Western Digital WDXMS800TN Passport 80 GB USB 2.0 2.5-Inch Portable Hard Drive

Very nice little hard-drive, truly plug-n-play. Sleek, good build quality, and size is small, cool blue power light too. Power runs off the USB, which is great, less cords. WD "Sync" software is excellent, very intuitive and easy to use, nicely laid out. Speed is decent for an external drive.

The only knock I have on this drive is the USB cord it comes with is short (22"), could've used a 6 footer, or both for the price.

Definately recommended for those looking for a external for music or business.

I plugged it into my Mac Mini and it shut down all USB ports on the machine, and the monitor. After some fiddling, found it was drawing too much power and the Mini shut down the entire USB bus.

I've seen an Amazon review saying the 60GB version *does* work on someone's Mini... so maybe it's just the 80GB one, or maybe it's my Dec 2006-era Mini.

It's a pretty good drive. One of the only complaints I had was that it came with a 6 in. cable. After being on hold for forever with WD support I gave up and emailed my complaint because it was supposed to have a 22in. cable. They eventually mailed it to me. The drive doesn't always mount on the first try, but that may be a problem with my computer. anyway, good drive so far. I'd buy it again.


It's been a great hard drive. it's easy to use and very solid. there is plenty of room and the best thing is that my fiancee and I can store our files on it even though she has a Mac and i have a PC!


Had to return the drive as it didn't work. Was replaced by a working version.

So far I find the item to be working per spec.

At my job, it's been my responsibility to send tens of thousands of digital images overseas to our international clients. At this point, I believe I've bought about twenty-five of these things - mostly the 80gb, some 40gb, and a couple 60gb. (I haven't tried anything larger than the 80). I've plugged them into multiple PC's (using XP Professsional). The drives are always read right away and have never required any driver downloads. I've not experienced any errors in copying data to them. I've sent the drives to fifteen countries. No one has reported any problems. As I've been sending these to countries with different power inputs, it's been a great boon that the drives get power via the USB connection.

Like I said - Made of Awesome.

Attention shoppers!!! This is only $80.00 on newegg. Until Amazon gets a more competitive price, just say no.

PS Great product!!!

It is Great! It's small and easy to use. Starting out was no problem for someone not computer savvy. I just plugged it in and started loading it. Transfer/recovery speed is pretty decent. The only thing I might recommend is a sleeve or something to keep it from getting scratched up. I'm extremely happy with this product.

Hardware advertised as "PC/Mac" sometimes isn't totally compatable with your Mac. This drive works very well for me. It may have not been necessary but I did do an erase to reformat it just to insure its compatability. I'm running a G5 with OSX 10.3.9 and 3 gb of ram. And I can plug it into the front USB outlet. No software required. There is some software for PC so be sure to save that in case you sell the drive or give it away.

Good drive, worked well for me AFTER I discovered my laptop could not power it from the USB drive and got the cable I needed. It would have been nice to have been warned about that. (The very short instruction manual says you MIGHT need a power boost cable if your USB port doesn't supply more than 500 milliamps). I tried to buy the cable, but no one had it nearby. I lucked out that my boyfriend already had one. But what a pain...at that price, it should come with the cable.

Two negative things to say: I was expecting a 22" USB cable with my order, as published on the package. But instead, it came with a 6" USB cable. And the WD Sync does not work - it keeps giving me a runtime error about half way through the process.

Great external hard drive. It is small, light and easy to use. Plug it into your USB port and it is ready- no additional software to load. Drag and drop files to and from it or use the synchronization feature. The only "needs improvment" would be better instructions on how to use it as a true extra hard drive versus a "backup" device using the synchronization feature.
Overall, a great product at a great price. Highly recommended!

"The WD Passport hard drive requires a little over 1000mA of power at spin up" says the WD troubleshooting website.

Why no mention of that here or on its product page? My usb drive provides 500mA so I need another cable. Extra cost and extra delay. What cheek.

I advise you to check what power your usb port provides before ordering this.



I tried the product in three different computers and each time received an error: "Power limit has been exceeded on the USB Port". I went to the Western Digital site which offered two solutions: (1) buy an extra cable which powers the hard drive by using two USB ports or (2) simply ignore the error (they claimed the hard drive would still work). The extra cable is hard to find (it was out of stock on Western Digital's site). Regardless, I located a cable, but still got the same error message. So, I moved on to the next solution: ignore the error. That did not work either. The computers automatically disabled the port. Not to mention, the hard drive was obviously dead as a door nail. I did further research and found that this is a common problem (in many cases, the product was found to be defective). Someone suggested using a powered USB hub. I tried that, too. Hard Drive still dead and same error. So, I returned it. Long story short: this is a common problem. Sometimes it can be corrected with an extra cable; sometimes it is just a defective product. You are taking your chances with this product.

Great product, small, light, The only reason for the 4 stars rating is that didn't came with a protector case, the rest is perfect.

This has to one of the best external hard drives available. You simply plug it in and within seconds you have access to it. If you treat it right it will last you for many, many years. I personally deleted the software that came with it because there is no need for it once you realize how simple this is to use. The black design is very nice as well and the little blue light that turns on when you plug it contrasts well with the black. You can easily put it in your pocket.

There have been talks about people's burning out after a few months...My advice: DON'T LEAVE IT PLUGGED IN 24/7. Its so quick to boot that it should only be plugged in when you need it, or at least unplug it at night. I use it to store music, so I can leave it unplugged whenever I am not listening.

Performance-wise there really is nothing to say. Its an external hard drive, not very complicated, just plain old storage. But transfers go very quickly as the hard drive spins faster than normal. NOTE: this faster spinning requires more power which requires USB 2.0. So make sure you have USB 2.0 slots, because I have heard of this not working on old computers due to their old USB slots.

