I had over 20GB of music on my iTunes and over 100 movies stored on my laptop and it started to run ridiculously slow. I found out that my motherboard was melting from too much use (and it was an old laptop), so I asked for one of these for Christmas one year and was pleasantly surprised when my parents actually bought it for me. I moved EVERYTHING over to this and it was the best decision I ever made. Three days after I backed my laptop up to it, my computer died and still can't be turned back on. After I got a new laptop, I plugged this bad boy in and it has made a world of difference. I run my iTunes off of it, my pictures are stored on it, my videos are played off of it, and I could go on and on. This external hard drive seriously saved my life. I definitely recommend this product! Western Digital is a trusted brand for me and I wouldn't buy any other company's product. Western Digital is the way to go. Oh, and I can put the hard drive in my pocket. WIN!

TimothyGuthrie

USA

My Passport is a 500gb hard drive. I have owned one for about two years. It can hold a lot of memory. I don't know when it'll ever run out.! I have tons of music, programs, pictures, etc... Ever time my camera memory is filled up I backup my pictures and videos by transferring them to My Passport. The transfer is always very fast which with I'm pleased with. My Passport also makes it very easy to transfer files to any other device. I have dropped it a few times on accident and fortunately it hasn't broke. I believe it is very durable. I also truly like the size of the My Passport. I can carry it ever where and use it conveniently anywhere there is a USB connection..I totally recommend it to those people who have a lot files that they do not want to lose. The only thing that I would like an improvement on is the organization. It would be nice if the My Passport came with a program that managed your files.

BBAlex28

USA

I've been using western digital drives for quite a long time and I've been very satisfied so far. This little portable drive is another great job done by western digital. It doesn't look very cool in black, but it also has many fantastic colors and prints, which makes it much cooler ( I myself have this black one, and I got one with robot design print for my 16-year-old cousin and he loves it a lot) Basically this My Passport Essential 500GB 2.0 Hard Drive is a very typical western digital drive, it's fast and quiet, and it's inexpensive and very reliable. It's also small and light in weight, yet big capacity. It still work like new one after being used for about 5 months (including a lot of traveling). It doesn't get very hot when transmitting a lot of data. Only one disappointment is that it's kind of slippery and I don't like the design of its shape very much. But nonetheless it's a great drive with excellent performance.

zenyc

San Francisco, CA

The Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB is a very good portable hard drive. It is very small and compact. This makes traveling with it or just carrying it with you on a daily basis very easy. It is amazing that something this small can hold 500 GB of data. I have found the storage capacity to be just what I needed. It allows me to put whatever I need on there and I don't have to worry if there will be enough space like on a flash drive. It comes with a very short data cable. I personally like this because it doesn't get into the way but this could be a con for some people. The drive is very quite and doesn't get very hot. Though, if you have it on for a long time it will be warm to the touch. So far I have not had any problems with the drive. I use it a few times a week and carry it with me all of the time. I have moved thousands of GB of data with it and haven't had one problem. This drive is more expensive then other physically larger drives, so I would only purchase it if you need the portability.

A-PERSON

Newark, DE

We bought this because I was filling up my notebooks memory with pictures and the computer was running slow. We bought it on Black Friday saving us quite a bit. I was nervous about using this because I'm not the most technologically savvy person and wasn't sure what hoops I would have to jump to to retrieve my photo's for use, etc. Since we've started using it, it' been great! I was able to easily find and access my photos without any instructions, it seems to work just like a flashdrive. We haven't had any issues yet, but I am worried about what could happen in the future. I'm not sure how durable it is, but in a house with 3 children I'm hoping it is. I'm worried about losing all of the pictures, but I will probably just save them on a photo sharing website to be safe.

