WD Passport 120GB USB 2.0 2.5″ External Hard Drive WDXMS1200TN

Pros: The drive has performed flawlessly. It is small, light, fast and very quiet. I would not know it is on except the blue LED is lit.

Cons: Only two minor gripes. (1) The plastic case is a little flimsy but it does make the drive lighter. (2) It uses a USB cable with a small connector (like those used on digital cameras) rather than the larger square-shaped connector used on other drives. It is only a minor inconvenience because I cannot use the same cable when I swap drives.

Pros: Nice little, light weight and solid, 120gb drive run solely off of a usb cable very very nice… i ordered this on Monday…Christmas Day and its now the afternoon of Wednesday and i have it already. Thanks UPS!!!

Cons: It doesn’t run off of the front usb ports on my computer i assume that there just isn’t enough bus power and i would have been nice if it came with a case for free instead of WD sending a paper with it trying to sell you a case for $20.

Overall Review: It comes formated as a Fat32 disk. and that format only lets you save file sizes up to 4GB. To save any files that are bigger you need to FDISK it in to NTFS.

Pros: When you first plug it in ur USB port, this baby boots up like its nothing else. Its so quiet when it runs, you barely know that its running other than the blue light on the power connector. It holds a lot of data, and the transfer rate is really nice. I can usually transfer a couple gigs of movies in 5 minutes back and forth.

Cons: A few things: You have to eject this thing from windows, so that the platters stop spinning. If you just pull it offline, your likely to damage your platters and shorten the life of the hard drive motor.

Another thing is that the hard drive needs 5watts or more to run, so it depends on your USB port. You may need to use the rear port thats actually on the motherboard. With laptops, you’re gonna have to unplug all your USB devices to get it to run.

Finally, lately my hard drive clicks every few minutes, as if the reader head is having second thoughts as its reading. Its as if the hard drive is going bad, but its running fine. I could just be paranoid.

Overall Review: Western Digital has always been a reliable source for hard drives. I own 5 hard drives of various sizes and not one has failed on me. The one time I bought Seagate, it failed in the first few months. If you get this you wont regret it. I bought a Targus pouch for blackberry’s and handheld computers, and it fits the hard drive just fine. I can even stuff a USB/PS2 adapter and the USB cable along with it. I take this to school since Im a student, but watch out if you like to bang your backpack around, since you can damage the hard drive. I always take precautions when carrying hardware around with me.

Pros: High capacity (~110 GB reported in Windows), very small and portable, works OK on my laptop USB port power.
I bought it after Christmas on sale, and the price was great for ~120GB drive.
Seems to be the largest capacity that doesn’t have reliability issues (larger WD perpendicular recording drives seem to be more trouble prone?? not to mention more expensive)

Cons: No carrying case included with the drive, even though the black external plastic case is nice looking.
In my opinion, this drive vibrates more than it should. Not a major problem, as it is an external drive, and there are little rubber feet on the outside of the case. It doesn’t make noise while vibrating, which is a saving grace.

I was in the disk drive industry for 8 years, and I think this drive vibrates more than would be acceptable installed in a laptop. It vibrates much more than my laptop’s 60GB Hit*chi, and the Hit*chi runs at a fast 7200 RPM, not 5400. Maybe WD sells drives that vibrate too much as external drives? Well the price was great(low)anyway.

I’m still glad I bought it.

Overall Review: I recommend re-formatting it to NTFS if you use Windows 2000 or XP. Instructions are included with the WD drive. The only reason it’s shipped formatted with FAT32 is because it’s the “lowest common denominator” with all the possible old computers (and non Windows Operating Systems) that may still be operating out there.

I was going to “make” my own external 2.5″ drive by buying a case and a 2.5″ laptop HDD, but the sale price on the WD made it even cheaper than building my own.

Pros: Quiet, attractive and small form factor storage that gets its power from the USB port, so no need for clunky AC adapters wrapped with tangled electrical cords. Nice blue LED ring signals activity, glossy black finish is modern and attractive.

Cons: The aforementioned glossy black finish is scratch prone. I don’t transport mine anywhere and it has several very noticeable scratches already. The included USB cable is extremely short, < 1 ft. Price per GB is very high, about twice that of the WD 1TB 3.5″ SATA drive.

Overall Review: To all the people giving this a 1 because it arrived DOA or died shortly after–

A certain percentage of ANY manufacturer’s hard drives are going to arrive dead or die shortly after, ESPECIALLY if they are being delivered through the mail by UPS. That means they are being thrown, dropped, kicked, etc. before it finally makes it your front door. Such is the nature of shipping delicate electronics in the mail. There is a reason that Michael Dell reduced the number of people that touched the hard disk before it went into a new computer — hard drives are complex and (relatively) fragile pieces of machinery. Western Digital is one of the only American hard drive manufacturers and they make reliable, fast and quiet hard drives that are very price competitive.

Pros: So small, super lightweight, wicked EASY to use, software upgrades, came in 2 days…I love it so much I’m buying another and one for a gift and it’s CHEAPER this week!!

Cons: I hate preloaded “user friendly” SW, but this one does not try to overtake your computer.

Overall Review: Gotta have one!!

Pros: Fast, silent, compact package.

Cons: Will not work on a lot of laptops! This drive draws just over 1000ma on spinup (from WD’s site), and a lot of laptops are limited to 500ma. It simply won’t work. Be aware!

Overall Review: Deceitful of WD not to put a warning about this on the packaging, considering how widespread the 500ma limit is on laptops.

They sell a seperate dual-head usb cable, but I wont support this misleading product.

Pros: Amazing little drive. With plug-and-play and only a USB 2.0 powered connection, this thing is really convenient to run around with. And of course I have to mention that Newegg’s shipping rocked as usual. Woohoo!

Cons: I use this drive as my music backup, so it doesn’t really matter that the transfer rates are less than amazing. Usually takes a good couple minutes to transfer an artist file.

Overall Review: A couple people mentioned cable length, it’s cable is the perfect length to plug into a PCI slot and then sit atop the back side of the case. Plenty of room in any case, no more than needed for an external drive.