I am in the process of switching to a new laptop, and the transfer of data is a bit overwhelming. True, I could be savvy enough to upload things to the cloud, but well, I am not. And, I would rather be able to sift through the data that I need and not everything else that I do not. That’s why I was interested in checking out the travel-minded storage device, My Passport GO portable drive from Western Digital.
It is small enough to fit into your pocket if you need to head to a meeting without your briefcase or backpack. While I would not really notice personally (since I am unfamiliar with most portable drives), it operates at more than twice the speed of other devices. This means transferring and accessing your data is much speedier, and that is something that I think we can all appreciate.
My friends that have used similar drives have commented that speed especially matters when transferring large files like movies, music, and large graphics. They have told me that this can be a great gift for parents and grandparents that want to store large amounts of digital photos in one place that can be easily accessible for printing or sharing with others.
While thumbdrives are the most common way to store data, this portable drive is great for photo-happy folks that want to keep all of their photos and videos without having to choose between them. For business travelers, thumbdrives are so tiny that they can be hard to find in a cluttered purse or briefcase (although they are easier to fit into your pocket for a quick meeting, that is for sure).
This is the perfect device for traveling because of its rubber protective exterior that is shock absorbing, which means you can toss it into your briefcase or carry-on bag for easy access. In fact, you can drop it as much as six feet without worrying about the safety of the device and its contents. There are no moving interior parts, which helps to make this possible. The built-in USB cable means it is easy to plug into your computer to access any file (including all my old files that I may not particularly want to download onto my new computer).
One thing to note for many people is that thin computers or tablets do not have USB drives. My Elite Book Folio from HP does not have one, which means that I have to remember to carry the adapter cable plug if I want to add or use data from My Passport GO when traveling. Some people mention that they wish the cable were not built in so that they could switch it out and add the cable that is compatible with the device they are using. I guess that is a personal preference that depends on different travelers. I would rather have less things to carry with me.
Integrated into the device is an automated backup system to protect your data, which is often a concern of people when they do not have a backup for the backup. The backup software is compatible with Windows and Apple’s Time Machine. It comes in a couple of different accent colors for added personality.
I appreciated that this is not especially heavy despite having hefty capability for storage built into it. This portable drive retails for $70 for the 500GB version and $180 for the 1TB model on the My Passport GO website, and when you risk not having easy access to the documents you need while traveling, this becomes incredibly worth it.