There has generally been little difference from one external hard drive to the next (especially in the highly portable 2.5-inch models). Maybe one was a bit smaller than another, or it had Firewire in addition to USB 2.0, but there has often been little to differentiate them aside from capacity and price (generally a function of capacity). In the recent past we’ve seen more drive enclosures offering color options and docks of negligible usefulness, but that’s about all the drive manufacturers offered up to consumers.

Here’s a little secret though–hard drive manufacturers hate just selling hard drives. If a drive is just a dumb box for your pictures and videos (and honestly, not many casual consumers care about the specifications) then who cares if their drive is a Western Digital or Seagate? No one wants their product to be a commidity, so what we see are companies striving for innovation. Doing that with an external hard drive is tough though because it’s such a barebones product.

• The new My Passport Studio, which is not to be confused with the old version of the same name, probably is the most full-featured portable external hard drive that Western Digital has ever created.
• The new My Passport Studio, which is not to be confused with the old version of the same name, probably is the most full-featured portable external hard drive that Western Digital has ever created.
• Buy WD My Passport Studio 640GB 2.5' USB 2.0 / Firewire800 Ultra-portable External Hard Drive for Mac Model WDBAAE6400ASL-NESN with fast shipping and top-rated customer service.Once you know, you Newegg! Get special mobile exclusive deals only from Newegg Mobile. It will help you to search, shop, read reviews and make purchases from Newegg, the.
• Getting Started with a My Passport Studio How to format a WD hard drive to exFAT or FAT32 file system. Answer ID 291. This answer explains how to setup and use WD Security and WD Drive Utilities on a Windows or Mac computer. How to install WD Security & WD Drive Utilities.

Getting Started with a My Passport Studio How to format a WD hard drive to exFAT or FAT32 file system. Answer ID 291. This answer explains how to setup and use WD Security and WD Drive Utilities on a Windows or Mac computer. How to install WD Security & WD Drive Utilities.

WD has found their answer in one of today’s hottest technologies: e-ink e-Label. The storage company has integrated an e-ink display into their 2.5-inch external hard drive, the My Passport Studio, as they did previously with the My Book Elite. The Studio series is WD’s higher-end external storage variant aimed at well-heeled Mac users who are willing to pay a premium for a Firewire 400/800 connection (in addition to USB 2.0) so e-ink is a perfect fit. It not only matches the design aesthetic of the Studio series, but it adds a bit of functionality and helps justify the price premium.

And there is a price premium. The 640GB My Passport Studio with e-ink sells for $199 from straight from WD. That’s $50 more than the standard 640GB My Passport Essential and the same prices as the 1TB My Passport Essential SE. The good news is that the street price is much less. You can find the Studio for around $160 if you do some searching online.

The e-ink display is two lines, and measures about 1.75×0.5-inches. It can display a label (12 alphanumeric characters), a fill gauge, the amount of gigabytes free storage, and if the drive is encrypted or not. It’s simple, but it gets the job done; you won’t ever have to slap a sticker on your drive or plug it in to determine how much space you have left. The coloring can be in standard or reversed mode (pictured) so that you can either have the text appear black-on-grey or grey-on-black. And, best of all, because e-ink only uses power when in changes states, the label is always there telling you want you want to know.

My Passport For Mac 1tb

Along with the e-ink label the My Passport Studio has a new feature, though this one is shared with all of WD’s new external products. The software is called SmartWare, and it’s actually quite good. I have an extensive video covering it as well as setting up the drive, so check out below for a ton of details:

>

In case you don’t want to check out the video, SmartWare will allow you to configure your drive, customize your e-ink label, setup a backup, encrypt/password protect the drive, and do much more. It has diagnostics tools and file backup with versioning. It’s basically a one-stop-shop for working with your WD drive. And, unlike most drive managers in the past, it’s worth checking out.

The My Passport Studio is limited by USB 2.0 (unlikes some new USB 3.0 products) but it still manages good transfer rates. In the test above you can see the read/write speeds achieved by the drive, tested with a HP EliteBook 8540p. These are above-average speeds for a USB 2.0 product, so unless you are getting a new USB 3.0-enabled computer soon, there is nothing to worry about.

While the My Passport Studio includes a premium, it’s undeniably a cool product. For some people the e-ink label will just be a gimmick, for others it will be a very useful tool for cataloging their storage. So while the e-ink and Firewire mean this USB hard drive isn’t for everyone (it is aimed at Apple users after all), the new SmartWare software makes WD’s USB product range more attractive than ever.

