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Western Digital 2.5-inch Passport Essential Portable Hard Drive (500GB)

07 May 2010

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			<h2 class="header-green">500GB Portable (2.5-inch) HDD Shootout</h2>
		<span class="byline">Article by Vijay Anand on Thursday, 06 May 2010</span>
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		 		<h2 class="page-title">Affordable and Handy Portable Storage</h2>
		 		<h3 class="page_title">Affordable and Handy Portable Storage</h3>
<p>As notebooks now outsell desktop computers, more folks require a handy storage sidekick to push, pull and share data easily among their many media entertainment devices and PCs at home, as well as systems at the office. We scanned the market prices for portable storage drives and the sweet spot is fast favoring the 500GB capacity point. Typical retail prices at the point of writing hover about the S$150 price point, but it can vary greatly depending on the shop and the actual model in question.</p>
<p>Take note though, when we mean external portable hard drives, we typically mean 2.5-inch drive based solutions. 3.5-inch external drive solutions are more suitable for the desktop due to their bulk and the associated connectivity and features.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img height="468" width="500" src="/files/images/all-drives-1.jpg" title="Seven portable 500GB hard drives were enrolled in our comparison. Common among them is that they are all USB powered and use a 2.5-inch 5400rpm laptop drive within. However the similarities stop at that as each has its unique selling point as you'll come to realize in the following pages." alt="" /></p>
<p>We gathered seven of the most popular retail-ready 500GB portable drives available in the market and put them to through a reduced set of benchmarks than our normal hard drive and solid state drive testing. Of course, performance isn't everything in this portable drive space as ease of usability, aesthetics, warranty and support, as well as other handy tools and utilities that make up the entire drive's package count as well. So without further ado, we list the drives involved in this shootout to give you a quick overview of each of them:-</p>
<ul>
    <li>Hitachi SimpleTough</li>
    <li>Iomega eGo Portable</li>
    <li>Samsung S2-500 Portable</li>
    <li>Seagate FreeAgent Go</li>
    <li>Toshiba Portable Drive</li>
    <li>Verbatim Executive Portable</li>
    <li>WD My Passport Essential&nbsp;<br />
    &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<table cellspacing="1" cellpadding="5" border="1" align="center" width="100%">
    <caption>500GB Portable HDDs Compared</caption>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th scope="col">Model</th>
            <th scope="col">Hitachi SimpleTough</th>
            <th scope="col">Iomega eGo Portable</th>
            <th scope="col">Samsung S2-500 Portable</th>
            <th scope="col">Seagate FreeAgent Go</th>
            <th scope="col">Toshiba Portable HDD</th>
            <th scope="col">Verbatim Executive Portable</th>
            <th scope="col">WD My Passport Essential</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">Interface Type</th>
            <td align="center">USB 2.0 <br />
            (mini-USB)</td>
            <td align="center">USB 2.0<br />
            (mini-USB)</td>
            <td align="center">USB 2.0<br />
            (mini-USB)</td>
            <td align="center">USB 2.0<br />
            (mini-USB)</td>
            <td align="center">USB 2.0<br />
            (mini-USB)</td>
            <td align="center">USB 2.0<br />
            (mini-USB)</td>
            <td align="center">USB 2.0<br />
            (micro-USB)</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">&nbsp;USB Cable supplied?</th>
            <td align="center">Built-in<br />
            (too short)</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Yes<br />
            (long)</td>
            <td align="center">Yes<br />
            (too short)</td>
            <td align="center">Yes<br />
            (long)</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Yes<br />
            (too short)</td>
            <td align="center">Yes<br />
            (long)</td>
            <td align="center">Yes<br />
            (too short)</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">&nbsp;LED Activity Indicator?</th>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Yes</td>
            <td align="center">Yes - but bad placement and too small</td>
            <td align="center">Yes - but bad placement.</td>
            <td align="center">Yes</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">Yes - but bad placement. &nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Yes - but too small.</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">Water Resistant?</th>
            <td align="center">Yes</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">&nbsp;Robust?</th>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Yes - Shockproof</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Yes - Drop Guard (up to 1.3m)</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;-</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">Security</th>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">SecretZone feature (password protected area)</td>
            <td align="center">
            <ul>
                <li>File+ Folder encryption (128-bit AES)</li>
                <li>Password protected storage.</li>
            </ul>
            </td>
            <td align="center">Password protected data encryption&nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;-</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Drive Lock <br />
            (256-bit h/w encryption + password protection)</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">Special Features</th>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">USB Turbo Speed</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">&nbsp;Software</th>
            <td align="center">Hitachi local backup&nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">
            <ul>
                <li>McAfee VirusScan Plus</li>
                <li>Iomega Quick Protect</li>
                <li>EMC Retrospect Express&nbsp;</li>
            </ul>
            </td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;Samsung auto backup</td>
            <td align="center">Seagate Manager&nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">
            <ul>
                <li>NTI BackupNow EZ (Win)</li>
                <li>NTI Shadow 4 (Mac)</li>
            </ul>
            </td>
            <td align="center">
            <ul>
                <li>Nero BackIt Up 4 Essential</li>
                <li>Verbatim Sync</li>
            </ul>
            </td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;WD SmartWare</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">Carry Pouch?</th>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">Yes</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
            <td align="center">Yes</td>
            <td align="center">-</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">Dimensions</th>
            <td align="center">149 x 104 x 32mm</td>
            <td align="center">137mm x 89mm x 16mm</td>
            <td align="center">111mm x 82mm x 17.5mm</td>
            <td align="center">130mm x 80mm x 12.5mm</td>
            <td align="center">127mm x 81mm x 16.5mm</td>
            <td align="center">135mm x 85mm x 25mm</td>
            <td align="center">110mm x 83mm x 15mm</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">&nbsp;Weight</th>
            <td align="center">267g</td>
            <td align="center">180g</td>
            <td align="center">170g</td>
            <td align="center">160g</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;170g</td>
            <td align="center">170g</td>
            <td align="center">200g</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">Warranty</th>
            <td align="center">3 years</td>
            <td align="center">3 years</td>
            <td align="center">3 years&nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">5 years&nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">3 years&nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">2 years&nbsp;</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;3 years</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row">&nbsp;Price</th>
            <td align="center">S$189</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;S$159</td>
            <td align="center">S$149</td>
            <td align="center">S$139</td>
            <td align="center">S$149</td>
            <td align="center">$165</td>
            <td align="center">&nbsp;S$145</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>
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Western Digital 2.5-inch Passport Essential Portable Hard Drive (500GB)

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