WD My Passport Studio 500GB Portable Hard Drive WD My Passport Studio 1TB Portable Hard Drive WD My Passport Studio 500GB Portable Hard Drive WD My Passport Studio 2TB 2.5" USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394b Portable Hard Drive Model WDBS8P0020BBK-NESN

Pros: Firewire 800 speed
Reliable
Silent
Great design
Daisy-chaining FW 800

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I bought that drive a few months ago when my storage needs got over control. I needed something small to hook-up to my laptop who act as a desktop replacement. I did not want a desktop drive, too much hasle, noise and wires. I recommand that drive to any MBP owner.

Pros: The build quality is amazing. There is no plastic to be found on this thing. The case is made of anodized aluminum. It can definitely take a beating. Dual FireWire 800 ports mean that those who still have computers with FireWire 800 can take advantage of FireWire's daisy-chaining abilities, but the pros end there.

Cons: This hard drive is dated. It's only USB 2.0, and while there isn't much of a difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 transfer speeds (because the RPM is the real bottleneck) I would still prefer USB 3.0. USB 3.0 is faster than FireWire, FireWire has been replaced with ThunderBolt, and as of 2012 even Apple does not put FireWire ports on any of their new devices. FireWire is essentially dead and obsolete. For people who are heavily invested in FireWire 800 equipment, who want a FireWire hard drive that will daisy chain to their other FireWire equipment, this is perfect. For everyone else...meh.

I don't have a Mac, but I have a Vizio Ultrabook with an anodized aluminum unibody very similar to the Macbook Pro's and this hard drive, so I thought it would be cool to have a matching external hard drive to go with it. My ultrabook doesn't have any USB 2.0 ports. It only has 2 USB 3.0 ports, but I assumed the USB 2.0 hard drive would still be backwards compatible with the USB 3.0 ports and would just run at USB 2.0 speeds. Nope. The ultrabook won't even recognize it, and since the ultrabook doesn't have any USB 2.0 ports, it's completely incompatible with it. It still works on my desktop's USB 2.0 ports, but this makes it impossible to use it to transfer files to and from my ultrabook and other computers. Bummer. As more and more computers ditch USB 2.0 altogether in the wake of USB 3.0, this drive is going to become completely antiquated and useless.

Although I kind of like the aluminum casing, this thing is thick and heavy. That's the trade-off. Since the whole point of a portable drive is for it to small, light, and portable, the heavier design is somewhat impractical. I like it, but for the college student or professional who wants a portable drive to carry around everywhere, the extra weight can become a burden.

Other Thoughts: This drive comes pre-formatted in HFS+ for Macs. For Mac users, this is great, since the market is flooded with NTFS formatted hard drives, and it makes the drive compatible with TimeMachine and other Mac features right out of the box. PC users will have to format the drive though, and unfortunately it's not as simple as right click>format. Your computer will recognize it in Device Manager, but it won't even show up as a drive under My Computer. To get it working, you'll need to go into Disk Management where it will be recognized as unallocated space. Simply click it and tell it to create a "New Simple Volume." Follow the instructions from there to format the drive.

Manufacturer Response:

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with the My Passport Studio, as this is not the typical or intended experience with the product. When formatting a drive that is intended for use on a Mac specifically, initialization, formatting and partitioning the device will in fact be necessary to utilize on a Windows system. Please visit the following link for further information related to this procedure.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1018
Although the device is intended for use with a Mac, and is provided with USB 2.0 and Firewire, which are native Mac technologies, until recently the Mac systems did not provide support for USB 3.0 exclusively. For a USB 3.0 Mac hard drive, you will want to consider one of the following drives, or the alternative Passports with USB 3.0
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=910
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/external/portable/
Is there anything we can do for you at this time? You may contact us at 1 (800) 275-4932, or via our support website at: http://support.wdc.com/rs/. Please indicate within the online case creation or with the first support agent you speak with, that you are responding to a Newegg review, so we route you and your information to the correct team members.

Pros: 1. Compact good looking case. This is an attractive unit for sitting on your desk or to take with you.
2. Large storage capacity. 2 TB drive provides lots of capacity.
3. Powered by USB or FireWire connection to computer. No separate AC power needed.
4. Drive has one USB 2.0 and two FireWire 800 cables for connection to a computer for transferring files.
5. The second FireWire port can be used to daisy chain an additional external drive or other peripheral to a laptop.
6. Will work with Mac Timeline function. This was a super-easy drag and drop straightforward procedure.
7. Western Digital has fairly extensive library of downloads for use with Windows or Mac. A number of applicable FAQs are linked also.
8. Compatible with Mac OSX 10.4 and above.

