Digital Cameras Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘Usb 2 0’

Western Digital My Passport Essential 320 GB USB 2 0 Portable Hard Drive WDME3200TN Midnight Black

These elegant portable drives are simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter — they are powered directly through the USB cable. Pack up your office files and take them home. Carry thousands of songs or pictures. Synchronize files between home and office and encrypt everything on the drive for added security. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you take your critical data with you. Plug My Passport into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer. Your data is protected with 128-bit encryption (Windows only). Perfect for the business traveler who needs to transfer large amounts of data from laptop to clients or just daily backups in case of accidents from mishandled luggage to coffee spills. Also comes in handy if your worried about laptop theft and someone else having access to your important data, you can store it on this portable encrypted drive instead. For all those precious pictures, videos, music and data files, getting this external hard drive is a must have. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you save your critical data and take it with you. Plug your drive into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer (Windows only) Search your drive, manage your photos, and simplify Web searches with included Google software (Windows only) Up to 480Mb/sec Bus Transfer Rate with USB 2.0 System Requirements – Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X (10.1.5 or later), Available USB port Approximate Unit Dimensions – 0.59 (H) x 4.96 (L) x 3.14 (W) Approximate Unit Weight – 0.23lb

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Great portable drive.
The 500gb USB drive arrived about 10days after ordering (used Amazon free shipping option). It was in fine shape despite a less than optimal packing job by the retailer. The shipping box was 4x the size of the drive’s packaging and only had minimal packing around the drive allowing it to get bounced around. Nonetheless, the drive operates perfectly. I use it as my TIme Machine backup for my Mac laptop. Works quietly (almost silent) and seamlessly. Setup for this was minimal to none, just plug in and the Mac automatically did the rest. Drive is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket if I had to. I would recommend this item.

5 Stars Excellant Product (our 2nd ones)
This purchase is my second of the same one for backup. Works wonderfully, is portable, and gives me satisfaction of my hardrive backups.

4 Stars Good But Be carfull
This is a very good and cheap storage device. I have used the Passport various models externals for years now. The have 2 problems with them. The first is that they are fragile. Don’t drop it bump it or rough handle it. The case will pop open and the jack plug on the side will get misaligned and you are in deep trouble. The drive itself is solid; it is the housing that is the problem.

Second issue is the plug. I don’t know if WD understands the true use of these drives. I take it to work sites and move it around all the time. That means constant plugging and unplugging. This takes toll on the side and small input plug hole. After few months it will get loose or lose something that the drive begins to connect and disconnect from the operating system by itself (That is it is not recognized by the operating system). This can be a major problem if you are in a middle of an open file or document and boom, the thing is no longer recognized by the operating system. After couple of weeks from that there is no way you can get it to be recognized by either windows or the MAC, your are done for. My suggestion is to backup the backup on a permanent drive and not depend on this if you are going to be moving it a lot. The one I have connect to my home desktop all the time works great.

5 Stars Perfect portable storage solution
I used to store my music and pictures on a larger external hard drive and always had issues synching itunes whenever it was not connected to my laptop. I was looking for something small enough to put in my computer bag and carry around with me without adding alot of extra weight. I also wanted to be able to connect or disconnect the hard drive without having to reboot my computer. There was no setup time and the Passport works like a charm. It also has significantly more storage space than my laptop so I will never run out of space! For the amount of storage and convenient size, the Passport is a steal at this price.

4 Stars Best Backup Insurance You Can Buy
I’m a nature photographer. I take a lot of photos, and the files are big. I carry a laptop in the field, but I’m not so naive as to think the laptop’s drive is safe for irreplaceable data like photos. I want backup. DVDs are impractical. Flash drives are too small (so far). The Western Digital 500GB is a highly acceptable solution to the challenge of managing copious data and not sacrifice portability or ruggedness. And if you are concerned about TSA seizing your laptop for whatever reason, then you’ve got your work intact.

I use the drive in two ways: I back up my Aperture digital photo library directly, and I backup the RAW files via the Finder. As others have noted, the read/write speed is only adequate. But 500GB fits in a drive only slightly larger than my iPhone. For $99 – the cost of a year of Mobile Me – you can have a pretty decent backup to carry in another bag. The drive draws power off the USB bus, so you have just the drive and the cable. As a bonus, the cable is identical to the cable I use to pull photos off my camera.

