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|  | |  | | | Western Digital My Passport Studio 640 GB FireWire 800/400 USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Silver) | | | | | | | |
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| $169.99 | |
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| $154.99 | |
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CT2KIT25672AA667 | | In Stock | | Availability:
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| | Features | Automatic, continuous backupFormated in HFS + for the MacSmart Display - Create your own personalized drive label to remind you what's stored on each drivePassword protection and 256-bit encryptionFireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 interface
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| | Description | WD's ultra-portable, My Passport Studio drive is packed with innovative features including a customizable e-label to remind you what's stored on the drive. Formatted for Mac and compatible with Apple Time Machine, this drive is plug-and-play ready for Mac computer users. WD SmartWare enables automatic, continuous backup with visual display. FireWire 800 provides fast data access and saves. | |
| | Product Details | | Product Length: | 4.3 inches | | Product Width: | 3.2 inches | | Product Height: | 0.6 inches | | Product Weight: | 0.39 pounds | | Package Length: | 6.7 inches | | Package Width: | 6.5 inches | | Package Height: | 1.7 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.95 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 46 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 46 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 40 found the following review helpful:
FireWire Speed, Mac Ready, Minimal PC Hassle Mar 28, 2010
By MJS
"Constant Reader"
If you're a Mac user or, like me, use both Macs and PCs then you know that portable hard drives still come in two flavors - those that are Mac ready and those that are PC ready. If you want a PC ready drive with Firewire capability you're still out of luck but this Western Digital offering is much closer to plug and play that previous offerings.
I have two of these drives. The first I use at work with a Mac and the setup was as easy as advertised. Just plug it in and it works. The second I use at home with a PC and that's a little tricky. I wanted the FireWire option (if the coolest PCs only have so many USB ports) so I was willing to put up with some hassle for the functionality. Here's what you need to do on a Windows 7 PC:
Plug in the drive
Click on the start button
Go to Computer and right click
Select Manage (you'll need admin rights)
On the Computer Management screen select Disk Management (under Storage)
My Studio will be listed as not initialized. It won't have a drive letter.
Right click on the My Studio disk and select Initialize
Then Right click again and select format. Make sure to format for NTFS.
Since you're only partitioning and not really formatting the drive this will only take a minute or two to complete. Then you're ready to go. That's a big improvement over other drives such as the otherwise fine Iomega FireWire drive that requires a full formatting.
The digital read out on the front of the drive lets you label it and see how much space you have left. This is a great feature if you use multiple hard drives like I do. The only downside it that this feature seems to be the reason this My Studio drive is almost twice as thick as WD's My Passport drive with the same GB size. Both are highly portable but I'm not sure this feature is worth the additional bulk.
The only bad thing about this drive - and it's the reason this is a 4 star instead of a 5 - is the horrendous ironically named "WD SmartWare" backup software. The virtual CD can be unmounted now but it is still an unnecessary intrusion. The software itself eats up more RAM than anything else running on my PC. More than Explorer. More than Microsoft Office Suite. All that for limited backup functionality - you can only access backed up files through a full restore. You need to install "SmartWare" to turn off the virtual CD, label the drive and register it even if you don't want to use the drive for back up. Then it just sits on your computer eating up memory and CPU speed. The only fix is to go to Windows Control Panel and uninstall the software. This is Western Digital's Achilles Heel and they need to get it fixed.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Fast, solid, unecessary frills May 10, 2010
By Andrew Rhoades
I received the 500 GB version of this drive from WD after a month-long exchange over problems with the WD3200MT I initially bought (older generation drive, Passport III; see my review there), which froze during heavy writes over Firewire 800. I tested this drive thoroughly after I received it to make sure it didn't have the same problem, and it does not. The performance I measured was 36-55 MiB/sec sustained write (inner to outer tracks), 37-68 MiB/sec read. Compare to USB 2.0 that does not exceed 30 MiB/sec. Note that I did observe that after an hour of writing the data rate would drop to half, which I believe is a thermal-protection feature; it would remain slow for 30-60 minutes (presumably until it cooled down). I propped up the drive to improve cooling a little and modified my test to "rest" the drive periodically, and after that was able to write at high speeds until the disk was full. Inserting the "rests" added 25 minutes to the 2.5 hours it takes to fill the disk, so equates to an acceptably modest reduction in overall throughput (~17%) when you need to write for long periods of time. I tested a 30-second rest after each 10 GB of writing.
