# A note about new WD Passport USB hard drives



## Replytoken (Jan 18, 2010)

For a number of years, I have used Western Digital's Passport hard drives for portable storage. They have always been a good value, and I have not had any problems to date. I purchased a 75'GB model yesterday from Costco, and did a bit of research on the drive before opening it up. It appears that WD is now using micro-USB connectors with their portable drives, and it seems that many of the connectors have a problem staying connected. Aslo, without an adapter, you cannot use older mini-USB cables on these drives.

Also, the drives contain a hidden partition that mounts as a virtual CD when the drive is connected. It is my understanding that this hidden partition cannot be deleted. There is some means of disabling the software, I belive through a firmware update, but the drive still wants to install a driver every time it is connected.

Needless to say, neither of these changes appeal to me, so the drive went back today and was replaced with a Seagate 1TB FreeAgent Go drive. The Seagate drive uses a mini-USB cable, and it is my understanding that its software can be easily deleted. You may want to keep these two changes in mind if you are considering a portable drive.


--Ken


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## MarkNicholas (Jan 18, 2010)

I am also considering another external drive purchase and like you have used WD with no problem. I do not want any software or partitions on the drive. I just want space so I will be interested in follow up comments and recommendations.


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## clee01l (Jan 18, 2010)

Unless you want sexy, any 3.5 form factor drive will be cheaper than it's 2.5" equivalent. A generic USB drive enclosure is $2'USD or less Hoe about 1TB for less than $1''USD?


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## Replytoken (Jan 18, 2010)

[quote author=clee'1l link=topic=8951.msg6'25'#msg6'25' date=1263793'88]
Unless you want sexy, any 3.5 form factor drive will be cheaper than it's 2.5" equivalent. A generic USB drive enclosure is $2'USD or less Hoe about 1TB for less than $1''USD?
[/quote]

Cletus,

Is the USB port powerful enough to operate a 3.5" drive without an adapter? I was under the impression that a 3.5" drive needs more power than the port(s) can deliver.

--Ken


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## Replytoken (Jan 18, 2010)

[quote author=MarkNicholas link=topic=8951.msg6'249#msg6'249 date=1263792'94]
I am also considering another external drive purchase and like you have used WD with no problem. I do not want any software or partitions on the drive. I just want space so I will be interested in follow up comments and recommendations.
[/quote]

Mark,

Many of the comments that I read seemd to indicate that the higher capacity Seagate USB drives can be used as such.

FWIW, the new Seagate 1TB that I picked up at Costco was manufactured in Thailand. Most of the previous Seagate USB drives that I have considered in the past were manufactured in China, so I wonder if they also have a plant in Thialand, or if they are outsourcing these units, not unlike what they did with Samsung when they introduced their 5''GB USB drives last year.

With so much outsourcing in the industry, it is often hard to know exactly what you are buying. Normally I would not care, but Seagate's firmware problem last year taxes my confidence in their QC. I know every customer, and every manufacturer, has thier horror stories, and one should try not to read too much into these incidents. But, at present, there are few choices in high-capacity USB drives in the market.

--Ken


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## Replytoken (Jan 18, 2010)

One more item of note. It appears that the WD drives are not actually SATA units. The USB port is directly integrated into the drive, so you cannot open up the unit and use the bare drive in a laptop as a replacement.

--Ken


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## clee01l (Jan 18, 2010)

[quote author=Replytoken link=topic=8951.msg6'252#msg6'252 date=1263794154]
[quote author=clee'1l link=topic=8951.msg6'25'#msg6'25' date=1263793'88]
Unless you want sexy, any 3.5 form factor drive will be cheaper than it's 2.5" equivalent. A generic USB drive enclosure is $2'USD or less Hoe about 1TB for less than $1''USD?
[/quote]Cletus,

Is the USB port powerful enough to operate a 3.5" drive without an adapter? I was under the impression that a 3.5" drive needs more power than the port(s) can deliver.

