tomwaddle :
I'm lookin on Newegg and there's a $10 difference between a 500gb passport and their element hard drive. There's an insignificant difference in size and both are usb powered. The only difference I can see from WD's website is the passport might have backup software.
Anyone else notice a big difference between the two before I buy one?
The new MyPassport portable drives from Western Digital have 2 serious flaws imho :
1. The new micro USB cable connection is way too small, it disconnects easely, even a small bump against the table and your ongoing backup is ruined.
2. The included software is fixed on the firmware and autocreates a virtual CD drive and the drive requires a driver ( you can skip the driver, but then you have an uninstalled device in your device manager, and the drive keeps asking for it everytime you connect )
You can not remove it, you can only flash new firmware to allow a tool to remove the automatic creation of the virtual CD drive. If you do that, you have to make sure you have the driver ready somewhere else ( besides on the virtual CD ) or otherwise you will keep getting asked for the driver.
Imho, WD seriously messed up a perfectly fine product ( the old MyPassport ), to the point where I can't stand to use it anymore.
I bought a Samsung S2 Portable 320GB HD, which is what the WD MyPassort should have been, it has a nice mini usb connector, that is compatible with all your old mini usb cables and which does not disconnect when you bump the table or move the drive a few inches. And you can easely remove all software by quick-formatting the drive, and it is cheaper ( at least in my regular store ).
Perhaps the Western Digital Elements is better, it seems it still has a mini usb cable and if it doesn't have the nasty firmware, it might be as good as the old WD MyPassports or the Samsung S2. I do think the elements is bigger than the mypassport, while the samsung s2 is even a bit smaller than the mypassport.
So yah, I am a samsung convert ( at least for the portable drives ), I hope next time WD does some better QA, because I can't understand how that cable passed QA testing.
Edit : Note that there are 2 versions of the WD Elements, a portable and a desktop.
Edit2 : The WD Elements portable is the same size as the old MyPassport, so a bit bigger than the new MyPassport, but still quite portable. I guess it is a nice alternative, but the samsung S2 is even smaller than the new MyPassport, and I think it is around the same price ( can't find them on newegg tho ).
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