WD My Passport Overview
We received the white version of the My Passport, but it is also available in black, blue, red and grey. All of the other drives are available in capacities up to 2TB, but the white version is only available in a 500GB version currently. The top of the drive has a WD My Passport logo and a subtle design, which my photos do not give justice to at all.
The drive is pretty small at 3.2” x 4.4” x 0.60” (WxDxH). At this size you can easily fit it into your laptop bag or even your pocket. The drive sort of has an inner and outer casing. The inner casing is white and the outer casing is grey. WD says this new design prevents scratches and damage to the casing. There is a single connection on the drive. This provides power as well as data transfer. Since there is a single connection that means you do not have to carry a USB cable as well as a power cable with you. Next to the USB 3.0 connection is a power / activity LED. On the bottom of the drive are 4 small rubber feet.
Included Software
WD includes some useful software with the My Passport drive. When you plug the My Passport into your computer it will show up like a normal drive, but instead of being empty there is software on it. Go ahead and run the WD Apps Setup.exe file to install all of the WD apps.
The most important thing about having a portable drive is protecting your data. If you happen to lose your drive worst case someone steals it you don’t want them to have access to your data. WD security solves that problem. It creates a password for your drive that needs to be entered when you plug the drive in to access any of the data on the drive.
WD SmartWare allows you to set up backups as well as sync files. In the main screen it will give you an overview of your current drives and the My Passport drive. It also organizes your data into categories. Moving over to the backup tab you can select which types of files or folders you want to automatically backup. You can also go into file mode and select individual files. The retrieve tab allows you to retrieve backed up volumes. Finally in the settings tab you can see your file history, set preferences, and set the retrieve folder.
If you open up WD Drive Utilities you can check the SMART status of the drive, run a quick test, run a complete drive test, set a sleep timer, erase the drive and register your My Passport drive.