--Ken
[/quote]No, the 3.5" HDs require an external power supply. I have two 2.5" USB drives too. Both came with a dual USB "A" connector to draw additional power from the laptop. I find that this is inadequate to have a reliable write capability sometimes giving me write errors. And if I plug one of these USB drives into an unpowered USB hub, I doen't even get enough power to permit the laptop to recognise the drive. I have come to the conclusion that a 2.5" external drive is not robust enough to be considered a reliable storage location for important data. Of the two USB 2.5" drives, I have now mounted one internally in my Desktop and the other is dually plugged into a powered USB hub AND has an additional external power supply.


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## clee01l (Jan 18, 2010)

[quote author=Replytoken link=topic=8951.msg6'255#msg6'255 date=1263795426]
One more item of note. It appears that the WD drives are not actually SATA units. The USB port is directly integrated into the drive, so you cannot open up the unit and use the bare drive in a laptop as a replacement.

--Ken
[/quote]This is not good news. I have a WD Scorpio HD that is true SATA, I would assume the WD 2.5" Passports would have one of these inside. Are you certain that the drive doen not have an adapter that is small enough to plug into the SATA/power plug and merely appears to be integrated. I have seen similar non-standard plug connectors inside several laptops or UMPCs. In these, the connector converted to an ultra small plug not USB,


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## Replytoken (Jan 18, 2010)

Cletus,

My knowledge of HD constructin is somewhat limited so I will try to explain what I read from various postings. Previously, you could open up these drive cases and remove the bare drive for use inother devices that use/support a SATA connection. In these new drives, I believe they have bypassed the SATA connector, and the controller board(?) just has a a micro-USB connection on it. There no longer is a SATA connector. Therefore, you cannot connect thsi drive to another SATA connection. I am not sure if I am explaining this correctly, but that is a short summary as I can best recollect. Many of the posts that I read were from Amazon.com. I normally do not put a lot of value on many of the posts at places like Amazon, but the ones describing the drive desing sounded reasonable.

--Ken


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## clee01l (Jan 18, 2010)

[quote author=Replytoken link=topic=8951.msg6'283#msg6'283 date=1263834825]
Cletus,

My knowledge of HD constructin is somewhat limited so I will try to explain what I read from various postings. ...[/quote]The reason I stated that there might be some adaptor sleeve nested over the 2.5" SATA drive is that I once needed ro replace my laptop HD. I bought a new drive and when I removed the old one, the connector did not match. I took the new HD back to Microcenter where I bought it asking for a replacement drive that fit my laptop. The sales person removed the connector/adapter from the old drive and put it on the new one, Feeling stupid, I left the store with my original purchase. 
I'm not saying you are not correct, but I find it difficult to think that WD will design, engineer and build a Scorpio Drive in the 2.5" form factor and design, engineer and build an identical special purpose drive. for their own line of USB external drives. Unless you have hands on proof, I remain skeptical.


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## Replytoken (Jan 18, 2010)

Cletus,

I certainly understand why you are skeptical. Here is one thread that talks a bit about the new design: http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,847'84 .

--Ken


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## clee01l (Jan 18, 2010)

[quote author=Replytoken link=topic=8951.msg6'294#msg6'294 date=126384''35]
Cletus,

I certainly understand why you are skeptical. Here is one thread that talks a bit about the new design: http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,847'84 .

--Ken
[/quote]Thanks for the link. It is enough to give paiuse. In the long term though, I am probably more likely to buy a bare-bones drive and an enclosure than some mfgs sexy package with a fancy price. And as I said earlier, I have not convinced myself of the utility of external 1.8" & 2.5" drives.


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## sizzlingbadger (Jan 21, 2010)

I had a USB drive with a hidden partition a while ago and managed to remove the hidden partition using tools in Linux. Not that this would be very helpful with the new WD drives as the physical design seems to be the issue. But I thought it might be useful to anyone with a similar partitioning problem.

I purchased a good quality enclosure and installed my own disk into it. I shall do this again as it seems to be the best way forward. I use Firewire 8'' enclosures and can just replace the internal drive as they get bigger and I need the space.


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## ceroni (Feb 17, 2010)

Just be careful as some external hard drive enclosures SILENTLY corrupt data. Have a look on this post.


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