Product Details
- Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 3.3 x 0.7 inches ; 7.2 ounces
- Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
- Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
- ASIN: B0041OSQ9S
- Item model number: WDBACX0010BBK-NESN
List Price :
Product Description
Capacity: 1 TB|Color: Black
From the Manufacturer
My Passport Essential SE – Next generation high-capacity storage to go.
Put your digital life on the stylish, maximum capacity My Passport® Essential™ SE portable hard drive. With WD quality and USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity, this drive is designed for today with tomorrow in mind.
WD quality inside and outMy Passport portable drives are the world’s best selling drives. There’s a reason. We’ve been making hard drives for 20 years and we know how to protect your data.
USB 3.0 plus USB 2.0 A single drive with universal compatibility today and next-generation speed for tomorrow. Use it with USB 2.0 now and step up to USB 3.0 speed when you’re ready.
High capacity in a smaller driveMassive capacity in this small, stylish drive that is powered directly from the USB port on your PC. No separate power supply is needed.
Features at a glance
- Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility
- Up to 3x faster transfer rates with USB 3.0
- Maximum capacity
- Automatic, continuous backup
- Password protection and hardware encryption
- 2-years limited warranty
Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 interface- A single drive with universal compatibility today and next-generation speed for tomorrow. Use it with USB 2.0 now and step up to USB 3.0 speed when you're ready.
Up to 3x faster transfer rates - When connected to a USB 3.0 port this drive lets you access and save files up to 3 times faster than USB 2.0. Transfer a 2-hour HD movie in just 5 minutes instead of 13 minutes.Performance may vary based on user's hardware and system configuration.
WD quality inside and out - For over 20 years, millions of people worldwide have trusted their data to WD hard drives. We are successful because we understand the importance of your data and our first concern is keeping that data safe.
Maximum capacity - Store all your favorite photos, music, movies, and important files on this high capacity, portable drive.
WD SmartWare™ software - You're in control of your backup. Install all the features, select just the components you need, or if you prefer, choose not to use the software at all.
Automatic, continuous backup - Works quietly in the background to protect your data using minimal PC resources. Whenever you add or change a file it's instantly backed up.
Password protection for privacy - Gain peace of mind knowing that your data is protected from unauthorized access with password protection and encryption.
USB-powered - Powered directly from the USB port on your PC. No separate power supply is needed.
Planet friendly - We designed a small box that uses recycled material and minimizes waste. We encourage you to recycle it.
Ideal for
- Connecting with your USB 2.0 port today and using with USB 3.0 when you're ready
- Transferring files up to three times faster when connected to a USB 3.0 port
- Protecting your data with automatic, continuous backup
- Adding extra storage space for photos, videos and music
- Securing private or sensitive data with password protection and hardware encryption
What's in the boxPortable hard drive, USB cable, WD SmartWare software, Quick Install Guide.
CompatibilityFormatted NTFSWindows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7Mac OS® X Leopard®, Snow Leopard™ (requires reformatting and will work in USB 2.- mode)Note: Compatibility may vary depending on user's hardware configuration and operating system.
Portable StorageComparison Chart
My Passport Essential
My Passport Essential SE
My Passport Elite
My Passport for Mac
My Passport SE for Mac
My Passport Studio
Put your digital life on the stylish, maximum capacity My Passport® Essential™ SE portable hard drive. With WD quality and USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity, this drive is designed for today with tomorrow in mind. A single drive with universal compatibility today and next-generation speed for tomorrow. Use it with USB 2.0 now and step up to USB 3.0 speed when you’re ready. Massive capacity in this small, stylish drive that is powered directly from the USB port on your PC. No separate power supply is needed.
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Black)
Technical Details
- Automatic, continuous backup
- Maximum capacity
- Connectivity today; speed for tomorrow
- Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility
- Up to 3x faster transfer rates with USB 3.0
Customer Reviews
PHYSICAL
One terabyte that fits in your jeans' pocket. I don't want to go all "when we were young we walked 10 miles to school, etc." on you, but my first hard drive was such that I would have needed 50'000 of 'em to match the capacity, occupying a solid cube 9 feet on each side and setting me back 30 million dollars. That's mind- blowing progress indeed, and while the original advances were made by firms like Seagate and IBM, those have mostly sold off/sourced out in the meantime, leaving Western Digital as the Bleeding Edge hard drive brand.
This device looks like a cigarette holder with a glossy finish. The edges are rounded, and the usb connector is the only opening in the case, so for my occasional transport I just carry the drive in my jacket as-is. It would have been super- neat to have a rubber flap over the usb and perhaps a more scratch- resistant matte finish, but there is no issue here, especially since WD offers inexpensive hardshell and neoprene cases.