Cons: 1. Windows and Mac OSs cannot be handled on the same drive. You must pick one or the other. Default is Mac. You must use the Western Digital website if you want the drive to be used for Windows backup. You need to format part or all of the drive as FAT32 to be able to backup Windows.
2. Print copy information supplied with drive is minimal. You must go to the Western Digital website if you want (and you do) detailed information and instructions on using this backup hard drive.
3. This drive does not handle USB3 or Thunderbolt.
4. Really short USB and Firewire cables.
5. The initial warranty period provided after registration was 1 month which did not meet the period advertised on the box (3 years). I questioned Western Digital about this and they did bump the limited warranty to 3 years.

Other Thoughts: This Western Digital My Passport Studio 2 TB drive was used with a MacBook 2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo CPU/2GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Memory/250 GB HD/Mac OSX 10.6 laptop. Backup was attempted with a Windows 7 machine.
The drive is supplied in the HFS+ format in order to provide a default backup of a Mac computer. To connect with a PC, you must follow the instructions and download the software provided on the Western Digital site http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=211&lang=en.
To setup the backup drive for the Mac, you just drag and drop the drive and security folders to the applications folder.
If you want to use the Mac Timeline function, setup is really easy. Timeline just saves as expected. All in all, this Western Digital drive performed decently with the Mac OSX 10.6 system. My initial backup of 36GB took 44 minutes.
When I went to the Western Digital website to register the product, the system limited the warranty to 1 month, whereas the warranty period is supposed to be 3 years according to the box in which the hard drive was supplied. I sent several e-mails to, and spoke with, Western Digital support to straighten out the issue. The warranty issue was resolved.
The manuals and instructions provided on the Western Digital website for the My Passport Studio backup hard drive were appropriate for the tasks performed. I am pleased with the performance of this device. I really look forward to using this drive in the future.

I will be submitting more reports in the future as this unit ages.

I rated this drive 4 star for the following reasons:

1. USB 2.0 rather than USB 3.0
2. Cable lengths for USB and Firewire were really short.
3. Windows backup required additional work (format in FAT)
4. Warranty issue required resolution.

If you just want the drive for Mac backup, you should be pleased with the device.

Pros: Comes pre-formatted for my MacBook Pro. Works flawlessly with Time Machine. Very nice external case. Made out of a hard metal that could probably take a few whacks with a bat. It's laptop-sized, so it'll fit in a bag real easy. 2 TB gives you plenty of space for anything that you can throw on it. My 3.5 GB Windows 8 ISO took exactly 60 seconds to copy over Firewire, so you're looking at about 60 MB/s transfer speed. This is nearly USB 3.0 speeds and should be plenty fast enough for home users. USB 2.0 doesn't fare so well, however......

Cons: USB 2.0 speeds are the usual max for USB 2.0 - about 25-30 MB/s from my unofficial methods (1 minute, 55 seconds for my same 3.5GB Win8 ISO). USB 2.0 is really a shame for this drive. I assume it's that way for technology/space saving reasons. Included USB 2.0 & Firewire 800 cables are super short, so unless you're planning on keeping your drive about a foot and a half away from your USB/1394b port, get some new cables. Also, it's a mini-usb cable, which you may have plenty of already (I know I sure do).

Other Thoughts: Would have preferred USB 3.0 to be included, so I docked one egg for that. Screws holding the enclosure together are super tiny - hope you have a small screwdriver - my security bit set didn't have one small enough, but I managed to use a super tiny flathead to get the screws out. The internal drive is a WD Scorpio Blue WD20NPVT. It seems a bit taller/thicker than most 2.5" drives, so I'd think twice before trying to drop this into a laptop. Two included software programs - WD Drive Utilities & WD Security. WD Security is simple - requires a password to use the drive. The software isn't really clear if this is a type of encryption, or exactly what type of encryption, so you may want to just use OS X's built-in encryption instead. Drive Utilities gives you SMART Status, Quick Drive Test (< 2 minutes), Complete Drive Test (probably hours with a 2 TB drive), Sleep Timer to put it to sleep, Drive Erase (exact method isn't specified, and you don't get any options for overwrite method, number of passes, etc), and Registration. Overall, I am very happy with this drive and plan on using it for my OS X backups for a long time. I've never had any problems with WD drives, so I'd recommend this to others in the market as long as you're using the 1394b. If you can find a similar drive with USB 3.0 speeds and HAVE to use USB instead of Firewire, then I'd suggest exploring all of your options.

