Western Digital 160GB 2.5-inch Passport USB Portable Hard Drive by Western Digital
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Digital camera reviews of Western Digital 160GB 2.5-inch Passport USB Portable Hard Drive
Digital camera Review: Drive Failed. Unasable. All data lost. Stay away from this product!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I've been using external USB drives for the last few years. I've tried several different manufacturers including Western Digital and I've never had any problems-- not lost even a single filre or received any errror messages. This drive failed after 2 days and I lost all my data. Now I can't even get it to format. Its essentially unusable. I would avoid this product.Digital camera Review: Drive died in 48 hours.
Summary: 1 Stars
I managed to buy a Passport 160GB for my laptop bag and a MyBook 400GB Essential for my home network. I managed to turn both of them into an expensive paperweight in two days. I loaded about 160GB of data to take to work on my MyBook and got to work, and it died after 10GB of offload transfer. Thinking the drive just failed, I then turned to the Passport to pickup the slack, and that then died two after 10GB of data. Whats crazy is they both have the same error message from WD Diagnostics software: Failed read test element. Now the drive is throwing up bad sectors and such and will require an RMA. I eventually just brought the desktop to work. Pass on this drive.Digital camera Review: Easy to transport storage
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very good hard drive I'm just going to make a few bullet points for the pros and cons. Just note that if you can get this drive for $99 or less then you should buy it. Buying the thing at whatever the full price is or for more than $99 is a rip off!
Pros:
Light, compact and easy to transport
No power adapter required (powered via USB)
Fairly inexpensive
Reliable
Takes up little room on desk
Cons:
Will not work with non-powered USB hubs, the hub doesn't draw enough juice to power the drive
Cable is short
Fingerprints show easily
Other than those few cons this is a pretty good drive. The data transfers are snappy and reading information off the drive is quick. I was able to use the drive to store all of my PC games and run them from there rather than my laptop's meager hard drive. Another review noted it but I'll say it again since it's important: the drive comes formatted with the FAT32 file system. Windows XP doesn't use FAT32! So make sure before putting any data on the drive that you format for NTFS!
Digital camera Review: Ebay has the power booster cable "Usb Y cable" $5 dollars
Summary: 5 Stars
It works fine on my Compaq Presario V6000, but you can get the "Y usb cable" off ebay for 5 bucks instead of the WD one to work with older laptops. And the notebook 2.0 cards are going to need an external power source.Digital camera Review: Exactly What I Wanted
Summary: 5 Stars
I have to say that this is probably the best purchase I have made in a long time. It was exactly what I wanted - a large storage capacity in a lightweight, small device that was cheap. This is a very solid, extremely portable hard drive (it can fit in the pockets of my jeans like a wallet) that is so much more useful than my 320GB western digital hard drive that must be plugged into an electrical outlet and is relatively massive and weighty. Additionally, it transfers files fast and easily. This is, as far as I'm concerned, the best external hard drive you can buy if you need around 100GB. Even if you think you won't need a portable hard drive, you'll find that it makes life so much easier when you do have a small, durable hard drive that you can move around easily without having to plug it in. The only caveat I have is that many people have problems with this device and I'm pretty sure it's because they are using laptops that aren't new and can't provide enough energy to the hard drive. I have a macbook and I have no problems but I couldn't plug it into my brother's 3-year-old macbook pro because it didn't supply enough energy. So, I'd make sure you know that you have a good enough laptop or desktop before you buy this.