WD My Passport Essential SE 1 TB Black Portable Hard Drive (USB 3.0/2.0)

Having purchased a variety of desktop and portable drives over the years i have found the Western Digital My Passport range to be the best of the lot. Compared to my Seagate 3TB drive used to backup my desktop PC the WD MPE 1TB i purchased for my laptop did the same task in a fraction of the time.
There have been no glitches or problems, this is a reliable plug and play device. It worked flawlessly in my Desktop PC using Win Xp , My laptop using Win7 and even in my companies work laptop using a custom WinXP that has a mass of 'big brother' style restrictions.
You dont have to use the WD software. I simply moved all the WD files and folders into a new folder and it sits there doing nothing.
The capacity is good at 93% of the 1TB being available, for comparison the 500GB in my laptop has only 88% available for use.
The size is perfect, with smooth rounded edges and corners, genuinely pocket size and the usb2/3 cable supplied is just the right length at about 1 1/2 feet or 45cm long. The connections into the drive and usb slot are firm and positive.
Build quality is good , with various colours and simple clean matte finish that doesnt show scratches. simple unobtrusive blue dot light to show its working. personally i dont like or want shiny finishes and big flashy lights. my first one has been clattering about in my pocket with keys etc and ive knocked it off the side table a few times [whilst running] and no adverse effects whatsoever. so it is definitely robust.
Being a usb2/3 device it is future proof and backward compatable, so it should be viable and useable for a considerable time.
All told its the best portable or desktop drive i have purchased to date, so much so ive bought the same item for my daughter at Uni and another for my work files backup.
The price at about £80 with free postage is excellent VFM at under 9pence per MB.
Also it was delivered in a few days well within the delivery timescale.

I recieved this hard drive for Christmas and have just set it up after reading all the reviews on Amazon. I found these very helpful and would like to share my experience with this product.

It's pretty easy to set up. I plugged it in and my Windows 7 computer said there was no driver for this device, but it still read it. When you open the hard drive location, it has all the pre-loaded software on. After reading the other reviews about it, I must admit that I was a bit panicked, but I decided to steer clear of the software and use the hard drive as a drag and drop device, the same as my USB stick, so that I can use it at college or work.

I decided to copy the pre-loaded software onto a DVD disc, should I ever need to use the software. I would recommend this and also to print a copy of the user guide which is pre-loaded.

Another two points that may be useful are on the actual product page. One is:

"WD SmartWare Software
You're in control of your backup. With our intuitive backup system you can decide how you approach securing your data for the future - you can install all the features, select just the components you need, or if you prefer, choose not to use the software at all."

I would also recommend watching the product videos too, as this will give you a look at how the software works, so its up to you what you want to do with it.
Hope this helps!

I'm giving this little beauty top marks not for speed of transfer, but for it's neat small size and huge capacity. It has a proffesional 'quality,' feel about it and is around 75% the size of my WD250 gig USB portable hard drive.

Okay, speed and differences between USB2 and USB3. First noticeable thing is the port on the side of the drive. It's not the same as a USB2. It consists of two small flat ports joined, one of which appears to be similar to the one found on an HTC phone. This means you won't have a cable lying around to fit it. It does come with the correct cable of which the computer end is a standard USB type A fitting. It is short though at 45cm so that may mean you need a longer cable in some situations. Speed will only be faster that USB2 if you fit a new PCI Express expansion port to your computer. This isn't a problem if you have a spare expansion slot on your computer, are happy to furtle around inside (not difficult but some people don't enjoy it) and of course you have bought a card. I bought a card from a well known on line retailer for about 15 quid. They can range from £10 to £50 so do your on line checks first.

Speed is of course the same on USB2 - which is fine for small files but it is relatively painful when transferring large amounts of data such as films or a music library. Using my newly fitted USB3 card and the drive I probably doubled my speed of transfer. I have read that 10x faster is the standard, but you can expect in practice around 3x the speed on average. As per usual you have to take a lot of the manufacturers claims with a sceptical eye as they no doubt use absolutely optimised set ups, however I think that the 2 to 3X extra transfer speed I'm getting is a good increase.

My advice would be that if you are looking to buy a 500gb portable drive then given the reasonable price I'd go for USB3. It is faster and one way or another over the next few years it will start to become prevalent on computers and you may as well have the ability to use the increased speed.