WD rolls out mini ultra-portable hard drives

The new My Passport drives - My Passport™ Essential™ and My Passport for Mac® - are more than 20 per cent smaller than the previous generation My Passport, said a company statement.

The new portable drives with WD SmartWare software visually present consumers' data in a control center, providing them peace of mind that their precious photos, videos and files are securely protected.

Available now at select retailers and the WD online store (shopwd.com), the new My Passport Essential and My Passport for Mac drives are offered in capacities ranging from 320 GB to 1 TB and come in a range of colors including Pacific Blue, Real Red, Cool Silver and Midnight Black.

“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,” said Saif Khwaja, sales director, Western Digital, Middle East&Africa.

“These ultra-portable drives are a stylish and spacious storage solution for consumers to confidently backup, store and carry their entire digital lives,” he noted.

According to research firm Parks Associates, the average US broadband household currently has over 120 gigabytes (GB) of digital media and files, which is expected to grow to over 1 terabyte (TB) of data by 2013.

And while 70 per cent of consumers back up their content, the majority of these people are using manual, cumbersome methods such as copying and pasting to multiple CDs and DVDs, and less than 18 percent use software that automatically and continuously backs up their content.

When the My Passport Essential drive is plugged in for the first time, the simple and intuitive first backup process launches automatically. The real-time visual interface of WD SmartWare software gives users a reassuring view of their backup as it happens. After the first backup, users’ files are backed up automatically every time they change or add a file, he noted.

My Passport Essential and My Passport for Mac drives also feature user-selected password protection combined with military-grade 256-bit hardware encryption, which scrambles files before they are stored. Typically found only on much more expensive drive systems, the encryption acts as a virtual padloc¬k to keep users’ data secure.

Western Digital will be demonstrating their latest technology innovations during 'Show and Tell' event at the GITEX Technology Week expo, which runs from October 19 to 21.