Western Digital WDXMS1200TN Passport 120 GB USB 2.0 2.5-Inch Portable Hard Drive

One out of five from the first batch was DOA. But the other four worked great initially and since (as of 8/08), and I am replaced the fifth. I use four of them for off-site back up. They replace a tape backup system on a Windows 2003 server. These little external drives are WAY faster than tapes and about the same size. Faster to perform a backup and faster to perform a restore. The bad news: An external hard drives cost twice as much as a tape. But unlike a tape, the hard drives do not require a special internal drive, just a USB 2.0 port. The case seems sturdy. They even look nice. I bring one home every night, so they travel a lot. No problems after several months, except the one initial brick (the only reason for four stars, not five). BTW The Vice Versa program encrypts all the files as it backs them up, so that I am traveling with and storing off site only encrypted files. Vice Versa works very well, but must be purchased separately.I connected the fifth external drive to a MacBook to back that Mac up with the Time Machine program in Leopard OS X. No problem at all.************8/08 update. The four I use to back up the office server all work flawlessly, even though every day one of them goes home with me and back to the office two days later. (I also use three slim Acomdata external hard drives from Frye's and they work equally well. All since 11/07.) My niece uses her Passport hard drive to back up her Mac Air with Time Machine; she does not baby it and it works perfectly. She has reformatted that Passport several times using Time Machine as she moved from one Mac laptop to another. My wife uses a Passport external hard drive to bring home .dv video files to review, carrying the drive in her backpack; various video editors transfer files to and from the drive. She uses Final Cut Pro on an iMac at home. The editors might use Avid (Windows) or Final Cut Pro (Mac) machines to transfer the files to and from the Passport. No problems with the drive after a couple of months.I am very confident in Passport external hard drives and love the small size and light weight. If they work out of the box, they seem to be very hardy and reasonably fast with Windows and Mac computers. I have never tried any software that comes with the drive. I reformat them before I use them so that I can use every byte for storage. I use the FAT file format if I need to swap files between Windows and Mac computers. The iMac offers the option of formatting the drive this way. (I am pretty sure that Windows also offers the option, since FAT is a legacy Windows format, but I have done my FAT formatting on the iMac.)

I bought this device to store less important data to free up space on the hard drive of my laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8100.It was easy to connect to the USB port, but from that point forward, I was less than satisfied. To start with, there was no instruction manual with this drive and the information in the "Quick Install Guide" that was offered on the software was so minimal and self-evident that it was pointless.I clicked the WD Sync icon and followed the steps that led to the synchronization and encryption phase of the set up. That was at 3:18 in the afternoon. This part of the process, uninterrupted, finished sometime after 9:00 the next morning. In other words, it took 18 hours to synchronize and encrypt 37 GB of data. I realize this has something to do with the age of my computer, but that is still a very long time. So be prepared for long waits if your computer is not relatively new.To test this product, I sent several files from a folder in My Music to the Recycle Bin and attempted to replace them with files from the WD drive. Again, I'm doing this without an instruction manual. Upon opening the WD window, I found icons to (1) synchronize again (no, thank you) or (2) "Copy to PC." Oddly, the default setting for copying files to my PC was to check every folder on my computer, so in order to send the files of songs back to their original folder, I had to uncheck every other folder or file on my computer, which took well over half an hour given the slow speed of the WD drive in responding to my commands to uncheck.When I had succeeded in transferring the files, I discovered they weren't in the original folder under My Music and they weren't the files I had highlighted, but rather all the files in the folder. I eventually found them in a special WD folder automatically created under My Documents.So the storage and transfer of documents did work, but it is a very time-consuming and somewhat illogical way of storing and retrieving documents. A manual might have helped me avoid any mistakes I may have made along the way or provided a better method of doing this. When I have a vacation, I may experiment with the process again. In the meantime, I have some comfort in knowing my data is backed-up on an external hard drive even though it is buried in a labyrinth of software that makes retrieving it a discouraging chore. Good luck.Edit: I have spent more time trying to get this drive to function, but it is incomprehensible. Trying to get files from the drive to my computer is such a time-consuming mess I can't begin to explain the problem. This is the worst computer-related product I've ever purchased. On the other hand, if you have papers on your desk and an open window, it does a very good job of keeping them from blowing away. For $83.

This is nice and small, compact, and easily portable. You can stash it /hide it somewhere safe after backing up your PC to it. Fits well in the palm of your hand. The software that comes with it not only backs up the files+folders on your PC, but your Internet Explorer Favorites List, Your Outlook Contacts, Outlook Address Book, Outlook Emails, and other types of data also! The software interface is intuitive and very easy to use.. The backup happens with ease and quickly. Saves you having to remember all the items to backup and is like a larger version of a jump drive /flash card. Would have given it 5 stars... but.. The USB cable that comes with it is short and though easier to use with laptops - that worked for me since my laptop sits in a docking station - not so easy to use with desktops, so you may need to also purchase a longer USB cable. Also it would have been nice if the manufacturer provided a safety case for this gadget. Since it contains a life time's data thats so precious, it would be good to safeguard it in a case of some sort. The manfacturer could have charged a couple bucks more and provided a case.