Update: For the sake of clarification I wanted to mention that WD technically uses E-Label, not E-Ink. E-Ink is a trademarked term for a certain type of electronic paper technology, and while this is generally the term used for any display like this, it isn’t technically the correct usage here.

If used as a shorter version of the term “electronic ink” then “e-ink” could be seen as being correct, but the fact remains that WD’s built-in displays are not provided by the E-Ink Corporation.

Western Digital My Passport Studio

Today's Best Tech Deals

Picked by Macworld's Editors

Top Deals On Great Products

Picked by Techconnect's Editors

• Western Digital My Passport Studio for Mac 640GB

Some developers refresh their product lines infrequently, only changing their formula when they’re able to dramatically improve performance or offer new features. In contrast, others release new editions of their line seemingly every year, continually evolving their line as a car company would. Western Digital falls into this latter category, but that doesn’t mean their latest My Passport Studio portable hard drive isn’t a huge leap forward for the portable line. Thanks to an innovative new display and some solid connection speeds, the My Passport Studio is a solid successor to Western Digital’s tradition.

The latest My Passport Studio offers a dual interface design with FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connectivity. The drive also comes Time Machine ready and offers capacities of 640GB, 500GB, and 320GB. The unit we tested had 640GB of storage.

The unit itself is slightly shorter and more rounded than the previous version, weighing in at 0.4 pounds and with dimensions of 3.3 by 0.7 by 4.8 inches. It feels flimsy in your hands but survived several of our drop tests with no ill effects. The My Passport Studio is light enough to put in your pocket and take with you anywhere.

The My Passport Studio features a sleek silver aluminum exterior with white trim and a new smart display. Even when unplugged, you can view the white on black customizable label. The display can reveal what’s on the drive, to whom it belongs to, or indicate some other message to its owner. Meanwhile, the display also lets you know the available capacity and security status of the drive.

Western Digital My Passport Mac

The My Passport Studio features a 2.5-inch drive with a 8MB cache and a 5400-rpm drive mechanism. The drive offers both USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports, though users can also achieve FireWire 400 connectivity with a FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cord (not included).

With only a 5400 rpm mechanism and without eSATA connectivity, it’s not surprising that the My Passport Studio did not achieve the best times we’ve seen in our lab tests. The My Passport Studio finished our 1GB copy test in 31 seconds while using its FireWire 800 connection—6 seconds behind OWC’s Mercury Elite-AL Pro Mini (), our top product for portable hard drives.

The My Passport Studio fared better in our duplication tests, finishing the test in 39 seconds with its FireWire 800 connection enabled. That’s actually a second better than the Mercury Elite AL Pro Mini. Unfortunately, the low-memory Photoshop tests proved to be comparatively difficult for the My Passport Studio; its FireWire 800 score was 20 seconds slower than the Elite AL Pro Mini’s.

Why the up and down times? The AJA tests only complicate the narrative: the My Passport Studio has slower read speeds than the Mercury Pro with its FireWire 800 connection. However, My Passport Studio produced better write times than the Elite Al Pro Mini. This is impressive considering the My Passport has a 5400-rpm mechanism, compared to the Elite AL Pro Mini’s 7200-rpm mechanism, and the copy tests (usually a pure write test) are worse for the My Passport.

Timed trials

How we tested. We ran all tests with the drive connected to a Mac Pro Quad 2.66GHz Xeon with 2GB of RAM running OS 10.6. We tested the drive with each available port. We copied a folder containing 1GB of data from our Mac's hard drive to the external hard drive to test the drive's write speed. We then duplicated that file on the external drive to test both read and write speeds. We also used the drive as a scratch disk when running our low-memory Adobe Photoshop CS4 Suite test. This test is a set of four tasks performed on a 300MB file, with Photoshop's memory set to 25 percent.—Macworld Lab testing by Chris Holt

AJA tests

Wd My Passport Studio

The 640GB My Passport Studio will set you back $200, giving it a price per gigabyte of $.31. That’s pricey, even for a portable drive. LaCie’s Rikiki (), for example, is a measly $.22 per gigabyte. The My Passport Studio comes with a three-year warranty.

Macworld’s buying advice

Western Digital’s My Passport Studio provides satisfactory (though not exceptional) speed, a strong warranty, and a convenient digital label. If you’re a fan of Western Digital’s line of drives, you’ll appreciate the company constantly seeks to improve their storage solutions and the digital label is just that—an upgrade. If you’re not a fan, however, you’ll likely wonder why you’re paying so much for such unexceptional performance.

[Chris Holt is a Macworld associate editor.]

Western Digital My Passport Studio 320gb

• Western Digital My Passport Studio for Mac 640GB

  Cons

  • Mixed speed results