I recently received this
Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDBACY5000ABK-NESN (Midnight Black)
from Amazon Vine and I am very pleased with it. It is the first USB 3.0-capable device I have owned. I am using this, and all of my other external hard drives, as storage units only (in other words, for backing up and storing my document files and folders, my music, my pictures, and my videos, not for backing up the computer itself). It is a nice large portable hard drive, as large or larger in capacity than most laptop computers. It requires no power other than that supplied by the USB port.
When it arrived I opened the box and retrieved the drive. Having done that, I gently shook the drive to make certain that nothing was loose inside. Then I physically examined it to make certain that the ports were properly fitted and aligned with the outer case. Everything was fine. At that point I inserted the supplied cable's plug into the (new-type) miniature USB port on the drive and inserted the regular USB plug into my computer. Both ends fit easily and perfectly.
As I am using the Ubuntu Linux operating system on my computer, the drive opened instantly. I saw the usual WD backup programs, etc., which are of no use to me and which I immediately removed. (From what I have read, many people do not need or want WD's backup programs. Fortunately, on this drive, they are easy to delete.) The drive now has 465.6 GiB of available space. (My system analyzer shows that 100 MB is being used for "something" but I don't know what it is.) I copied some files onto the drive and they installed perfectly, just as they have done on my other external hard drives.
As is, it will work perfectly with Microsoft Windows systems and, with reformatting, it will work with Apple Mac systems.
This particular external drive is quite nice - small, well-made, and convenient to use. I cannot comment on the speed of USB 3.0 transfers as I don't have anything which has USB 3.0 as yet. When it becomes standard on notebook or netbook computers, I'll buy one of those; I am looking forward to faster transfer speeds. From the examples of file transfer given on the outer box, the speed differential does not appear to be as fast as I had been led to believe from articles in magazines and on the internet. But any speed increase will be welcome.
Of course, like all USB drives, it is fully compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 (though I do not know the power arrangements with USB 1.1).
The only point on which I cannot comment definitively in this review is that of longevity. I will have had to own it for several years before I can say anything truly useful about that! But all of my other Western Digital hard drives have worked perfectly from Day One and all continue to work perfectly.
I hope this information may be of some interest to anyone who wishes to purchase this drive. I have to admit that I am somewhat prejudiced: I own a half-dozen or more Western Digital hard drives and I like them all very much. My oldest, a 40 GB (which was considered HUGE at the time I bought it, perhaps 6 or 7 years ago) is still in regular use as are all the others. As I said, all of them have held up beautifully so I should expect that this one will too.
In my opinion, if you are currently in the market for a larger portable hard drive, this is the one to buy as it will be usable with all versions of USB for the foreseeable future. I highly recommend it.
I also strongly recommend that you buy more than one external hard drive (preferably this one as it has a large capacity and is USB 3.0-capable) on which you save your information (redundancy). Should your computer's hard drive or even (or also) ONE of these drives be damaged or corrupted in some way, you will still have your data. That's what I do. It's cheap insurance! The chances of losing your computer's hard drive and TWO external hard drives should be quite low. (I think that there is a greater chance of your computer's hard drive to fail than there is of one of these externals to do so.)
Thank you for reading and considering my opinions.
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Update: October 20, 2010
I REALLY like this hard drive. How much? Well, I just bought four (4) more of them - three from J&R Music & Computer World via Amazon (J&R is one of their 'partners'), two black ones and one blue one, and one through J&R itself (a red one, which Amazon has not been stocking).
The three I purchased through Amazon arrived yesterday; I'm still waiting for J&R's shipment. The ones I have received all function perfectly. They are extremely well-made.
I am giving my older USB 2.0 320GB drives to my wife so she can have extra storage for her audios, videos, pictures, etc. (she has quite a lot of them, much more than I do, and she was running out of space) and I shall be using these newer ones for backing up our computers, the task for which I used the older ones previously. If and when we upgrade to newer computers which feature built-in USB 3.0, we'll be ready with these drives.
Obviously I like this large and convenient portable external hard drive very much and I'm quite certain that you will too.
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Update: November 29, 2010
I ordered ANOTHER one of these drives from Amazon, this time in Silver; it arrived today. Like all the others (I now own six of these units - the 'free sample' one I got from Amazon Vine and the five more which I've purchased), it is constructed faultlessly and works perfectly.
