Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable

Disappointed in the home company's support.
I purchased this portable external hard drive and it worked great for about a year. The hard drive crashed and I recovered as much of the data as I could. I called Western Digital and they were happy to replace my drive under warranty. They said they would send me a new replacement drive and charge my credit card $140 until they received the old drive. I sent the old drive out right away with the proper RMA number. After the charge was taken off of my credit card I was happy to go on with life. Then two months later my credit card was charged again for $140. I called Western Digital and they said that they had never received the old external hard drive. At this point I no longer had the tracking number because the situation had been resolved 2 months ago from what I could tell. After several phone calls to Western Digital they kept saying the same thing "This is a delicate matter because we have no record of receiving your external hard drive and you don't have a tracking number to prove you sent it to us". If the matter isn't resolved this week, I'm going to pack up the new external hard drive and return it to them and have nothing more to do with Western Digital products.

Excellent backup for my thousands of CDs ripped to mp3 format
My home office used to be cluttered with hundreds and hundreds of CDs. I had some 600 CDRs of Grateful Dead shows alone, starting in 1966 up until the final show at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1995. I'm a music freak. I really got hooked on downloads and decided that digital was the way to go, so I began ripping all my CDRs and CDs to mp3 format. The really "essential" CDs would be ripped in 320 kbs mp3 format, with a copy in smaller 128 kbs mp3 format so it took up less space on my iPod. Over a summer, I ripped easily 2,000 CDs to mp3. The most "essential" CDs, I kept. C'mon, do you think I could sell my copy of (Clapton's) Derek and the Domino's "Layla?" No. But most got sold off and I stored them in a WD MyBook 500 gig external HD. Always at the back of my mind was, what if it fails? I'll lose all my music! The result? This little baby, which has all my music backed up, with room to spare for pictures and work projects. Whenever I download new music from amazon.com, it goes to the appropriate musician's file in my MyBook, and a "to be backed up" file on my desktop. When I get 20-30 CDs, I'll take this USB-powered external HD out, plug it in, download the "saved" copies, and once again, ALL my music is backed up. I've yet to have ANY problems with this. I did, at one time, have a 160 gig WD usb-powered external HD that literally just froze up, which is why I got this to back up all my music on the MyBook. Now, as prices come down, I'm looking at the 1 terrabyte MyBook and may put my music on it, and have TWO backups! You can't be two safe! WD products, with the exception of the early generation 160 gig external HD, have been reliable, are easy to use, and, as prices come down, have become very affordable. I feel secure that at 55, when I pack it in and retire in 10 years, I'll have hundreds of hours of music to crank up the volume and drive the neighbors crazy! And it'll all come from the mp3 files on my WD external hard-drives! Let it rock!

My Passport is the Perfect Portable Hard Drive
I've just purchased my 2nd Western Digital "My Passport Essential". One is used to back up all my photo and MP3 files, while the other holds 1,500 music videos - with more than enough room for another 1,500! My Passport Essential Western Digital My Passport Essential 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDME3200TN (Midnight Black)took the place of a couple hundred CDs. Talk about space saving - and for less than half the price of the CDs! You can plug into the USB port on a friend's computer (PC or Mac) and run files instantly. It's easy to upload and download files - and you just can't beat it for portability. My Passport Essential is super-streamlined, and smaller in size than a man's billfold. Because it is so light-weight, you could carry it in the pocket of your jacket and forget it's even there (which I've done on occasion). For simplicity of use, low price, and portability - you'll really appreciate this durable external hard drive. 'Bye-bye, CDs!

Not bad at first, but broke down in under a month...
This worked great for the first 3 weeks and then suddenly it just stopped working. The light would come on and I could hear the disk spinning and it got warm, but it wouldn't show up in Windows Explorer on any computer. A friend of mine also had one that stopped working within 6 weeks. Western Digital does have a good warranty. My friend was able to get a new unit which lasted about 90 days. I didn't bother. I'm not sure whether its bad luck or just the poor quality of the product but I was not at all satisfied with this product. It's unreliable and lacks lasting power.

It's great
I got it about 3 weeks ago. So far its working smoothly, I have not encountered any problems. It's also nice and slim, easily carried around.