WD 2TB Black My Passport Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBS4B0020BBK-WESN

I find the design of the WD Passport to be well done. While its basically a rectangle, all of the models are the same width, This leads to ease of stacking. Im currently looking at approx. 20 in various storage sizes. They also come in a variety of colours, which makes organizing your data by types easy (I gave up on that idea because of buying the cheapest colours on sale). The downside is that the drive itself is integrated into the control card. In other words, if the USB connection fails, then you cant just pop the drive out of the enclosure and and put it in another box. While I have yet to face this issue, I can see it become a problem after repeated use as the USB connector develops wiggle room.

Bought this to use as long term storage for essential files including documents, photos and videos. Decision factors included cost/storage capacity, portability, USB 3.0 compliance, generally good user reviews and manufacturer reputation/track record. Have used an older 1TB My Passport external USB interface drive for about 7 or 8 years with no issues. Am expecting high-level of durability with appropriate handling and care. Of course time will tell. I never use bundled software on hard drives, and so cannot speak to this. On first plug-in this My Passport was immediately recognized on my Linux Mint 18.3 and 19.1 systems, which are primary production systems. It was not recognized immediately on Windows 10. It appeared in the connected hardware icon in the system tray, but not in File Explorer. Using Administrative Tools in Control Panel was able to assign a drive letter. That assignment now persists across reboots and the drive is recognized routinely in W10.

I purchased this hard drive so I could store my Xbox one games off of the console and to free up space. The drive was plug and play and works great. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is because when I turn off my xbox the light blinks on the hard drive. This wouldnt be a problem, however the xbox is in my room and at night it flashes lights.. I have to unplug it from the cord at night and then plug it in when ready to use. Would be much easier if that light wasnt there.

This is an easy to use hard drive. Simply plug it in and go. I use it as a backup to a backup drive. Daily I back up my data to another Passport hard drive and weekly I back up to this one. Yeah, I know I can use the Cloud, but I dont know who can look at my data on the Cloud. This suits me fine.

It is a good price

This little pocket style drive is about as good as these get. It is simple to use. Plug and Play. Any method for copying or loading files to a hard drive works well. I do have one little thing that bothers me but it may be software/system related. If I am copying a lot of folders that contain many files, the data transfer rate slows down. I have found tat the drive is fastest when transferring large files and very few folders.70 MB/sec avg. transfer speed. I play large 1080P video files straight from this drive without a single issue. For 2 TB of storage for such a low cost, I had to give this drive an overall 5 stars. I have dealt with Western Digital one time on a broken drive under warranty. They treat customers very well and do whatever they can to keep you happy. I phoned them, reported the issue and had a new drive within a few days.

I wanted a storage unit. No where in instructions in box or online could I find any. (just plug it into a computer). If I want to use it for backup, there were instructions. still not sure if I can use it for both. Nor is it clear if used as a backup it only backups changes since the last backup.

The physical size of this drive is very convenient. I like that its smaller than its higher capacity brethren. The data transfer speed on my passport drives is verifiable to be very fast, 100+ mb when transferring large amounts over USB3. The software that comes with it, although not required to use the drive, is helpful for those needing a backup application or those les familiar with using computers. The biggest issue by far with these drives is their fragility. Be careful with them! Ive had multiple my passport drives fail because of either bent needles or, much more common, broken SATA connections. This is very disappointing for a product marketed to be highly portable. Be sure to unplug the cord when not in use, keep the drive on a flat and stationary surface at all times while spinning, and purchase accident and data protection in case of failure. These would be great drives if they didnt break like china.

Pros: - After falling from 2 meters it still works :) - Encryption Cons: - Its not SSD, so its slow and makes some noise - The built-in security software is not working properly and I needed to download the software from WD website, a non-technical person may not be able to deal with this situation.

This is the second WD 2TB Black My Passport Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBS4B0020BBK-WESN I bought from Amazon. Its slimmer than the first one which I like and its just as good if not better than the first one. The first one has been working hard for over a year now and has never failed me and I dont expect this one would. WD external hard drives are the best out there.