The My Passport Essential is appealingly slim, and the tiny pinprick of white light emanating from the side that serves as an access indicator looks quite classy. Sadly, the casing is susceptible to scratches and fingerprints.
Performance is disappointing, too: in three of our four tests, the My Passport came last. Unlike several other drives, it didn’t collapse in the small-file write test, keeping up a reasonable average transfer rate throughout all the tests, but this isn’t enough to excuse its other results.
One interesting feature of the drive is Western Digital’s SmartWare backup agent. The software runs in the background and automatically backs up user-specified files as they’re modified, storing a definable number of historical versions, which you can browse and restore at any time. It’s a great idea .
The price is good, too, with only the Iomega undercutting the 750GB model. The 1TB and 1.5TB My Passport models are competitively priced, too, at $99 and $129. Whether it’s worth it depends on your priorities: it certainly isn’t the fastest, but the price and the software support are undeniably appealing. one a miss. drive.
