By Luis Anthony G. Oliveros
September 23, 2009

Western Digital, one of the biggest players in the data storage market, has unveiled the freshest redesigns to their popular line of external storage solutions, My Book and My Passport. These plug-and-play models have also been equipped with the new WD SmartWare software hardware encryption as a double layered security for your digital files.

My Book Essential / My Book for Mac
Now in a sleeker 48x165x135mm body, the My Book Essential and My Book Essential for Mac are offered in storage capacities ranging from 500GB to a very spacious 2TB.

These external drives connect via a USB 2.0 port and carries an illuminated capacity gauge that lets you know just how much space is available. They also utilize WD GreenPower Technology which lowers internal drive power consumption by up to 30% and a sleep mode during idle times.

“Keeping an extra copy of your digital life used to be a painstaking, manual task undertaken only by the most expert and diligent of users. WD’s new My Book Essential and My Book for Mac external hard drives, powered by WD SmartWare, have finally made it easy enough so that anyone can do it,” said Dale Pistili, VP of Marketing for WD’s branded products group. “WD’s new drives combine massive storage capacity, visual backup and hardware encryption, so consumers can now actually see their digital life safe in one place.”

While the My Book Essential is compatible with various Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, the My Book Mac runs Mac OS X Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard, and is even compatible with Apple TimeMachine.

My Passport Essential / My Passport for Mac
The My Passport Essential and My Passport for Mac external hard drives are more than 20% smaller than their previous generation models. At 15x83x110mm, they tip the scale at a mere 0.20kg for better storage and mobility. These are offered in storage capacities from 320GB to 1TB and come in different colors, including blue, red and silver in addition to the standard black and white.

“The smaller and sleeker design of WD’s redesigned My Passport drives, combined with the intuitive visual backup experience of WD SmartWare software, makes this drive a smart and secure, travel-friendly storage choice,” Pistilli said. “These ultra-portable drives are a stylish and spacious storage solution for consumers to confiddentaly backup, store and carry their entire digital lives.”

The WD My Passport Essential hard drives are formatted for machines running Windows operating systems  while the WD Passport for Mac are designed for Mac computers and are even compatible with Apple TimeMachine.


WD SmartWare
Along with these newly revitalized storage solutions is the WD SmartWare, Western Digital’s own beefy security software. It comes in a straightforward user interface that displays the contents of the plugged hard drive and even displays them in categories (e.g. movies, videos, audio, etc.).

The WD SmartWare presents a security feature that combines the ubiquitous user-selected password protection with military-grade 256-bit hardware encryption. This is a data protection feature usually present only among expensive data storage system.

In addition, it allows you to make automatic, continuous data backup (with a progress bar to easily track backup as it completes), retrieve data to its original location folder whether it may be lost data or an  overwritten file. Its settings are flexible enough to allow you to customize drive security, run diagnotics and  manage power settings, among others.