The drive has worked at 14,000 feet in Papallacta Pass, Ecuador. In the steamy, muggy Amazon jungle, at near-freezing temperatures on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, in the rough waters of the Gulf of Alaska and everywhere in between.

No, I wouldn’t want it for my desktop. But for field work, the portability easily outweighs the less than optimum read/write speed. A fine product at an outstanding price. Highly recommended.

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Kingston DataTraveler I 16 GB USB 2 0 Flash Drive DTI 16GB

Now you can store, carry and transfer files quickly in an affordable, convenient device. The DataTraveler from Kingston helps budget-conscious users break storage barriers, allowing you to easily store and move files in a device no bigger than a pocketknife.As easy as click and drag, the DataTraveler can hold just about any file you can think of – reports pictures, spreadsheets or other important documents. It works with virtually any device with a USB port – even cross-platform from Macintosh to PC and vice versa. The DataTraveler also makes a great promotional item for your organization; it’s simple to add your logo to increase brand-recognition, and it comes in multiple colors based on capacity.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Does its job – after tweaking.
Having lost my 1GB data traveler, I thought it time to step up to something more substantial – the 16GB version. At first, I was very disappointed. For some reason, it kept getting corrupted, and I’d lose recently saved files. This happened in both WinXP and Win2K, despite using proper eject sequences. I had this happen several times. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy. Fortunately I was able to recover most of the work, but losing and recovering 8 hours worth of typing is far, far worse than not losing it at all. Note that these files were nowhere near the size limits for FAT.

My solution – reformatting to NTFS. I know this creates problems for Mac users that Fat16/32 don’t have, but I don’t use a Mac (so no lost stars there). Since reformatting, my disk has been completely stable. -2 stars for losing my data and making me reformat it to work properly. And while I don’t have problems losing the cap, I would like a larger and more substantial lanyard hole.

Some performance info (using eXibition SW “Drive Speed Test”):

1MB write 0.876s

1MB read 1.173s

10MB write 7.251s

10MB read 5.079s

Overall write speed 16,934 KB/s

Overall read speed 33,862 KB/s

File copy speed (10 MB) 6.313s

Directory lookup (10000 files) 5.141s

File delete (20 MB) 0.016s

For comparison sake, my 1TB SATA drive’s overall write speed is 40,134 KB/s and overall read speed is 35,019KB/s. These tests were done on a P2.6GHz HT with 3GB dual channel ram running Win2K.

4 Stars Esso Purchase
I like these 2 items, i needed them and i think i got them at reasonable price.

I was very happy, very easy to use.

5 Stars Most satisfied
This product is very useful for me at work, homeand my church. How did we ever do without this product.

4 Stars Nice Thumbdrive
I purchased two of these thumbdrives and they work great. They are small and allow for other USB devices to be connected without causing space issues.

They disconnect easily. Overall, I am pleased. Kingston makes great product that can be counted on time and time again.

5 Stars A Good Deal
A little slow for large transfers, but the price was very good and it suits my needs. Easy to use and works well.

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Western Digital My Passport for Mac 500 GB USB 2 0 Portable External Hard Drive WDMEA5000AN Black Silver

Carry your music, video, and photos in style with Western Digital’s My Passport Essential 500Gb Portable Hard Drive. Featuring big capacity in a small elegant design.

These elegant portable drives are simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter, they are powered directly through the USB cable. Works with Windows and Macintosh. Synchronize files between home and office and encrypt (128-bit encryption, Windows only) everything on the drive for added security. Search your drive, manage your photos, and simplify Web searches with included Google software (Windows only). An optional cable is available for the few computers that limit power from the USB port. System Requirements – Available USB port Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.4.11+ In the box – My Passport Essential portable hard drive USB 2.0 cable Quick Install Guide Unit Dimensions – 0.59 H x 4.96 L x 3.13 W; Weight – 0.40 lb

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Works great!
Buying a Mac compatible is the answer. This drive worked as soon as I plugged it in. Works perfect and much smaller that I thought it would be.

4 Stars Compact, but no Firewire
This drive is nice and compact. Unfortunately my G4 does not supply enough power for the drive, so WD kindly sent me (for free) a “y” USB cable to pull power from 2 ports. Works fine for what I need it to do.

5 Stars stylish…
does what it is made for.. the only difference is the 2 colour body.. it matches with the colour of imac.

5 Stars My Passport
I love how much memory it has, how affordable it is, and how sleek and compact it is! Works like a charm.

