(Old Model) WD My Passport Ultra 1TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Auto Backup, Red

I had been using a Seagate FreeAgent Go 640GB portable drive for about three years now, and wanted something with some more space and higher transfer speeds. I purchased this drive for it's beefy 2 TB of storage space and speedier USB 3.0 interface.Out of the box, you get the drive, a 15" USB 3.0 cable, soft pouch, quick install guide, and a 3-year limited warranty. The drive looks nice, and appears to be of good construction. Doesn't look or feel cheaply made. I like how compact it is. It's about an inch shorter in length than my FreeAgent Go, and maybe a millimeter or two thicker. The included soft pouch is a nice addition and helps keep dust and dirt off of it. Not an ideal case solution if you're prone to dropping things or somewhat rough with your belongings, so you might want to invest in a more rugged case. It works fine for me though as I keep mine in a messenger bag when on the go, and it's a nice addition considering most other drives don't come with anything. The included USB cable is long enough to plug into the USB port on the front of my PC and reach my desk's surface. So, thumbs up there.Functionally, the My Passport Ultra 2TB works as advertised. Transfer rates are roughly 3x faster than that of a USB 2.0 drive. I noticed the difference in speed right away when transferring large files (1-5GB+), taking only 2-3 minutes instead of 5-10 minutes or longer depending on file size. I work with large media files all day long, so the bump up in transfer speeds is really nice. The drive is very quiet while running. You wouldn't even know that it's on except for a tiny little LED indicator light to the right of the USB connector port.So, why only four stars? Hardware-wise, The Passport Ultra is no different from WD's regular Passport series of portable drives. They're the same exact drives, only slightly different in appearance. What the regular Passports lack from the Ultra is the soft pouch, the Ultra label, and WD's misleading labeling on the box that touts, "Auto & Cloud Backup Plus Security." The "Auto" backup is merely referring to WD's abysmal backup software included on the drive, WD SmartWare (more on that later). The "Cloud" backup is basically instructions on the box for setting up a DropBox account. No kidding! They're advertising cloud storage on the front of their packaging like it's a feature they're offering. Flip the box over and you'll see that it's nothing more than an advertising gimmick for DropBox with instructions on how to set up an account.

The media could not be loaded. This is the 2nd new Passport I bought. Both work perfectly. I am a writer, artist, teacher and need LOTS of storage. Secure, dependable storage!My new HP computer has a broken DVD burner. Or its the crazy fancy software that came with it. It keeps erasing all my DVD's! I burn files to DVD. Take the DVD out. Put it in back in later to take a file off the DVD and cannot; the computer pops up a window saying it has to format the DVD; It then erases the DVD. Lost many files.I bought the Passports to use as storage, a DVD alternative. It's much faster than DVD, holds a lot more files and I do not lose my files. No formatting problems. All my files are on one Passport drive and copies on another Passport and a 3rd older drive (Seagate) that still works after a few years. I bought Passport due the many positive reviews and quick answers to my questions. Another reviewer taught me how to block auto backup so my old files are not replaced. I set the transfer only when need and overwrite if I choose.Passport is small pocket size, can 'travel with my office'; books, pictures, videos in my pocket to-from California, South Boston.(In video I mentioned it took under 30 minutes to transfer 18 GB of files. Correction; it may have taken about 20 min. The popup window when the transfer starts says a certain time, might have said 30 minutes but it turns out to be less time.)Video shows functions.

This is a nicely built and well designed external hard drive. However, the users manual is too complex and the software WD Software is difficult to follow - so be careful to review it carefully. It keeps track of your initial backup and updated file if you use the WD Smartware software in the correct way. I found that I was not scrolling down far enough on the WD Smartware Software screen and so I wasn't using the Backup options correctly. I found that my best bet was to backup only daily at a specific time and to then click on the clock icon at the bottom of the backup tab and choose "backup now". You don't have to do this, but I found it best for me to avoid confusion and also because I do casual backups from time-to-time and don't need continuous backups. It can be used on more that one PC/Laptop and keeps the files separately identified - that's another reason for me not doing a continuous backup option. It also only backups files that have been changed after your initial backup.Also to avoid confusion and problems - when plugged into a PC, it will often popup a message asking if you want to backup "using MS Windows backup" - "DON'T DO THIS" or it will just give you a fragmented backup that is hard to track. Use the "WD Smartware" only to do your backups and it will track your files and revision just fine.