Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive - Black

A month agao I was about to purchase this newer version drive here on Amazon, having already purchased the larger WD 1TB Elements some time ago... but seeing so many negative comments, I refrained!
However, some of the latest Positive comments made me think twice, and by that time, I seen this drive on sale in my local Curry's store for £49.99, and took the plunge, after opening the box to see if the USB lead was indeed loose as suggested.

The lead on the one I purchased is indeed not the newer ones that have the "Retaining Lugs" on the Micro usb end of the lead that hold the lead more firmly in place, also as suggested, so I tried plugging in and out several times in the shop to see if it was loose..... Nope! It held very well when you simply push the lead in FULLY!

I took the Drive home and plugged into my Vista PC, and immediately the "Found new Harware wizard" appeared asking if I wanted to instal the "Software"
I declined, knowing full well that I would have no need whatsoever for this software, and I then clicked on the "NO-Dont ask me again" icon, and was then presented with the open drive.

Within that drive you have several folders.... more or less pertaining to the included "Smartware Software" and one folder containing the manual - in several languages!
I read the manual and then copied that onto my PC for further use, and I then deleted everything else.

The Manual will tell you that if you dont instal the included SES Driver, then everytime you unplug and plug back in the drive, you will always be greeted with the "Found New Hardware Wizard"... I can report that I never installed that driver, and have unplugged my drive several times now and that wizard has not re-apeared!

If you want to ensure the drive has no trace whatsoever of any of the included software, then you can easily Delete the entire drive.... and here is the instructions to do that. --- You wont find these instructions in the manual, I know about computers so knew to do this.

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disc Management.
You will now see the actual hard drives in/on your system.

Right mouse Click on the very bottom section > My Passport (D;) and then select 'Delete Volume' You should then Delete that Volume, and Re-Name it to whatever you want, and assign it another Drive letter = My New Hard Drive (G;)
This will now delete all unwanted 3rd party software etc, and any boot sectors.

Should you ever wish to use that software in the future, you can follow the link within the manual to re-instate the drive back to original by downloading the software from WD direct! - But remember to copy that manual onto your PC first, before you delete from the drive of course:-)

For those that want this software, its great... For those that dont, then just follow that instructions above, and thereafter just Drag and Drop or Copy and paste whatever items you want put onto the drive.

This drive works just as good as my other drive, with the added bonus that I dont have to plug it into the electric.
It's very small, and very sleek, and very light... the USB lead is short - approx 440mm - 16", but exactly how far away do you need it to be?
I dont Bang the table its on, so cant comment on the drive dismounting when thats done... but I would expect it to if I did that anyway :-)

For those unsure of the actual Drive Capacity --- Its 465GB and NOT 500GB ---- its too nerdy to explain fully, but in general, when looking at Actual Drive Storage, you simply multiply the appropriate ratio to that which the manufacturers use =

Kilobyte - 0.9765625

Megabyte - 0.9536743

Gigabyte - 0.9313226

Terabyte - 0.9094947

Petabyte - 0.8881784

For GB's use the ratio 0.9313226 > 500GB multiplied by 0.9313226 = 465.6613 Gbytes, or 465gb ... not 500GB as advertised
For TB's use the ratio 0.9094947 > 2 TB multiplied by 0.9094947 = 1.8189894 Tbytes, or 1.819 ... not 2 TB as advertised

I have already highly recomended this drive to friends and family, so discount the negatives here, and buy with confidence :-)

Being a long time fan of Western Digital drives this was my first choice when purchasing a new portable drive.
Having received it I'm returning it for the previous 500GB model.

Pros:
- Smaller size than previous models
- USB cable uses new micro USB connector for the drive. It is not a proprietary connector.
This is the format that will be used in future for European cellphone chargers.

Cons:
- USB cable uses new micro USB connector for the drive meaning you need a second different cable if you have any older portable drives which use the mini USB connector.
- Micro USB connector feels loose and likely to disconnect when bumped.
- WD SmartWare software is built into the firmware of the drive and works by creating a virtual cd drive to mount a cd image. It can not be removed, only disabled. Note you have to disable it per machine you use it on.

The biggest gripe is about the software. Western Digital have tried add value by including it however the manner in which they have done it stops the drive from being a bog standard drive and makes it frustrating when using it over multiple computers and non-Windows computers. Previous models have included software but allowed you to format the drive you can get rid of it - not so with this model.

I was delighted with my old model WD My Passport, so when I needed another USB drive I naturally went for this one.

It is even smaller than the previous model and looks good, BUT... It uses a micro USB plug rather than the earlier mini USB and it fits very loosely with a lot of lateral movement. The slightest movement on the cable will cause the connection to be broken resulting in read/write errors and cable can also just fall out. Other micro USB cables that I've seen have small grips that give a firm connection, but this doesn't have any form of grip. I find it unbelievable that this could get through WD quality control.

The emulated CD which has the lock utility was also unexpected and it needs drivers to be installed from there for the main drive to be seen on my Vista machine. This is also a pain as you need to install the drivers on any machine to be able to use it.

If the cable problem was fixed I'd probably give it four stars. Micro USB cables are not so readily available.