5 Stars Mac multi-use
Booted up quickly, small in size, big in memory; I’m using, not with [Mac] Time Machine, as I don’t need that much backing up, but just to back up my files and pictures every couple of months. It’s working great!

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Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2 0 Portable External Hard Drive WDME5000TN Midnight Black

These elegant portable drives are simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter — they are powered directly through the USB cable. Pack up your office files and take them home. Carry thousands of songs or pictures. Synchronize files between home and office and encrypt everything on the drive for added security. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you take your critical data with you. Plug My Passport into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer. Your data is protected with 128-bit encryption (Windows only). Perfect for the business traveler who needs to transfer large amounts of data from laptop to clients or just daily backups in case of accidents from mishandled luggage to coffee spills. Also comes in handy if you’re worried about laptop theft and someone else having access to your important data, you can store it on this portable encrypted drive instead. For all those precious pictures, videos, music and data files, this external hard drive is a must have. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you save your critical data and take it with you. Plug your drive into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer (Windows only) Search your drive, manage your photos, and simplify Web searches with included Google software (Windows only) Up to 480Mb/sec Bus Transfer Rate with USB 2.0 System Requirements – Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X (10.1.5 or later), Available USB port Approximate Unit Dimensions – 0.59 (H) x 4.96 (L) x 3.14 (W) Approximate Unit Weight – 0.23lb

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Great portable drive.
The 500gb USB drive arrived about 10days after ordering (used Amazon free shipping option). It was in fine shape despite a less than optimal packing job by the retailer. The shipping box was 4x the size of the drive’s packaging and only had minimal packing around the drive allowing it to get bounced around. Nonetheless, the drive operates perfectly. I use it as my TIme Machine backup for my Mac laptop. Works quietly (almost silent) and seamlessly. Setup for this was minimal to none, just plug in and the Mac automatically did the rest. Drive is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket if I had to. I would recommend this item.

4 Stars Good But Be carfull
This is a very good and cheap storage device. I have used the Passport various models externals for years now. The have 2 problems with them. The first is that they are fragile. Don’t drop it bump it or rough handle it. The case will pop open and the jack plug on the side will get misaligned and you are in deep trouble. The drive itself is solid; it is the housing that is the problem.

Second issue is the plug. I don’t know if WD understands the true use of these drives. I take it to work sites and move it around all the time. That means constant plugging and unplugging. This takes toll on the side and small input plug hole. After few months it will get loose or lose something that the drive begins to connect and disconnect from the operating system by itself (That is it is not recognized by the operating system). This can be a major problem if you are in a middle of an open file or document and boom, the thing is no longer recognized by the operating system. After couple of weeks from that there is no way you can get it to be recognized by either windows or the MAC, your are done for. My suggestion is to backup the backup on a permanent drive and not depend on this if you are going to be moving it a lot. The one I have connect to my home desktop all the time works great.

5 Stars Excellant Product (our 2nd ones)
This purchase is my second of the same one for backup. Works wonderfully, is portable, and gives me satisfaction of my hardrive backups.

5 Stars Perfect portable storage solution
I used to store my music and pictures on a larger external hard drive and always had issues synching itunes whenever it was not connected to my laptop. I was looking for something small enough to put in my computer bag and carry around with me without adding alot of extra weight. I also wanted to be able to connect or disconnect the hard drive without having to reboot my computer. There was no setup time and the Passport works like a charm. It also has significantly more storage space than my laptop so I will never run out of space! For the amount of storage and convenient size, the Passport is a steal at this price.

4 Stars Best Backup Insurance You Can Buy
I’m a nature photographer. I take a lot of photos, and the files are big. I carry a laptop in the field, but I’m not so naive as to think the laptop’s drive is safe for irreplaceable data like photos. I want backup. DVDs are impractical. Flash drives are too small (so far). The Western Digital 500GB is a highly acceptable solution to the challenge of managing copious data and not sacrifice portability or ruggedness. And if you are concerned about TSA seizing your laptop for whatever reason, then you’ve got your work intact.

I use the drive in two ways: I back up my Aperture digital photo library directly, and I backup the RAW files via the Finder. As others have noted, the read/write speed is only adequate. But 500GB fits in a drive only slightly larger than my iPhone. For $99 – the cost of a year of Mobile Me – you can have a pretty decent backup to carry in another bag. The drive draws power off the USB bus, so you have just the drive and the cable. As a bonus, the cable is identical to the cable I use to pull photos off my camera.

