WD 2TB My Passport, Portable External Hard Drive, Red, backup software with defense against ransomware, and password protection, USB 3.1/USB 3.0 compatible - WDBYVG0020BRD-WESN

You can't go wrong with Western Digital. Very small package for huge storage. Plug and Play - connected the USB cable, (included) and my computer immediately recognized it. The portable drive is larger than the drive on my laptop, so I partitioned it into 2 virtual drives. One partition for an Image/Backup and a second partition for file backup & storage. The partitioning process was flawless and now my computer recognizes two separate drives. I am super happy with the WD SSD portable drive. I would highly recommend to anyone wanting a portable drive. I'm even thinking about buying another larger drive and partitioning into more virtual drives for backup of other computers.My only complaint and major disappointment with WD, is that the free "WD Backup" software is no longer supported by WD and hasn't been for a few years. They offer a free version of Acronis, which doesn't work. Installed the Acronis software, created a bootable disk on a USB Flash (thumb) drive, then rebooted the computer from the thumb drive and created a full backup/ disk image to the new WD drive. The software seemed to run perfectly, and said the backup was successfully created. I felt really good that I had a full backup of my 2015 laptop, in case I ever need to replace the mechanical HDD. But it was a false peace of mind.Only 2 weeks after using the Acronis backup software, my computer was crashing shortly after bootup, which it had never done before. So I thought I would test the new drive and backup. After rebooting with the Acronis USB Boot drive, it asked for the location of the image file. The computer recognized the WD drive with all of the Acronis backup folders. But then the Acronis software said all of the folders were empty and there was No Image found. WTF?! Acronis said it successfully made a full disk copy. But then the software could not find its own image.DO NOT USE the ACRONIS software.I was fortunately able to fix the boot/crash problem using other software. But if my hard drive had completely failed, I would not have a usable backup copy to restore to a new drive. I would have been screwed. It would have been better if I never attempting to create a backup. At least I would known that I didn't have a backup copy to rely on, rather than falsely thinking I was protected.In addition, the "free" software isn't really free. It's only a 30 day free Trial version. So if you make a full backup within 30 days, and later have a critical problem, you will be forced to purchase the full version to perform the restore. The backup file versions are propitiatory, so you can't use another brand of software to do the restore. They've got you! You can make a free backup/copy (if you can even get the software to work properly). But then you have to pay for the software to actually use the Backup in order to Restore. This is akin Ransomware.I have since purchased other backup/imaging software and made a full (working) backup to my new WD drive. I'm very happy about that.

Has been working perfectly so far and the setup was simple

I purchased this on 08/05/2021.As an IT Professional, I owned several HDDs and SSDs, both internal and external. This was a very nice option, very elegant, portable and with 2TB of storage which was more than enough for my needs.I even purchased a UGREEN 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive Case Cover Shockproof (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072HJ4FTX/).I was about to give this product a 2-3 star review since while I was writing this (11/28/2023), I was unable to format my drive to repurpose it for some newer storage needs. I had access to the drive, I could add or delete files, but I was unable to format. It was giving me sector errors and the drive was never dropped, hit or damaged in any way. Actually it was stored in the hardcase for more than a year.Fortunately I used a tool called Mini Tool Partition (not promoting it) and after some time, it was able to format it and apparently correct the sector errors. So at this point, instead of the complaint I was writing, I decided to finish my review by saying that up until now it seems a very robust HDD in terms of functionality. Let's see if it was actually fixed or if I would need to update my review later on.

It has a good cost-benefit ratio. It works as expected and arrived quickly.

Inexpensive backup! I typically use a combination of hard drives for my photography backups. For important stuff like weddings, I only use solid state drives, but for my everyday photos like kids sports or travel, I don't mind using a mechanical drive.The thing I consider when buying one of these is the price per GB. I use a high-resolution 61 MP camera and usually keep both RAW and JPG copies. My RAW files can be 80GB per image or higher, so I fill these up fast. This is a great alternative option to buying SSDs which are currently double the price.This is my second one from WD and I'm pleased with the size and stability of the drive. It's just a bit thicker than my SSDs but still easily portable for when I'm on the road. The drive runs extremely quiet too and I don't notice a lot of heat when I'm using it. Connection is simple, just plug and play for Window or Mac.The speed isn't great. Obviously, no challenge to a SSD which is lightning fast for me, but I think the speed on this could be a bit faster. Granted, my files are big and 5TB allows for a lot of folders and files, but I feel like it drags a little bit when I open my Finder. I'm using this on a Mac Studio M2.I haven't had any issues with WD drives failing in the past, so I do trust that this will last quite a while. As I mentioned before, I wouldn't put critical files on it unless I had another backup copy somewhere. But for general use, portability, and storage amount, this works great.I never use the software that comes preloaded on the drives, so I can't speak to that. I've heard that it's no good anyway, but it's basically not an issue. I typically delete anything pre-loaded anyway.