I like Western Digital products (I have a full dozen of their external drives), I like the company (they care about their customers: I can make this statement from first-hand experience), and I very much like this particular product.
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Update: January 31, 2011
Do you need a case for this product or a similar one? Take a look at this
AmazonBasics Hard Carrying Case for My Passport Essential - Black
. While as of this date it is not yet available, courtesy of Amazon Vine I received my review sample today and I like it very much. If you are interested in it, you could place it into your Wish List and order it when it becomes available.
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Update: August 5, 2012
Though it was not his intention, "AverageCitizen" made a comment which impelled me to revisit this review and tell you that I now DO own a computer with two USB 3.0 ports. Thus I can now take full advantage of these drives' capabilities. Let me tell you: USB 3.0 is FAST. I am noting, in the real world, transfer speeds about four times faster than what I was able to get using these drives with USB 2.0 ports. I transferred 625 GB of data FROM one of my newer 1 TB WD hard drives TO another one via my computer's USB 3.0 ports and the process took slightly under two hours. That translates to about 85 MB/s. I continue to HIGHLY recommend this particular 500 GB hard drive and Western Digital external hard drives in general.
Lawrence H. Bulk
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This Item  WD My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 3.0/2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Midnight Black) |  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | $65.70 | -17% $33.27 List: $39.99 | $128.00 | $130.93 | -17% $33.31 List: $39.99 | -7% $64.95 List: $69.99 |
| Delivery | Get it May 6 - 8 | Get it as soon as Monday, May 6 | Get it May 10 - 14 | — | Get it as soon as Monday, May 6 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 7 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Storage Capacity | ||||||
| Easy to use | ||||||
| Tech Support | ||||||
| Portability | ||||||
| Easy to install | ||||||
| Sold By | Blue Sky Distribution | UnionSine-US | SC Corp. | HDD Shop | Maxone USA | Amazon.com |
| storage capacity | 500 GB | 500 GB | 500 GB | 500 GB | 500 GB | 1 TB |
| hardware interface | usb | usb3.0 | usb | usb | usb3.0 | usb3.0 |
| compatible devices | Desktop | Laptop, Desktop, xbox, PS4 | Desktop | Formatted NTFS / Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7 / Mac OS® X Leopard®, Snow Leopard (requires reformatting and will work in USB 2.- mode) | PC, Mac, Laptop, PS4, Xbox one | Desktop |
| form factor | Portable | 2.5-inch | Portable | portable | 2.5-inch | Portable |
Reviews with images
Perfect for Backing up my Wii.
I purchased this drive to use as storage for, and to play my backed-up Wii games with. I was tired of finding scratches on the Wii games from my kids taking them in and out of the cases and the Wii, so I researched a solution that allows you to backup your Wii games onto a USB drive. I have used Western Digital products in the past and haven't been disappointed. This does require a modded Wii.When I received the the hard drive I took it out of the package and examined it. It is very compact, and it feels like it is built solidly. The USB cord fits into the drive very snugly. Also, the glossy finish was very similar to that of my Wii.I connected it to my computer running Windows XP. The computer recognized the drive and installed the driver software. I did not install the WD Smartware as I would not be using this drive for backup purposes. I then rebooted the computer with a Gparted Live CD in the drive so I could format and partition the drive. I formatted the drive to FAT32. I then safely removed the drive from my computer and plugged it into the usb port of my Wii. I started up the Wii and ran the USB loader which recognized the drive. I was immediately able to start backing up games to the USB drive. Once backed up the games could be played directly from the drive. The games load from the drive at least as fast as they do from the discs, if not faster.I have had this drive for about 2 weeks and I am very pleased with this purchase, as the drive has satisfied my purposes. I intend to purchase another one to use as a backup for pictures and documents on my PC. Also, the "Real Red" color of the drive matches the color of my limited-edition Red Wii almost perfectly (See Pictures). The USB drive has very tiny rubber feet that allow it to sit on top of the Wii without moving. The drive and the Wii look like they are part of a matched set.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2010
Top reviews from other countries
Brent
Does what is expected
Reviewed in Canada on February 12, 2014Color: Midnight blackVerified Purchase
Ayoub
Great Hard Drive with small complications in the beginning
Reviewed in Canada on December 4, 2011Color: Midnight blackVerified Purchase
Anonymous
3 years on and it is now corrupted and I cannot repair it easily or cheaply
Reviewed in Canada on February 12, 2015Color: Midnight blackVerified Purchase
