western Digital has a long history of producing dependable drives.ss

The housings are well designed and, with a bit of care, you can dissemble them should the need or desire arise. The drives themselves are workhorses. They are not the fastest, but they are more than adequate for most purposes.

I generally don't comment on other reviews of the same product, but there seem to be a number of misconceptions about this product thst should be clarified.

First, these portable hard drives are for usse only with USB 2.0 ports. Period. Machines three years old and older may not have USB 2.0 ports.

Second, hard drives are electro-mechanical devices. Hard drives do fail unexpectedly whether they are a day or year or more old. Hard drive failure is not predictable. So it you plan on using this or any hard drive to back up your precious family photos, financial records or doctoral thesis, make sure you have a second or third backup!

A couple of minor criticisms of the product. The supplied USB cable is on the short side. On the other hand, how long a cable do you need with a portable drive? In any event, USB cables are readily available and relatively inexpensive. A bigger and more important criticism is that Western Digital does not provide a cable with a second USB connector for use on those computers where a single USB port doesn't provide enough power. Finally, WD doesn't include a carrying case. Small things, to be sure, that wouldn't cost Western Digital a lot of money to include, but they don't.

You won't find any competent network administrator who doesn't have multiple backups and the reason for this is that hard drives do fail!

So if you entrust your valuable data to a single hard drive, you are making a big mistake. Always have at least two and preferably three backups that you update frequently. And don't assume that your backups are reliable. Test recovering data from them from time to time.

You might be able to recover some or all the data from a failed hard drive, but it can be a very expensive or troublesome process.

Just remember: if it's worth backing up, it's worth backing up at least twice. That's what the IT pros do - and it's what you should do with your valuable data as well.

Sorry for the digression, but I just wanted to correct the misimpressions that some people have left about these drives.

The Western Digital My Passport Essentials are solid, inexpensive, portable and very useful hard drives.

Jerry