Western Digital 4 TB My Passport for Mac Portable Hard Drive - Black

This data bank is quality and easy to use.

ALL of MY WD "My Passport" for MAC, portable hard drives that I've purchased over the last 8 years have worked straight out of the box without recourse to having to use the bundled WD software. They're sold as MAC and Time Machine compatible. No need to use the WD software. There's no need to even instal the software on your computer. Plug the WD drive into the USB socket on your computer and use Time Machine for backups just by following the Mac OS prompts to make sure you select the correct drive for your Time Machine to target. It's as easy as it gets.I just purchased my fourth such WD drive - a 2Tb version - in it's latest style (as of January 2019). But ALL FOUR of my WD Drives - and those bought by my daughter also - continue to perform perfectly when required. Two are permanently connected to my MAC and in daily use and the other two are offline archives. Oh! - and I also have one (a fifth) in my laptop bag for backups of an old MacBook Pro - still functioning perfectly as required using Time Machine.This month, I ran out of space on my last WD backup drive and Time Machine had started to delete the earliest back-ups from back in 2016. So strategically, I decided it was time for a new one. I had no hesitation in selecting a WD Drive on the strength of my experiences with them to date.As it was the new drive's first backup, I had about 680Gb of files to transfer initially (that's because ALL the files on my MAC needed to be written onto the new (empty) drive). On the only transfer rate I can manage (USB 2 - connected MAC) the transfer took about 11 hours in the background. It didn't interfere at all with my ongoing foreground use of the MAC. Subsequent backups, being incremental backups only, will, of course, take only a few minutes or seconds whenever Time Machine runs automatically thereafter. If my MAC had been a newer version, I guess my transfer rates would have been significantly higher using the USB-C cable connector that comes with the new edition of the WD Drive. (Both are in the box to maintain backward compatibility with earlier machinery - like mine).Although I've only discusses the Time Machine backup compatibility functionality, the WD Drives can of, course, be used for ad hoc data storage and management via the Finder App, alongside any Time Machine back-up folders that are automatically created and assigned drive space by Time Machine.SOME ADVICE FOR PROSPECTIVE PURCHASERS?Reading SOME of the issues that SOME people have had with their purchases, I'd like to share the following observation based on the fact that WD market external drives with some explicitly labelled as "For MAC". This implies there may be two versions of these drives already formatted for either Macs or PCs. (Maybe there are more.... I don't know!)The ones to which I refer in my review, I have specifically bought as formatted for, or labelled explicitly as MAC ready... NOT PC Versions, as I suspect some reviewers may have bought. I'm no expert, and therefore take care to try to get stuff that states what I need explicitly on the box, i.e. it says 'For MAC' on the online listing and on the box. So, I recommend to ALL prospective purchasers of these - or ANY other external drives, that you plan to use on specific machine platforms, that you make sure you're buying the right item for your particular type of computer.I THINK the differences on MACs and PC systems is in file structuring protocols. So, I presume WD pre-format them in the factory and then stream them for either MAC or PC use. But that's as far as my reasoning goes.TROUBLE WITH TIME MACHINE BACK-UPS WHEN MAC IN SLEEP MODE?Not until recently have I placed my MAC in sleep mode, so it was never a problem. However, I encountered a failure to complete Time Machine back-ups when awakening the Mac having done so recently. I explored a workaround. I found a Time Machine-generated file in the Back-up Folder on the WD Drive with the file extension '.inProgress' - it was a small ~ 8kB file and took a punt on it being the blocker to further progress.I temporarily disabled automatic back-ups via Time machine. I then tried deleting the .inProgress file. Failed. I got an error message. The system wouldn't let me delete the file. So, I reverted to 'Plan B'.I switched the Mac off and on again. This resulted in the file disappearing and immediate resumption of normal service!Purely by chance, I discovered another review that referred to this phenomenon, so I refer UK purchasers to the excellent product review listed in "Top Reviews from Other Countries" by Jonathan B from USA on 4 Aug 2018 on this matter, for the benefit of anyone who routinely would put their Mac and/or its connected USB power-driven external HDs to sleep. (It MAY NOT be an issue for external storage drives that are independently powered via separate mains supply rather than via the USB Connection, but I can't verify if that's the case or not).The above IS NOT a criticism of the integrity of WD Hard Drives. It's more of a reflection on how users may choose to operated their system components and the unexpected consequences of doing so. But as Jonathan B notes, it's something that WD (or APPLE, for that matter) might consider in future OS design developments. (They may have done so, for all I know!)

Western Digital is an excellent brand. I do not trust any other portable hard drive for my data. Luckily it has not failed me so far which is more than 2 years. Easy to move data from my Mac to the My Passport. I also find it very easy to search data within the passport if I need to access an individual item.

