My Passport Essential SE

I have been playing with a 1 TB 2.5" USB 2.0 HDD from Western Digital, the "My Passport Essential SE", and one small (big) thing forces me to not recommend this external drive, should you be considering buying one.

Let me first tell you some of the advantages of this drive. It is small, one of the smallest available for the capacity, has 1 Terabyte of space available for
storage of all your photos, movies, music, it comes with pretty cool backup software that backs up your files whenever they are modified. All in all, with good transfer speeds, would make this a good option in terms of portable storage.

Now, with all these nice features why would Western Digital decide to design this drive with a micro USB connection, instead of the so much more common mini USB? If you lose the cable that comes with it or if you just want to use a longer or shorter one, you will need to buy a new one. Mini USB cables, on the other hand, are very common, and that makes most portable hard drive cables interchangeable. The micro USB connector is not much smaller than the mini and just makes things a little harder for the user.

Is this such a big deal? Well, it's a micro deal, actually, but you really want to keep the number of different cables you have to carry to a minimum. My choice goes with the Freecom Mobile Drive Classic II 1TB or the new Freeecom Mobile Drive XXS 1TB USB. These are both USB 2.0 and the smallest you will find on the 2.5" form factor. If you want a USB 3.0 2.5" HDD, the options are much more limited, and we will be discussing those soon.