Pros: I love being able to use this drive's generous 1TB of storage without the need for a separate power adapter. A few years ago, that wasn't really an option; you were confined to something bulky and fragile with several cables going in various directions.

The WD software is light and seems to have adequate features, including WD Utility and WD Security. Most of these features are already available with Windows 7 and OS X, however.

The build quality is also excellent. It has a lovely anodized aluminum case and weighs about 3/4 lb. It's also quiet and reliable thanks to the 2.5" (laptop) form factor Scorpio Blue drive inside.

Cons: Unfortunately, what makes this drive so quiet and reliable also hampers it. The 5400 RPM Scorpio Blue with its 8MB cache is nothing to brag about. Using the antiquated USB 2.0 connection with both my PC and Mac Pro, USB read speeds were less than half those of Firewire 800 (about 29 MB/s read vs. 67 MB/s read), and even the Firewire speeds were exceedingly average.

Its load times for large programs were mediocre, which is odd, considering this drive is marketed to production professionals who likely want as much speed as possible.

Other Thoughts: This drive really ought to utilize USB 3.0. Neglecting to include this was a major oversight on WD's part and a major disadvantage for PC users. My Passport Studio's overall speed handicap makes it difficult to recommend.

Manufacturer Response:

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with the My Passport Studio, as this is not the typical or intended experience with the product. When formatting a drive that is intended for use on a Mac specifically, initialization, formatting and partitioning the device will in fact be necessary to utilize on a Windows system. Please visit the following link for further information related to this procedure.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1018
Although the device is intended for use with a Mac, and is provided with USB 2.0 and Firewire, which are native Mac technologies, until recently the Mac systems did not provide support for USB 3.0 exclusively. For a USB 3.0 Mac hard drive, you will want to consider one of the following drives, or the alternative Passports with USB 3.0
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=910
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/external/portable/
We will forward your recommendations related to the USB 3.0 interface to our product development team for further consideration and review, as suggestions such as yours are great feedback to future improvements.
Is there anything we can do for you at this time? You may contact us at 1 (800) 275-4932, or via our support website at: http://support.wdc.com/rs/. Please indicate within the online case creation or with the first support agent you speak with, that you are responding to a Newegg review, so we route you and your information to the correct team members.

Pros: Nice small drive
Powered from the data cable
Great speeds via Firewire 800
It's from Western Digital!
USB2 and 2 Firewire 800 Ports (so you can daisy chain it with other stuff)
Completely quiet.
Comes with both cables (USB and Fw800)

Cons: There really are no cons for the drive itself... But Windows 7 won't natively talk to this without either loading software for it or reformatting the drive. I sorta think that's unfortunate, since a Mac will read a Windows (NTFS or Fat32 drive) without any special software. You'd think Windows 7 would play nicer with Mac hardware...

Other Thoughts: Speeds I achieved with this drive were about twice as fast via Firewire 800 as they were via USB2. That's all due to the interface and should be expected. Unless you're forced to use USB2 with this thing, use the FW800 instead.

I spent some time with both a Mac Pro 2.8 Dual Quad Desktop, and a MacBook Pro notebook. Both have the Firewire800 interface, and I also tried both with USB2. USB2 performance is what you expect from USB2. Basically 30-32 MB/sec read or write. Same as any other drive. When you plug in with Firewire 800, things move along a good bit faster.

Copying ISO Image files, here's the performance numbers I got.
MacBook Pro (New in 2011)
65.49GB took 18:55. So, 57.7 MB/sec. 1 Gig every 17.3 seconds. Read and write were within 1MB/sec.