Bought this Portable hard drive to use as a time machine for my macbook pro. I needed something that I could just throw in my bag in case something happened. It has both a USB-c and USB 3.0 cable so I can connect it to a university computer as well as my own laptop to print off files. Great purchase. Would have loved it to be more rugged or waterproof

Excellent product with good storage and always reliable.

Western Digital 4 TB My Passport for Mac - Just what I needed to help with my storage as my other backup drive WD My Passport 1 TB did not have the capacity to use it as my main Time Machine drive. I am impressed with the reliability of my previous WD drives, but needed a bigger capacity.Had no support issues as yet so cannot rate, but for ease of setup WD are very straight forward to use. My iMac (2014) recognised it easily.

Despite using Time capsules to backup my Macs, as an old school techie I have a horror of H/W failures and like to have a few "spare" back ups stored around. I have a couple of these drives, one 4TB and one 5TB, that I lob a backup onto every now and then to prevent total disaster if everything goes belly up or the house burns down. The drives are compact, capacious, fast and inexpensive. An excellent product.

Reading some reviews I realise that these things can work well for a period and then pack up. So, with that in mind this review is written after a month. Everything works fine, it comes with a USB and a Thunderbolt connection so plugs straight into a Mac. My Mac recognised it without any problems. I use it for back-up, Time Machine on Mac, and have done a couple of back-ups without problems. Currently there are no problems and I have no complaints so I gave it five stars. I am sure it will be OK but will do another review if there is any change. You never can tell with technology!

Spécial pour imac

Easy to set up, I picked it up for my xbox one because it was on sale and it works like a charm. My xbox is faster because I'm using it and the storage is huge. I also got the warranty just in case.

I purchased this to use with Time Machine on my 12" MacBook, and so far it's been great!The set up (if you can even call it that) is super easy. You just plug it into your MacBook, the MacBook asks you if you want to use it for Time Machine, and you just say yes. It'll also ask if you want to encrypt it, which just involves setting a password for the drive. Don't lose this password, though, because you cannot access the drive without it - it will be a dud if you forget the password!A handful of the reviews are complaining about the speed, but I haven't had this issue. The initial Time Machine backup did take a few hours for me, which caught me off guard (make sure your MacBook is charged - if you unplug the drive, the backup restarts), but a quick Google search shows that your first Time Machine backup is supposed to be really slow. All of the subsequent backups take about a minute, tops. Time Machine only backs up files that you've changed since the last backup, so the first one takes a long time, but the rest usually only take a minute or two.If you choose to encrypt the drive, that's another process that the drive is going to have to go through initially, which can take a few hours as well. Unlike the initial backup, however, you can unplug and replug the drive without losing your progress. You can also perform backups while it's encrypting the drive, so it really doesn't affect you being able to use the drive as the first backup does.All in all, I'd say it's great! It is made of plastic and not an SSD, but not bad considering the price. Given that it's not an SSD, though, I'd pick a different drive if you seriously need the extra reliability. For me, I just need it to not fail at the same as my MacBook, which is pretty unlikely, so the old school disc drive is no biggie. I got a used version to save $15 and have zero complaints. I feel way more confident in my Mac now that it's backed up, I would definitely recommend this drive!

One of the largest capacity hard drive I purchased about 20years ago was a Maxtor 30gb drive which costs about $230. With the incredible development of technology, we can can large capacity hard drives for way cheaper. Capacity we don't always use. This hard drive is one of the Best and largest capacity hard drives in the market.I will be giving some things I like and some things I believe can be improved upon.Likes:- Large Capacity, which I won't be using all of that extra space. It makes it very handy and great for backup.- Portable to carry around.- USB 3.0 which makes transfer fast.- I've connected it to an Apple Airport via USB. It was seamless, no configuration needed and read the Hard Drive automatically.- Can be used as a TimeMachine Backup for the Mac and at the same time used as a spare hard drive for extra space.- Model was specifically for a Mac, but it can be used for a PC as well. It can be formatted to be used for either just a PC or just a Mac.- If connected to an Airport, you can schedule auto backups.Dislikes:- I felt the hard drive is a bit bulky. it's twice as thick as similar hard drives with a 1TB or 2TB capacity- Future models should begin to implement USB-C- This may be too much to ask, but since we are going into that direction, perhaps add WiFi. An Ethernet port will make it bulky, so wifi is fine. This is a feature with Apple discontinued AirPort devices, which has Wifi and Ethernet. If this will become a replacement, then would like to see this feature.

This 4TB WD hard drive was much smaller than I anticipated. I re-partitioned it to have 2 partitions. One partition for my time machine backups and the other for general file storage. (this is not the only portable hard drive I have for my mac). It works well and I am really happy with it. Recommend!!