I'm happy with the drive's performance (the most important thing on a Firewire drive in my opinion -- otherwise save your money!), but don't find the extras compelling. The Smartware software is okay but I can't find a way to turn off the backup feature, meaning it periodically scans my main disk even if backup is not enabled (slowing it down), and it only supports the WD Passport drive, ignoring the other two WD drives I have connected to this machine at the moment (two previous-generation My Book drives, one Studio, one Home). Those use separate drivers, which is inconsistent and puzzling. Fortunately you can just uninstall Smartware, though the gauge on the LCD can't update after that. I'm uncertain of the usefulness of the "virtual CD" feature, but it isn't intrusive so I haven't felt an urge to disable it. I haven't yet tried the security features.
Aesthetically I think the drive looks better in person than in photos, though I still like the previous generation's looks better. It came with white (to match the newer case), high-quality, short cables, which are exactly what I wanted. (Note that mine came from the RMA department so I don't know exactly what comes with the retail package. I only got cables, no carrying case like I got with the retail version of the drive I originally bought, though they let me keep all of the stuff that came with other drive I bought.) With the previous generation black cables (to match the older case), the FW800 connectors were all plastic, the USB was mini, and the FW400-to-FW800 (M-M) was a separate cable. With the new generation, the FW800 cables have metal connectors, there is an adapter for FW400 (female FW800 to FW400, must use with the FW800 cable), and the USB is micro-B (I think).
13 of 14 found the following review helpful:
 Feature Rich, with a good warranty and only minor minor cons Mar 22, 2010
By M. Leingang
You will have to decide if the premium pricing of this 500GB model is worth it. The premium price gets additional features and a longer warranty. I believe the premium price is worth the extra warranty alone. I have had other portable hard drives fail.
As the details state on Amazon the drive does come formatted as HFS+ for the Mac user. If you are a windows user you will need to activate the drive and format it after you have plugged it into the USB port.
The design is nice and sleek with silver on the top and bottom and white around the side. It comes with a Firewire 800 cable,firewire 800 to 400 connector and the Usb mini-b connector. The cables are fairly short but are usable.
I did my testing on a Windows Vista Computer. When you first plug in the hard drive a virtual CD drive is created that points to a small partition on the hard drive, which contains the WD SmartWare software. Yes some people will not like the fact that a small partition is being used to run the Virtual CD. This does not bother me so I have not docked any stars for this
If you are using windows computer the drive will not be recognized until it is activated and formated. With the WD SmartWare software your able to change the e-label on the hard drive, setup the backup schedule, update your software, run diagnostics, and set the password for the hardware based encryption. The hardware based encryption is biggest selling point to me. It uses 256 bit encryption, which is not competely unbreakable but would be very difficult to perform a brute force attack against. So if you lose your hard dirve you can feel safe about the data that is on it is well protected. I do recommend when setting the password that you use mix-case, numbers, and specials characters. Make sure you do not forget the password because you will lose your data on the drive.
Performance of the drive is what one would expect when using the USB cable. Nothing stellar but more than useable. It took around two hours to perform my first backup of about 80GB of data. Thw WD SmareWare software scans your computer and seperates the different file types into groups (Music, Pictures, Videos, etc) It displays the total space each file type is using on your computer drive. As you backup your data a progress indicator is displayed. You can also setup the back for versioning of files. The default is set for 5 versions. In addition, the space available on the hard drive is displayed on the e-label. The e-label on the hard drive is definitely a big selling point. You get to provide your own label. It only allowed me to enter 4 characters not sure if it designed this way but it displayed videos 09 when taking it out of the box. It also displays how much space is left and whether you have the locked the hard drive with the hardware encryption.
The hard drive has a 3 year warranty, which is not as good as some Seagates that have a 5 year warranty but is better than many of the cheaper 500gb hard drives that have only 1 year warranty.
At this time I cannot comment on the reliability because I have not owned it long enough but I can comment on a past experience.
My first experience with a portable western digital hard drive was the 120GB passport model. I still have it but hardly use it anymore. I also had to RMA it after about 3 months light use because the drive failed. I do not trust my data on the 120GB and had switched to Seagate.