MacPro Desktop
Probably due to a faster system bus and nicer hard drives, the Desktop system achieved 66.38MB/sec reading from the drive. So, almost 20% better. Of course I don't expect a notebook to be blazing fast. Still, most SATA2 internal hard drives are no faster than this so these performance numbers are pretty nice. Again, read and write were very close.
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External drives as a rule, tend to have shorter lives than internal drives. This is not something that should happen if you're careful with your drive. Remember when using external drives that they have a platter spinning at extremely high rpms (basically a gyroscope) and it is VERY hard on the bearings to move the drive around while it is running. Especially if you move it off axis. Try to never move your drive around when its' plugged in, and it will give you a far longer service life!

Pros: I reviewed the 500GB My passport and found it to be a great little external drive that made working between my Mac and PC pretty easy. I was able to transfer files between the two platforms and it was fairly quick with the firewire 800 connection on the Mac.

The 2TB version is a whole lot more of the same. 2 TB seems to be the threshold right now for being reliable as I have recently owned larger drives that did not last. Having owned Western Digital drives and many other brands in the past, almost all that I have had over 2TB eventually failed. Some smaller drives I have owned are still running even after 15 years.

I really like the My Passport Studio drives and the 2 TB drive is the same size physically as the 500 GB drive.
The available space on the 2tb drive is actually 1.85TB. You can use this drive as a cross platform drive by formatting it to be FAT32 or by using Macdrive program that allows your PC to read Mac files. I prefer to use the Macdrive as it allows unlimited file sizes to be read and used.

The drive comes with both a USB2 cable and a firewire 800 cable. With the Firewire 800 connection on the Mac, files are quickly accessed and the drive is almost as fast as my usb3 drives. With the USB2 connection, speed is painfully slow. But if you are using this drive as a mainly Mac drive, it is one sweet little big drive.

Cons: The cables are really short. Could be longer. The LED light is made so it makes a pattern like a flashlight on the wall. Easily fixed with a bit of black electrical tape. USB2 is so slooooowwwwww.......I am used to faster connections and USB3 is now the standard.
This drive is perfect for those who have older systems that don't have USB3. Anyone with USB3 connections would be well advised to get a USB3 My Passport drive. Or if you don't care about access speed on a PC, then this is the drive you should get.

Other Thoughts: I really like the size and build quality of the My Passport Studio drives. They are really built strong and look like they can take some abuse if you are using it to transfer files and will be carrying it around. Since I own both a MAc and PC, the cross platform ability is a big plus for this kind of drive. This drive can be re-formatted for use on a PC only if needed.

Pros: Stylish all aluminum two tone case. Very hefty for it’s size. Has both a USB 2.0 port and dual Firewire 800 ports so other Firewire compatibles can also be hooked up at the same time. Has a good 3 year warranty, and solid customer support from Western Digital. Formatted HFS+ for Mac Operating Systems and includes WD security and encryption software. Can be used with Apple Time Machine. Can be used by a standard Windows PC if reformatted. No wall wart needed, powers completely off the USB 2.0 or Firewire Bus. Includes a rather short USB 2.0 cable, and a Firewire 800 cable, so you don’t really need to buy any extras. Has about 931GB of free space. The included WD software takes up very little space on the drive itself. Western Digital tech support is right up to snuff. I had to ask a couple of questions, so I used their email support. I heard back in less than 24 hours and got the answers I needed. Not too shabby. Western Digital also has a support forum as well and they encourage their product users to join the forum.

Cons: Really needs to be USB 3.0 instead of 2.0, but that’s just being nitpicky on my part. The end of the USB cable that does into the drive is a Micro USB B-male. This is kind of an oddball cable not used on many things, but if you desire a longer cable, NewEgg does carry cables with this end that will work.

Other Thoughts: If you are looking for the Cadillac of external hard drives to use with your Mac, you have found it in this drive. It’s very stylish, heavy, and contains a rugged, proven drive. The drive in the enclosure is a WD Scorpio Blue, 2.5”, 5400 RPM drive with 8MB Cache. I have one of these exact same drives in an external USB 3.0 enclosure I use for PC.
As far as transfer speeds. Moving a 21GB video file to the drive took about 7 minutes using the Firewire 800 connection on my Mac notebook. Use the USB 2.0 connection took almost 18 minutes for the same file. Benchmark speeds would put that in the 30 MB/s read and 29 MB/s write in USB 2.0, and around 69 MB/s read and 64 MB/s write in Firewire, which is well within the specs for those two standards. In short, if you need a reliable backup drive for your Macbook that looks stylish on your desk, and gets the job done, this is the drive for you. The warranty from WD is good, the support is there, and the product works. If you are looking to use this drive on a Windows PC, be prepared to format the drive, but there are other options out there that will work better for a Windows PC. In short, this is a good solid offering for a Mac notebook owner/user, and well worth the investment. A solid 5 Egg performer.