Jewlicat

Yuma, AZ

I came across the My Passport series during the time my My Book crashed and burned; the My Passport series uses 2.5" hard drive form-factors and is capable of running without the need for an axillary power supply.  Running directly off the USB allowed for power-surge protection and correct spin-down, a feature my My Book suffered from.  Furthermore, it's nice and compact so it's easy to take around.  Five hundred gigabytes is quite a bit of storage but it can be filled.  The speed of this hard drive is limited to the USB 2.0 technology that was in place during the time this product came out.  Fortunately, there is a new revamped version of this hard disk that takes advantage of the new USB 3.0 specification.  The on-board software that Western Digital provides is bulk-ware to me so I always reformat to get maximum storage space.  However, there is always a portion of the hard drive that is set aside for formatting purposes.  The sleek form-factor, portability, and glossy black finish makes this external hard drive a great buy! 

skizo

Berkeley, CA

This is one of my favorite external harddrives.  I have gone through a few in the past, mostly due to needing more space, but this one is a very good one.   I purchased it during one of the black friday deals, at the time unfamiliar with Western Digital, but quickly learned to appreciate the quality of it.   The my passport essential is very light and portable.  As in its name, it is about the size of a passport and the shape is very sleek.  For anyone who is looking for something that can be carried around with you, this is the harddrive that you should get!  It fits conveniently in almost any pocket.  If you are aiming for a better price based on storage size, another external might suit you better. The file protection software built in is fairly easy to use.  Its very well secured so you can easily encrypt your files just in case you lose it during your travels.  You can still add on files to the harddrive that aren't encrypted at the same time so its a good package =).  

yoshis007

Ann Arbor, MI

I purchased this drive about 3 years ago and ran it on Windows Xp and never had a problem with it but it took about 2 minutes for my pc to recognize it. Fast forward to today and I'm running Windows 7 on an newer computer and it recognizes my drive in less then 10 seconds. Recognizing my drive quickly was the only problem I had out the box, but that was my old pc's problem and not the passport. The only problem I have with this drive is that 35 gb are occupied by some type of back up system files that I have no idea what they are backing up. So that leaves me with 465 gb to use. I don't know why this back up software needs to take up this much space when a operating system can be put on a 8 gb flash drive with room to spare. Over theyears I've gotten over the space issue so there's nothing else I have an issue with about this drive. My overall opinion on the Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB Hard Drive is a very slim portable hard drive and well suited to use in that regard. The backup software could be replaced with something that uses less space and increases drive performance. If you need something small and portable with a decent amount of space pick up a passport.

kingoftheink

Westchester, IL

I purchased this 500 GB hard drive for 40 bucks on Black Friday and used it for more than a month now. This little hard drive is ultra portable. It is very thin, very light and fits into a shirt pocket! I have transfered my whole music collection, pictures and tons of movies into this drive. USB 2.0 connection provided transfer around 25MB/s. For transferring files computer used a little amount of its processing power. I got rid of the included Western Digital back-up software, because I'm not using Windows. I created a partition for Linux (ext4) and it worked flawlessly. When I connect this drive to my Bluray Player, it identifies the drive immediately.  You can hardly hear any noise (any sound at all) when the drive is operational. You can feel the vibration though. I have never experienced any heating, even after reading/writing data for couple of hours. The casing is made of glossy black plastic. It may easily scratched, and therefore should be handled carefully.  I would recommended for anyone who wants a portable hard drive for reasonable price.

nadee

Clemson, SC

If you're a media tycoon like myself, then you know how valuable storage is. Especially with the rise of HD content, it's getting harder and harder to archive all of your data on your internal hard drive. So when my current hard drive reached capacity, I thought it was time to invest in something external. I've had a few hard drives bfore, but none of them had anywhere near the storage capacity of this passport. 500 GBs is more than enough to store all my media content, then some. After transferring my whole collection, I still have plenty of room leftover. The best part of this hard drive, is it is USB powered. Meaning no bulky AC adapter necessary. No need to be tied down by a power outlet. The transfer rate is also pretty fast. An HD movie transfers across in just minutes. This hard drive also works flawlessly with Xbox 360 and PS3 systems. Just make sure you format it to FAT32 beforehand. I couldn't get it to work with my gaming consoles when it was NTFS formatted.

rizjuan1

Berkeley, CA