The drive has worked at 14,000 feet in Papallacta Pass, Ecuador. In the steamy, muggy Amazon jungle, at near-freezing temperatures on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, in the rough waters of the Gulf of Alaska and everywhere in between.

No, I wouldn’t want it for my desktop. But for field work, the portability easily outweighs the less than optimum read/write speed. A fine product at an outstanding price. Highly recommended.

Buy/More Info

Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2 0 Portable External Hard Drive Silver ST905003FGA2E1 RK

Ideal for letting you carry your desktop environment and your files anytime, anywhere, FreeAgent Go allows you to take your web browser, favorites, passwords, IM client and contacts, email client, cookies, settings and files with you. Save all your private information on FreeAgent, not on the computer you’re using!

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Works Well
this unit works very well and was easy to setup. Works as promised with no surprises.

- Ernie

4 Stars Works just fine
Got this portable hard drive to solve my backup problem. Works just as expected. Can’t comment on reliability since only had it for a month or so. Don’t see any problem with silver color…that was mentioned in some other reviews.

4 Stars VERY handy for securing all of your files!
I LOVE my FreeAgent Go external hard drive! I picked mine up from my local Big Blue and Gold Electronics super store (you know, the one with the frequently crappy customer service and apathetic floor employees – at least in the case of my local store), and paid more for it when I got it there (a few months ago), than Amazon is currently selling them for.

This drive has been invaluable in backing up my system information, which I’m new to doing, but thankfully the software makes it pretty easy. The only reason that I didn’t give this item five stars is because of the fact that, from what a Seagate tech told me this morning, in order to continue to process those backups once my drive reaches its full memory capacity, I’ll have to go into it and delete old folders/backups until I’ve freed up enough space to allow it to process subsequent backups. Maybe that’s something that you regular computer backup users are accustomed to, but I’m not, and was surprised by it. I know, I know, once you hit capacity, you can’t wish it bigger – you have to actually take something away, but I just assumed that it’d overwrite files to make room for the newest ones. Honestly, it’s undoubtedly a GOOD thing that it doesn’t actually do that, but I’m still getting used to running system backups and using external hard drives to do it with – just give me some time to adjust, and I’ll catch up to the rest of you with my tech knowledge/experience soon enough! ; )

As far as aesthetics go, as others have mentioned in their reviews, this IS a very stylish and attractive drive. It looks expensive and valuable with the brushed metal exterior, and the scattered and variegated pinhole cutouts that allow the indicator light to show through really give it a very artistic look. The silver model that I have looks clean and modern, lit or not. Speaking of which, another clever feature that Seagate gave this drive is the gently pulsing light feature that indicates when the drive is being actively accessed. When it’s not, the light stays steadily lit. The effects are subtle, but cleverly and attractively done.

I’m actually considering picking up another, larger-capacity one of these, just to have a backup drive for my existing backup drive ; ) . I’ve always known Seagate to put out high-quality products, and this drive has proven to be no exception. Again, the only reason that I didn’t give the product five stars was because I question the software setup… I also am going to add here that if there was more information easily available with the product (as in, more information on the product packaging), it would’ve made it much easier to answer my questions without having to hunt for what I needed, and still ultimately need to contact a tech support agent after the hunt.

Overall, aside from the scarcity of information and the way just a few things are set up with this, it’s a great product, and I’d buy it from Seagate again, if given the opportunity to do so.

1 Star Buyer Beware !!!
Before buying this drive I compared it with other portable drives and read all the reviews on Amazon and even PC Magazine which recommends it as one of its top products. So I thought I could not go wrong but unfortunately everything with this drive has gone wrong. For starters its not 320 gigs but 298 gigs instead which is not how Amazon advertises it. Every back up I have attempted has failed! I have followed the instructions by the letter and it still does not back up any of my files. Technical support is non existent, you have to first register before being allowed to get any type of assistance and then you must go thru these customer forums and post your problem or questions and then wait for and answer from another user?? The customer service number will have you on hold forever. At this point I am trying to return this drive back to Seagate

5 Stars Love the speed, size and ease of use!
I am not a technophile, but this was a snap to set up and run on auto pilot! Love the smaller size. I have it set right behind my laptop so I don’t even see it, think about it or mess with it. The docking station is a must!

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