Western Digital External Hard Disk Drives

Western Digital has a wide variety of external storage products for both the PC and Mac markets. The external drives are available in both large desktop and smaller portable formats. Under the portable segment alone, Western Digital offers four drive families for the PC, and another four drive families for the Mac.

Today, we are going to take a look at the 2 TB Western Digital My Passport Ultra (WDBBKD0020), newly refreshed for 2015. It boasts the following features :

• Secure and dependable - Trust My Passport Ultra to help protect your precious memories and confidential files. You can set an optional password to activate 256-bit hardware encryption and add a extra layer of security for your private files. Because it’s hardware-based encryption, it won’t impact the speed of your transfers or slow down your computer

• Powerful, smart backup software - With WD Backupâ„¢, our most powerful backup software yet, it’s easier than ever to use and requires minimal system resources while it’s running. Set a backup schedule to automatically safeguard your files on a schedule that fits your life. It can also back up to your Dropbox account to provide another level of file protection.

• Sleek design with high capacity - With extreme capacities in the palm of your hand, My Passport Ultra is an ideal companion for your laptop or compatible tablets. Available in a range of exciting colors, you can find your favorite and complement your lifestyle.

• Ultra-fast transfer rates - The power of USB 3.0 lets you access and save files in blazing-fast speed. Best of all, no separate power supply is needed.

• Works great with Windows - Formatted NTFS to work right out of the box with Windows. Download the free Windows 8 app to easily discover the digital media stored on your My Passport Ultra drive. Can also be reformatted to work with Mac OS X.

• You’re in control - Configure, manage and diagnose your drive with WD Drive Utilities. Run drive diagnostics, erase and format your drive, register your drive and more.

• WD reliability - WD knows your data is important, so we build our drives to demanding requirements for durability, shock tolerance and long-term reliability. And for peace-of-mind, we back up our reliability with a 3-year limited warranty.

Now, let's find out how this portable hard disk drive fares against its competitors!

Packaging & Contents

The 2 TB Western Digital My Passport Ultra (2015) portable hard disk drive comes in a nice cardboard box with a small clear plastic window in front, so you can quickly identify the colour of the case. Western Digital currently offers four colour options - Classic Black, Noble Blue, Wild Berry and Brilliant White.

The box is actually a generic box, so the drive capacity is identified by the sticker on the lower right corner of the box. The top of the box lists the contents of the box, while the bottom has a white sticker that not only gives you the drive's serial number and place of manufacture (Thailand), it also confirms the drive's warranty period. Western Digital is offering a 3 year warranty on this drive worldwide, as well as free 30-day telephone support.

Inside, you will find that the drive is well-protected by a plastic enclosure that doubles as the clear plastic window of the box. Once you take it apart, you will find the following items :

• the 2 TB Western Digital My Passport Ultra (2015) portable hard disk drive,
• a USB 3.0 cable,
• a Quick Install Guide,
• a warranty information sheet,
• WD Backup & WD Security software (preloaded in the drive).

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