When trying to design your perfect entertainment system, and avoiding all those fees, you’ll probably need a USB drive. Check out this other post to see what else you need. There are loads of portable hard drives on the market, but the Western Digital Passport Portable Hard Drive stands out. I’ve had several of their drives and they’ve improved a lot over the years. I’ll tell you why.
This is an in-depth review of the 2TB WD elements portable USB 3.0 hard drive’s features, where to find it, and what other customers are saying about it.
Feature List – pretty standard if you ask me
- Auto backup with included WD Backup software
- Password protection with hardware encryption
- Easy and ready to use out of the box
- Bold, vibrant design in wide range of beautiful colors
- Trusted drive built with WD reliability
- Up to 4TB capacity, although I just looked at the 2TB because of cost
- USB 3.0; USB 2.0 compatible
For cord cutters setting up their subscription free tv options at home, this is an extremely popular external hard drive has 1000’s of reviews on Amazon backing it up. This would be one of the extra accessories you would want to buy for the tablo dvr or the channel master dvr + to have extra capacity to store your recorded shows.
What I like about the WD Passport hard drives is that they just work. I can rely on them day in and day out. There are a lot of small hard drives out there and I’ve had good success with the WD line.
One thing I would mention is that you may want to consider a solid state drive (SSD). The SSDs are faster and silent. However, they are more expensive, almost twice the price.
Here is some info from WD:
Back Up AutomaticallyEquipped with WD Backup software so you can automatically back up photos, videos, music and documents. Set it to your schedule. Just pick the time and frequency. |
Password ProtectionBuilt-in 256-bit AES hardware encryption with WD Security software helps keep your content private and safe. Easily add a “return-if-found” message as the password prompt in case your My Passport ever gets lost. |
Easy to UseMy Passport portable storage is ready to use out of the box so you can start transferring files, saving your memories and backing up. It comes with all the software you need to help protect all your data, including WD Backup and WD Security software. |
Reimagined DesignThe sleek, vibrant design of the My Passport drive comes in a wide range of bold, beautiful colors so you can pick the one that matches your own unique, personal style |
Massive CapacityWith up to 4TB, you can take the massive amounts of photos, music and videos you love wherever you go, and have plenty of room for other important documents, too. |
WD Quality Inside and OutWD builds drives to demanding requirements for durability, shock tolerance and long-term reliability. And we stand behind the trusted My Passport drive with a 3-year limited warranty. |
Click Here to see the best price on amazon
Western Digital Elements External HDCustomer Reviews
Most customers on Amazon echo that it works smoothly with Xbox one, praised its super-fast speed, its light weight, sleek design and ease of usage. All you need is the Micro USB cable to plug it into the host and it will be recognized immediately. The exterior is also hard enough to make sure you do not lose your data even when you drop the drive.
Mac users noted, you have to reformat it from NTFS TO HFS+ to make it compatible with Mac.
Someone else mentioned it does come with backup that you can use to schedule backups on your pc, but it is only available on trial basis for thirty days. There is no inbuilt security software, so it would not be advisable to store sensitive data on it.
However, you can schedule backups through Windows or another software and just set the destination to the external hard drive.
Accessories
A hard casing to protect the hard drive is available on Amazon. Click here to see one of the more popular ones. I haven’t needed these, but if you are hard on your drive then it may be useful.
Price
For the low cost, high capacity, simple, sleek design and its ease of use, this hard drive is definitely worth buying. In addition to use on PCs, it is an excellent backup option for gamers, perfectly compatible with Xbox one and Nintendo. For Nintendo, it needs higher power, and you can get an adapter cable to connect both USB ports present at the front part of the device so it can get enough power FYI.
Amazon has the best deals on the 2TB WD passport portable hard drive. You can get it for as low as 70 dollars. It comes with a one year warranty, and fast and free shipping is also a guarantee. You will enjoy great speed for less money, a lot of space, and get the best value for it. At the end of the day, this product stays true to the WD slogan-Dream big. Carry Small.
In summary
I wholeheartedly recommend this Western Digital Passport USB drive. It works. And it works for a long time. You can rely on it to hold all your shows so you can enjoy them over and over again.