Western Digital 500GB External Hard Drive Review

The My Passport line of drives all feature a patterned upper surface with varying sized glossy dots. This very simple design to me looks great and it makes up a great deal for the single colour option that is available to the Enterprise SKU of Passport drives. Aside the colour difference, the Enterprise line of drives have one or two features changes to the regular line of My Passport drives. Most notably the automatic backup and SmartWare utilities are dropped from the feature list and instead is compatible with Windows To Go – a feature of Windows 8 that allows user to plug the drive into any system and boot up Windows to their own personalised workspace with all their documents ready ‘To Go’.

Laid alongside a VelociRaptor, its a lot easier to see how small the drive is considering there is a 2.5″ drive inside. Western Digital have kept the case to a minimum for both convenience and portability. The small build to this drive makes it highly durable and for those that are really on the go, there is also a ‘Nomad’ case that can further surround the drive to make it fully weather proof, drop proof (from up to 7 feet) and also dirt proof.

On the top end of the drive can be found a USB3.0 port and to the left of this (although not visible in this photo) is a white LED to indicate power and activity.