Wd Unveils Redesigned My Book Essential And My Book For Mac
Do not buy WD My Passport portable HD. Their drive circuit boards are prone to fail and, because of the design, very hard to fix. Usual USB HD boxes use a separate circuit board to adapt USB port to the standard SATA port on hard drive itself.
When the circuit fails, you can still save the drive by connecting to the hard drive via SATA directly. Western Digital has this brilliant idea to integrate USB driving circuit and SATA port circuit. So when you open the plastic shell of My Passport drive, you see a USB port directly on the drive.
When the circuit fails or even the USB port itself wears out (bad soldering etc.), your data is practically gone, even if the drive itself is healthy and strong. It is not a problem if WD can make their circuit and port durable in use.
But this is not the case, at least for me. I already have 3 failed WD My Passport in hands (all 1TB model), among which I could only rescue data from the one with a badly soldered USB port. Well, the Mac version is the black Windows version, same price. Only difference is that it is preformatted HFS+ rather than NTFS.
The tools are both Windows and Mac anyway. Why WD does it? I guess to be displayed in Apple Stores. Preformatted with HFS results in an easy user experience: Plug the drive and the time machine prompt will ask wether to use it as back-up drive. A simple ok is all what is needed to configure. Apple wouldn't stock NTFS-formatted drives, I guess.
Originally, the difference was in hardware too, with the Mac version sporting a Firewire port. The current lineup of MyPassport Drives are quite nice - well designed and understated - yet it leaves an impression due to it's consistence design language. I have bought at least 10 of them.
Looks like Fuseproject ruined the lineup - most Fuseporject designs are based on same cookie cutter pattern irrespective of the product (They designed the overpriced and awful jawbone activity trackers with similar pattern). Truely hope WD doesn't replace it's current lineup with this overdone eyesore. They can sell it in MoMA as some special edition for an extra premium. IRI234: Um, I believe the temperature sensors are within the HD. I never said that Samsung and Seagate HD don't overheat, I said in my experience (and I have numerous Lacie drives) it's the WD MyBook that's overheating. 4 Lacie to 1 WD is suggestive of a pattern.
Years ago, I had another external drive fail entirely, can't remember the manufacturer. Tried getting a new case (X2) and still couldn't get it to work, though I can hear the platter spinning. That's an 80GB drive, should tell you how old it is. As I said, I like my WD laptop drive, but that's especially built to be more durable. @MarioV, I think you don't get it. Speed is not the thing.
Its out of safety. When you are often on the road like I am, then chances of failure due to bumps and shocks are not uncommon. A HDD is pretty vulnarable for sudden movements.
Wd Unveils Redesigned My Book Essential And My Book For Mac Not Showing Up
Not so with a SSD. The fact that it speeds up certain processes is a added benefit. This extra safety is worth every extra penny. I am not saying they need to replace all of their HDD's for a SSD. I asked for a added option, which currently is not available from WD in the my Passport portable range. I think that is a missed chance.
As Rob, I now use a Samsung SSD with a external USB3.0 case. But its getting weared out.