USB3
Finally, ten times the speed of USB2! The USB consortium calls it Super Speed, to distinguish it (not) from the Hi-Speed of USB2 and the Full Speed of USB1. It's beyond me why they don't just name it "5Gbit USB", a moniker which would pit it favorably against eSATA, Ethernet, Firewire, etc... but at least there's a hilarious joke in there for Sci-Fi comedy fans (Google "They've gone into plaid" for the reference, first video link).
But not so fast, Dark Helmet. First, just because the interface is ten times speedier doesn't mean the drive is, and second, it's likely that even your 2010 PC needs an adapter in the form of a PCIx card. And if it does, the USB ports will be on the back of the computer, which may be a problem as the cable that comes in this package is only 16" long. If you need more, you'll have to purchase a Micro USB 3.0 cable, the connector on the drive end is different from USB2. Currently, these cables are rare (none on Amazon!) and expensive, so be careful not to misplace the one you got.
SPEED
This external drive works with both USB2 and USB3, so the question is, is it worth the extra cost of the USB3 adapter, and what exactly is the speed gain one can expect? To figure that out, I've run two tests, one a simple hard drive test via HD Tune, and one a filecopy test.
- HD Tune: (see screenshots for details): with USB2, the interface is the limiting factor, with a transfer rate of 33 MB/sec over the entire range. With USB3, you get the pure drive performance and up to 87MB/sec can be achieved in the outer regions and still a decent 45 MB/sec in the inner regions (the outer regions of the spinning disk have higher velocity and more sectors, hence the higher rate).
- File copy: I copied a batch of 7000 files back and forth a couple times and measured read and write performance separately. Averaged over 5 runs, I found that the read performance gain of USB3 was 19% and the write performance gain was 25%. It needs to be noted that in this scenario there was a lot of overhead - the copy program (robocopy), the file seeks, the destination drive, etc.
So what to make of this? The raw read performance as measured by HD Tune is 2 to 3 times faster with usb3 - nice to see that WD's marketing blurb "up to 3 times faster" is actually true! However, this advantage quickly comes down as you use more complex operations such as copying small files. Given the choice again, I probably wouldn't bother with an USB3 PCI card and just wait for my next PC to have it onboard. If you mainly copy large files (such as movies), you may benefit more from USB3 than I do.
SOFTWARE
The drive comes with some software on it (in lieu of an installation CD) which does two things: enable a hardware encryption and do backups. I've fiddled with it for a while but it left me unsatisfied. Under my (admittedly elderly) WinXP the GUI had rendering problems (holes in the windows!), it wasn't half as intuitive as other software, and at least once I activated the encryption but it didn't take. It also installs a virtual CD, what do I need that for!? The good news here is that WD seems to ship this software with all their external drives now, so it stands to reason/hope that they'll improve on it and you'll be able to download an upgrade.
Of course, if you happen to be a Mac or Win7 Ultimate user, you don't need the WD software at all, just use the built- in stuff.
CONCLUSION
This is a fantastic little device: a full terabyte, compact and reasonably future- proof; although you might not want to bother with USB3 for now if you don't already have it. I'm deducting 1 star for the mediocre software, otherwise I'm very happy with this capable small data vault.
I can remember when I was impressed by a 356 MB hard drive on my new computer. (Remember those days?) Now here's this back-up external drive that is a terabyte, something that not so many years ago was in the domain only of supercomputers that took up whole rooms. The really impressive thing is that this is such a nice compact little drive, not much bigger than a deck of playing cards. I've used other drives for back up and have always avoided the back up software that came with some of them, fearing it would get in the way and slow things down when I'm working or that it would take too much time to figure out what to back up and how often to do so. As a result, I often forget to back things up, which could be a disaster if I ever had a hard drive failure.
Now the nice thing about a large external drive such as this one is that it has tons of space and I can just back up everything and keep several copies. The software that comes on the drive installs in minutes and checks for updates for both software and firmware. It gives you a choice of what to back up and the choice of pausing backups when you're working, so you don't have to worry about it getting in your way when you're doing something else. It was simple to enter password protection and comes with a manual on the drive that's easy to understand, as manuals go. You can also choose how many backups to keep at a time and where you'd like those stored. The settings are simple to set up, even partitioning the drive if you decide to do so.
I've used it for a few weeks now and hardly notice it being there. It just does its thing in the background and I can check the backups so I know they're there. Using Windows XP, it puts a little icon down in the menu bar where I can check at any time to see how much space has been used, whether or not it is locked and if the temperature is OK. Unlike some drives I've used in the past, this one seems to run pretty cool and I've never felt it being warm, even when the summer temperatures in the room were warm. I like that it's so small, yet has such high capacity. I'm using a 2.0 interface but it's nice to know it has the 3.0 capability for future use with perhaps a different computer. Two thumbs up for this external hard drive.
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Black)
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