Pros
Sleek Design
E-Label Indicator
Hardware Encryption
File Versioning in the backup
3 Year Warranty
Cons
Premium Price (You get what you pay for though)
Cables a little on the short side.
I gave it 5 stars because I believe WD has really nailed it with this drive. As long as the drive is reliable they have definitely have hit a home run here. I will update my review in the future if the reliablilty changes
Update 5/16/2010 - Just a quick update. It is continuing to perform without any issues. Granted it does not leave the desk. I use my Seagate 250GB when traveling
I would definitely recommend this drive to my friends and family.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 A Pain To Use Jul 30, 2011
By SJMPLUS1
Had lots of problems with this product that I bought to work with my new Mac Laptop. And afterwards checked Apple.com and saw it had all negative reviews, and then store employees also told me that it wasn't the best. There is no instruction booklet in case you're the type that wants it. It installs its own software which can be confusing because you don't really know what it is doing and if you're using Time Machine, it basically ends up creating duplicate copies on the hard drive so it will be eating up your space even quicker. It will make a Smartware copy and a Time Machine copy. The Apple folks kept telling me to try to get rid of the Smartware because it will interfere with Time machine. Dealing with WD customer service was very confusing and difficult. Eventually Apple was able to teach me how to uninstall the Smartware but still having problems with Time Machine not recognizing the Passport itself. Also if you're not a techie, you may be confused when you see 2 cables both labeled Firewire. The one that was sent with the unit was poor quality and kept falling out of the laptop if I touched the laptop so it made it impossible for me to use the computer while it was backing up. So just do a little research before buying products.
12 of 14 found the following review helpful:
 Not as fast, even less compatable, and not reliable at all Aug 28, 2010
By F. Chang
"Sandra"
This is my second WD My Passport Studio, I owned another one for about 3 months before finding a bad region around 200GB where data could not be written. I had to return and exchange for another one (because it was the only FW external hard drive in stock).
The drive comes as HFS+J (Mac Extended format with Journaling) formatted as one partition encompassing about 499GB (99.8%) of the drive with the last 1GB used for a built-in "Virtual CD" partition that contains the drivers, Mac and Windows programs, instructions, etc.
You need to manually print the instructions (including the installation instructions) from the "Virtual CD" as the drive does not come with any hard copy of any instruction manual... so basically you need to figure out how to connect and mount the drive on your own or elsewhere before you can actually get to the instructions.
The HFS+J partition only works with Macs, if you want to use it with Macs and PC/Linux then you need to run Disk Utility on a Mac and reformat the partition to HFS+ (Mac Extended without Journaling) and set the permissions to "Everyone: Read & Write". I wasn't able to find a way to simply disable Journaling, so I had to reformat the partition. Linux will mount an HFS+J partition but only as read-only.
If you want to use it on PC/Windows, you need to still get it to a Mac and reformat it with the WD Smartware program (not Disk Utility) that comes with the drive (found on the drive's Virtual CD partition) and recreate the main partition as NTFS. This partition will not work well on Macs, there will be nodes above 200GB that will be unwritable in some cases on Macs so only do this if you want to use it on PC/Windows only.
I was not able to find a way to make it work on Macs and PC/Windows. There were no problems with Mac and PC/Linux using HFS+. If you plan to only use it with Macs only then leave it as HFS+J. I also want to add that I feel this incomparability-problem is solely the fault of Apple and Microsoft and not Western Digital.
The cables that come with the drive have incorrect labelling, if you try to roughly connect them you will damage the ports, below is the list of corrections to make:
Drive Ports:
FW800: Inverted
USB-B: Inverted
(Basically, the top side of the ports are facing you when you hold the drive upside down and the drive's undercarriage is facing you)
Cable:
FW800 to FW800: "Bilingual" label side is up, "WD" label side is down.
FW800 to FW400: "Bilingual" label side is down on the FW800 end, FW400 end is correct.
USB-A to USB-B: Inverted on both sides (USB-B label is on wrong side)
I made my own labels on paper and taped them over the cables to cover the incorrect ones.
In terms of speed, I did 2 days worth of read/write test on FW. After much patience, I got an average read-write speed of 285.71Mbps. This was disappointing because FW is rated at 800Mbps, even taking into account overhead this was too slow.
See all 46 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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