Western Digital Passport 250 GB Hard Drive - WDXMS2500TN

Amazing!!!

2/13/2008

This is the best one I bought. No need for power supply and so compact you can carry it in you shirt pocket. Perfect for mass storage.

Good Portable drive

2/11/2008

Owner for how long? - 1 month

I was in the hunt for a larger capacity Portable hard drive for while now and bought Western digital passport - 250GB, online via Amazon.

Pros: - Very sleek, fits in a shirt/pant pockets. A little over prized considering the features that comes with it. Easy setup, no hassle.
As usual, delivery/shipping were good as promised. Again no hassle.
I had no problem in reformatting to NTFS and get it into working condition. Its doing its job well so far.

Cons - 1) Software that comes with it is lousy. Nothing much can be done (or probably I couldn't do much). I was expecting a backup software which could do an incremental, on-demand, selectable file backup and sync. But the software is very basic and pretty ordinary.
2) Could have been competitively prized considering the stupid software that comes with it and lack of dual direct power option.
3) Poor user manual.
4) Could have been a provision for a direct power supply (now it is via a USB connect to a PC). My 3 year old portable hard drive from Transcend came with an alternate direct power and a power cord included!!
5) The USB cable slot is somewhat awkwardly placed probably compromised to maintain the sleek design. The slot cover somewhat blocks the space. But it could save from dust.
6) I'm not sure of the casing. It doesn't look to me of sturdy stuff. It could have been better if its of a metal casing but I'm not sure. My old transcend portable was made of aluminum. So I'm confused on this.

So many Cons but still 4 star??All the Cons I have listed are purely my expectations and wish list and hence are not critical. All said and done, what is required is a sleek portable hard drive at reasonable prize. Wish WD comes with a 500GB passport hard drive.

Great hardware, Poor Software

2/9/2008

Pros: Compact. Good looking, cheap for the size (250GB), sturdy for the price, very quiet, reasonably fast, blue power indicator looks cool, especially on the piano black body. Short USB cable. Having only one USB jack (more on this point below).

Cons: Why the case needs to be tilted. I prefer rectangular shape rather than rhombus shape. Would be nice if it comes with a carrying case. The backup software is horrible. It's free, but cannot automatcally backup the folder that are newly created after the initial set-up. Basically, the backup becomes a manual labor for me. I don't know why but the backup software (WD Sync) frequently crashed, making me nervous to rely on the software for backing up valuable data (especially because the data will be encrypted by the software). Some bloatwares: ADobe Reader and some google bloatwares.

Others: Many people with low-powered laptop might complain about the lack of the second USB to provide enough power to spin the device, but I knew that my laptops are fine, so I actually like that there is only one USB cable. You should check before buying it, if you use it with a loptop.

Botoom line: Great hardware for the price, even with the poor software included (you can and maybe should erase them).

pretty good

2/8/2008

it's awesome and small...just wish it wasn't slow.......it's not that bad just a bit slower than other hard drives that are powered seperatly....but it's great in everything else!!!

Beware: does not work on PowerBooks

2/8/2008

I run Mac 10.4, and according to the specs, this drive should have worked. The USBs in my computer are not enough to power the machine, so I ended up with a beautiful, shiny brick. If one needs a Y-Adaptor connecting to two ports for the product to work in a PowerBook, then the product (or at the very least, the description) should include such information.
I feel ripped off.