Western Digital expectedly adds 500GB My Passport drives

Nice going, WD! Just days after rolling out your 500GB laptop drive (and by "rolling out," we mean "shipping), you've already found the courage to add a few half-terabyte units to your My Passport lines. Starting today, consumers can snap up the My Passport Elite or My Passport Essential in a 500GB flavor, both of which still weigh in at under 7-ounces and are available now. Prices? Try $199.99 for the 500GB Essential, $219.99 for the 500GB Elite.

[Inkreef @ Sep 15th 2008 10:18AM]

Time to go to Costco to swap that old 320GB drive with this one.

[Lars @ Sep 15th 2008 1:56PM]

Please don't abuse Costco's return policy. That's exactly the reason why anywhere else you get treated like a criminal when you try to return anything.


I'll be going to Costco to pick one up and swap it with my PS3's 250GB drive.

[dave @ Sep 16th 2008 9:35AM]

I can duct tape this to my new mini9 and get real storage! cool!

[Patriks7 @ Sep 15th 2008 10:27AM]

Damn, just a couple weeks after I bough a 320 GB one :\

[Stiv @ Sep 15th 2008 10:35AM]

That's half a tera right there, that's what that is.

[Samboini @ Sep 15th 2008 3:39PM]

As in Patrick? How the hell did they fit a come-guzzling whore in there? Impressive!

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Sep 15th 2008 10:36AM]

Off-topic question: has anybody seen external LAN hard drive with SFTP/SSH support? Most of them have only SMB and FTP.

[Dustin @ Sep 15th 2008 5:25PM]

The WD Mybook world edition has it, disabled by default, but easily enabled via backdoor mybookworld.wikidot.com .. runs busybox linux and many add-on packages available.

[ML @ Sep 15th 2008 10:44AM]

My friends and colleagues are noticing that hard drives don't last as they used to. It doesn't matter what brand.
The past 5 years 3 disks have failed on me and I've been hearing the same from numerous people.
Apparently the demand for larger external hard disks is high - does that mean that there is not time for quality control?

[Abbey @ Sep 15th 2008 11:05AM]

J&R has them cheaper than the posted prices for pre-order, and get this, in different colors.

blue
http://www.jr.com/western-digital/pe/WD_WDMEB5000TN/

red
http://www.jr.com/western-digital/pe/WD_WDMER5000TN/

black
http://www.jr.com/western-digital/pe/WD_WDME5000TN/

[Abbey @ Sep 15th 2008 11:05AM]

Also the elite is $20 cheaper.

elite gray
http://www.jr.com/western-digital/pe/WD_WDML5000TN/

elite bronze
http://www.jr.com/western-digital/pe/WD_WDMLZ5000TN/

[0megapart!cle @ Sep 15th 2008 12:06PM]

Friends don't let friends buy WD. Yes, they are usually than other name-brand hard drives, but YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!! I have worked with 4 WD drives over the years, and every drive has had problems. Corruption, bricked, intermittent weird sounds, etc. And the drives are so much louder than Seagate.

It costs a small premium, but get a different brand people. Seagate is great, but any other brand would be preferable.

[Rodney McKay @ Sep 15th 2008 12:42PM]

Never had a problem with mine!

[y3k.nik @ Sep 15th 2008 1:12PM]

Been using a 250 gb passport for an year without any problems....

[Lars @ Sep 15th 2008 1:59PM]

I've found the Passport to work quite well. Can't say the same for the My Book though.

[0megapart!cle @ Sep 15th 2008 3:18PM]

You've all had your experiences with one drive, it sounds like, and I'm happy for you that you were lucky. Remember, I've had 4 WD drives over the years, one of them quite recent, and they have all had various problems. To be fair, they were all various iterations of the MyBook line, and their notebook drives might be better. I know I wouldn't take a chance, and I would recommend to anyone I know to just spend the extra couple bucks on a different brand. The small savings is not worth the potential hassle.

[0megapart!cle @ Sep 15th 2008 3:19PM]

Besides, the Rodney I know would never trust the results of his genius to a substandard storage medium. SSD all the way, baby! :)

[Megarain @ Sep 15th 2008 4:28PM]

I would buy one of these. I've got WD drives that have outlived the machines they were build with, and only ever heard of one failing under normal use.

[Denver_80203 @ Sep 15th 2008 1:06PM]

That's a lot of data to lose. I have an 80 that was killed during airline travel. Must have taken a whack but.. nothing horrible enough to notice until I found the drive inaccessible. 4 hours in a freezer got it spinning long enough to recover but, I wouldn't trust this as a sole storage point.

[voodoo @ Sep 15th 2008 2:40PM]

You shouldn't trust ANYTHING as a 'sole storage point'.

[LT73 @ Sep 15th 2008 1:08PM]

The idea (for me at least) behind purchasing the 2.5" hard drives is that they're 'ultra-portable'. This is only true if in fact they are bus powered, otherwise you need a bulky wall-wart.

Does anyone know whether or not these are bus powered? Or for that matter, does anyone know how to determine if ANY particular hard drive can be bus powered?

(The reason I ask is I just purchased a 160GB seagate for my Nextstar3 hard drive enclosure, and it won't work via USB - Very disappointing I might add)

[Denver_80203 @ Sep 15th 2008 1:09PM]

works of USB alone

[Ashwin @ Sep 15th 2008 5:10PM]

It should be, as long as you use the included cable (and not the longer ones). The only way to be sure is to look at the power consumption of the drive inside. If it is less than 2.5W, the power provided by the USB port, than it is most likely run off bus power alone.

[Mile @ Sep 15th 2008 1:11PM]

Is the elite really worth the extra $$?

[Ashwin @ Sep 15th 2008 5:11PM]

You are really just paying for the design. If not showing fingerprints is important to you, than I would.

[xman @ Sep 15th 2008 6:25PM]

Actually you can get them a little cheaper with a discount. $149

http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/134856

[Fanfoot @ Sep 15th 2008 9:31PM]

Seriously? This is what constitutes news on Engadget today? An existing laptop drive is put into a housing? Maybe when they change the plastic or the price changes slightly at some sight we've never heard of you could update us?

[dave @ Sep 16th 2008 9:51AM]

I can duct tape this to my dell mini9 and get storage!! cool!

[Another WD Dissatisfied customer @ Oct 18th 2008 4:50AM]

Two WD500YS drives from western digital failed for me in the past _MONTH_ in different machines both with UPS (seperate for each computer obviously). Both approx 1 year old (got them at roughly the same time). Never again. I am done with WD drives... Granted, they are still under warranty and I submitted an RMA for replacement. Better to avoid the hassle in the first place however.