Pros: While this portable drive is meant for Mac systems, it does work fine on the PC (requires formatting). All my testing was performed on the PC as I no longer have any Mac systems running in my home. I connected this drive to my primary PC via the USB 2.0 port and it was detected immediately. Once I formatted the drive, I was then able to start copying files over to it. Doesn't get much easier than that.
Build quality is exceptional. The drive is encased in a solid metal case and it has some weight to it. It just feels like a quality product in your hand. It's rugged enough to take a beating and keep on going. It's also nice and lean, which makes toting it around a breeze.
Ships with a USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 cable, which is definitely a welcomed edition. The cables aren't very long, but why would you need long cables anyway?
As far as connectivity goes, this drive has one USB 2.0 port (PC) and two Firewire 800 ports (Mac). The second Firewire 800 port allows you to daisy chain another device as needed.
USB 2.0 transfer rates are around 25-30 MB/s, which is typical of USB 2.0. I found this drive to be reliable and haven't experienced any connection issues of any kind.
On the software side of things, WD's backup utility is basic but effective. It makes backing up user data easy enough for anyone (even my mom could do it, LOL).
You can use the “WD security” application to lock the drive with a password if needed. This is an important feature when you're talking about a portable hard drive. You don't want anyone accessing your sensitive data if you leave this drive laying around somewhere.
Having a portable hard drive of this capacity definitely makes life easier when you need to transfer a large amount of data to another PC. It's also useful for storing any essential software utilities that you might need on the go.

Cons: Being that I'm using this drive on the PC, I had to acquire all the software from WD's website. The software is actually included on the drive, but since I had to format it all the data was lost. Not a huge deal, but this is something you have to keep in mind if you're buying this drive for the PC.
No USB 3.0 support. While this drive is targeted at Mac users, I still think WD should have included a USB 3.0 interface. USB 2.0 is painfully slow when backing up a large amount of data.
I couldn't lock the drive from the main WD drive utility, even though I should be able to. I suspect that this is because the software is optimized for Apple's OS. I had to use the separate “WD security” app to lock the drive.
A little pricey for what you're getting, but I do think it's worth it for the most part.

Other Thoughts: I really don't have that many bad things to say about this product. It simply works as advertised. PC users will probably want to steer clear as it's certainly optimized for the Mac (Firewire 800 but no USB 3.0), however the drive does play nice with the PC if you need it to.
If you frequently find yourself relying on optical disc technology to transfer data from one PC to another, you should seriously consider dropping the cash on a portable hard drive like this. It will save you some headaches.

Pros: It did not take me long to love this Drive, The all aluminum case did it for me! and the 1000 GB capacity. It looks and feels indestructible.I mean its solid aluminum all around. The cables are thick nice quality, you get a FireWire 800 and a USB 2.0 and will work with FireWire 400 at your expense. It has a blue activity led that is not overwhelming.The drive comes Preformatted with HFS+ for Mac OS but can be reformatted to NTFS for Windows users,but remember its USB 2.0 not 3.0 It comes with WD Utility, WD Security,and has a 3 Year Warranty.

Cons: The only con i could think of is that its USB 2.0 and not USB 3.0...but this is a External Drive for Mac Users so in that regard there are definitely no cons. I absolutely love this Drive, Like I said the all aluminum case is so nice, and black and silver matches Macbooks perfectly.

Other Thoughts: I tested this Drive on both a Windows and Mac OS and the speeds were just fine for an External Drive it did far better on my MacBook because I could take advantage of the FireWire 800 and here are some of the read and write speeds,I used real world tests not benchmarks!
USB 2.0 on avg. had around 31.7/24.6 on a 17Gb file
FireWire 800 on avg had around 72.6/64.4 on the same 17GB file
The Harddrive in this unit is the WD10JPVT Newegg item# N82E16822136927 for further information, and never exceed 33 degrees. Id have to say in my opinion this is one the the nicest 2.5" Drives, You will love this new enclosure.