The Western Digital Passport Drive got its name because it is almost the same size as a Passport.

The drive slips easily into a shirt pocket and is easy to transport along with its short six inch cord. It is powered by the USB port so no additional power supply is required.

They are available in various sizes.

A bright blue white LED beside the mini USB connection glows when the drive is powered up and flashes when receiving or retrieving data.

 

When it works, it works very well, and is ideal for moving files from one computer to another, or as I used it, great for loading up with troubleshooting programs to diagnose friend's computer problems.

When it works is the key phrase. My experience with the Western Digital Passport began on a sour note from day one. I ordered it online from a prominent retailer and on arrival the first one failed to work. A new one arrived the following day and worked like a charm for almost a year.

Then it became erratic. Sometimes it would connect to the computer, and sometimes it wouldn't. At times if you kept plugging and unplugging and fooling around, it would eventually connect so that you could read the files on it.

Obviously it was an unreliable device, not trustworthy for anything.

 

The Western Digital Passport connects to the USB port of the computer with a six inch supplied cable. The computer end is the standard size USB male plug, while the drive end is the mini type USB connection. Perhaps this is part of the problem since the mini plug end does take some abuse when moving the drive often. When my connection problems first surfaced, it did seem like the connection at the mini end was intermittent, followed by total failure.

Final Thoughts

The Western Digital Passport drive is a great addition to your equipment when it is working. As mentioned, the perfect pocket size, shiny, with no sharp edges of any kind, make it ideal for moving data from place to place. The read write times were fast during normal use.

Your milage may differ, but in my case after having had two failures, one on first receipt and the second after almost a year makes it a no go for me. Not recommended.

Warranty

To Western Digital's credit, online customer service was very acceptable. Upon checking for warranty procedure I found several choices. I could return the drive & have it repaired, which I wasn't fussy about. Second, I could have them send me a new drive if I supplied a credit card number, which would be reimbersed once I shipped the old drive back.

I elected to take the third option which was to purchase another of their drives at a reduced rate. I chose a terrabyte drive from their My Book series. The reduction here in Canada wasn't great by the time shipping and exchange was paid, but it was satisfactory.

Here's hoping I can write a favourable review on the My Book Terabyte drive in the future.