Western Digital My Passport External Hard Drive Review

In this Hub/Product Review I will talk about external hard drives, and review the actual Western Digital My Passport 1 Terabyte (TB) External Hard Drive. I will talk about functionality, and whether or not it is worth the money compared to all the hard drives that are on the market.

So first let me talk about the size of this external hard drive, and where they have came from. If you remember a few years back, external hard drives were actually pretty big, and did not hold much memory. They would hold about 120 GB (Still a lot) but would be about 8-12 inches tall, 4 inches thick, and about 6-88 inches wide, or about the size of a pretty large book. These were far from portable, and were stationary for the most part. Also these had no back up software, and you had to physically choose the files that you wanted to back up. While this may not have been a huge problem, this was inconvenient especially considering today's standards.

Which brings me to the external hard drive I am talking about. The passport hard drive is about the size of an average wallet, cell phone, and can easily fit in your pocket, or into a laptop bag, or purse. Not to mention that it holds SIGNIFICANTLY more room than a jump drive, or flash drive that would normally hold about 8-16 GB.. So the size of this external hard drive is extremely useful, portable, and convenient for anyone.

As I said above, older external hard drives were quite big, and they only held around 120 GB.. The Western Digital Passport hold 1 Tera Byte, or 1,000 GB (Gigabytes), OR 1,000,000 MB (Megabytes). This will essentially back up any computer, if not more than 1 computer. To fill this up you would really have to work hard at that, especially if it is for personal use. You could essentially store between 250-400 full length movies on of these and possibly still have room to back up your computer. So this is clearly a LOT of room for anyone's use.

When I talk about functionality, I am referring to the ability to be used on multiple platforms. For instance when you walk in Best Buy, the person working there will say "what kind of computer do you have" simply because most external hard drives work either on Mac, or Windows. Also most are not interchangeable, therefore you have to buy the one that fits your specific computer.

With the external hard drive I am reviewing here, you can use the WD Passport on either Mac or Windows, or BOTH. I have both a Macbook that I use for writing here, and a Dell that I use for writing papers for school, and the hard drive back up both of my computers with ease. After plugging in, and formatting it to both computers (Can be easily done by anyone), I am able to simply plug it into any computer and it works perfectly fine. Which makes this external hard drive VERY useful for anyone, and extremely functional for any technology person who does not know what kind of computer they will be working on, OR if you are upgrading from an old computer, and may be switching to or from a Mac.

This is always a big subject when talking about any product. The external hard drives 5 years ago cost upwards of $100.00 for 120 GB's and a hard drive that was not portable, and had to be stationary. Also jump/flash drives cost around $15-30 depending on the size, and can be lost, or easily broken.

The Western Digital My Passport 1 TB External Hard Drive costs around $89.99. That is what I paid for mine on Ebay, and Amazon offers them for around that same price. Considering the portability, functionality, and size capacity, and physical size, the price of $89.99 is a great deal. Especially since Best Buy will charge the same price for external hard drives that are only good on 1 platform, Mac or Windows, and you would normally have to buy 2 if you have both types of computers like I do. So I would say this is a no-brainer for anyone in the market for a external hard drive.

Overall this external hard drive is a very good deal. I have flash/jump drives, have bought many external hard drives in the past, and this is the best one I own. Not to mention the fact that by simply plugging the hard drive in, it will back up your whole computer. It pays for itself knowing that all your pictures, songs, movies, and documents will be safe, and in an easily portable device. You will get a lot of use out of this product, and I really enjoy it.

I rate this overall a 9 out of 10. I take 1 point off simply for the fact that for me to use it on my Mac, and Windows, I had to format the drive. This was not difficult, and following the instructions on the Western Digital site finished this in about 30 minutes. Although I think for me to give this product a 10 out of 10 it should come already formatted to be used on both.

Keep in mind you do not have to do ANY formatting if you are using on one system Mac, or Windows, but if you are going to use it on both platforms interchangeably like I do, then it will have to be formatted, but once again, this is very easy.