Overall, this is a great external hard drive and I highly recommend it, Treat it well and it WILL last you a very long time.

I wish I had purchased this sooner, it functions great and performs wonderfully. The portability is excellent, you can actually put it in you pocket. When you need it just plug it in and you're ready to go. I do recommend buying a case for it just to add some protection.

I ordered this product because I am moving to a new job and new city. I needed to move all the files from my computer at work (nothing proprietary), and I ordered this, plugged it in, and it worked. It has its own software, and it backed up my desktop computer, plus all my network files in my personal drives. NO problems whatsoever.

YMMV, but my 80GB drive died after 6 months. I found this be very handy to have around to transfer large files between work and home, but I expected it to last longer than 6 months given that it was well taken care of. I'm glad I back up my data in more than one place.

Small, light and high in capacity, this is a good choice for your external drive needs without having to use an extra cord for the larger models. My Passport has worked flawlessly so far and came with some very useful software. One word of caution - it has to be formatted to NTFS instead of FAT or you won't be able to copy files larger than 4Gb.

Very easy to use with Windows XP and Vista. The short cord is really the only negative thing, but even that is not too much of a problem. I use this to carry my photos and music to and from work, and I love it. I bought a soft clamshell case and can throw it in my purse. Totally recommend.

The product arrived on time and performed according to my understanding of what it would do. Basic instructions on the steps necessary for reformatting would be desirable.

The product arrived on time and performed according to my understanding of what it would do. Basic instructions on the steps necessary for reformatting would be desirable.

Very easy to use with Windows XP and Vista. The short cord is really the only negative thing, but even that is not too much of a problem. I use this to carry my photos and music to and from work, and I love it. I bought a soft clamshell case and can throw it in my purse. Totally recommend.

Great product, small, light, The only reason for the 4 stars rating is that didn't came with a protector case, the rest is perfect.

This has to one of the best external hard drives available. You simply plug it in and within seconds you have access to it. If you treat it right it will last you for many, many years. I personally deleted the software that came with it because there is no need for it once you realize how simple this is to use. The black design is very nice as well and the little blue light that turns on when you plug it contrasts well with the black. You can easily put it in your pocket.

There have been talks about people's burning out after a few months...My advice: DON'T LEAVE IT PLUGGED IN 24/7. Its so quick to boot that it should only be plugged in when you need it, or at least unplug it at night. I use it to store music, so I can leave it unplugged whenever I am not listening.

Performance-wise there really is nothing to say. Its an external hard drive, not very complicated, just plain old storage. But transfers go very quickly as the hard drive spins faster than normal. NOTE: this faster spinning requires more power which requires USB 2.0. So make sure you have USB 2.0 slots, because I have heard of this not working on old computers due to their old USB slots.

Overall, this is a great external hard drive and I highly recommend it, Treat it well and it WILL last you a very long time.

I wish I had purchased this sooner, it functions great and performs wonderfully. The portability is excellent, you can actually put it in you pocket. When you need it just plug it in and you're ready to go. I do recommend buying a case for it just to add some protection.

This product appears to be of good quality, but the snag is that if your USB ports do not provide 650 milliamps of power, you will have to purchase a separate cord to boost the power. This is the one thing that I wish was listed in its specifications. I have a Mac PowerBook G4 (purchased in 2004) and the USB ports provide only 500 milliamps. So, check your machine's specs before purchasing this. I would have kept the product, had my USB port had enough power. It is very compact and easy to store.

As one other reviewer noted, my package came with only a 6 inch USB cord, even though it says it is supposed to be 22 inches.

I love the Western Digital passport external drive. Service from J & R was fast, as usual. It took a while for me to get this set up, but once done, everything ran smoothly.

I bought this drive, saved the included software to another computer, then deleted it from the WD Passport....then reformatted the Passport. It worked fine on both my desktop and my laptop even though my USB ports (on both desktop and laptop) only provide 500mA of power. This drive, like most of it's competitors, requires 1000mA through the USB port to power itself. Some users have reported all sorts of problems because of this, as you can tell by the negative reviews here.

As i said, for some reason it works fine on my computers. My desktop did have some weird issues the first night i used this drive, but they stopped occurring since then.

You can check how much power is going to your USB ports by (in XP) going to Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> System. Then click on the Hardware tab, and then click Device Manager. At the botton of the next window will be the USB (universal serial bus)controllers. Double click on the "USB Root Hub"s and then click the Power Tab to see what the 'Total power available" is for your ports. If it says '500mA per port' then this WD Passport will not work properly on your computer without a special cable (available at WD's site, though it has been out of stock for several months).

Even if it does work on a 500mA port, like my situation, you still really shouldn't use it on the lower amount of power. Electrically, the USB hub is being strained and may eventually have problems.

And THAT is why i'm exchanging this unit for the Maxtor or the Samsung Zirex Pleomax, both of which COME WITH THE SPECIAL USB CABLE REQUIRED TO POWER THE UNIT OFF A 500mA PORT!

Those units are also encased in metal, which dissipates heat better than the black plastic of the Passport.

I really wish the Passport came with that USB Y-cable though. Other than this power issue, it is really nice. Western Digital really messed up by not providing the necessary cable for most users to operate the device safely.

These are great devices once you get working ones. I bought my developers these units for backing up their work. The first five we received all erred and gave us errors, including power errors that WD's Support cases were useless for helping. Eventually worked with WD Support and they determined we had five faulty drives. These are apparently laptop hard drives placed into some nice casing and there have been quality issues with some batches.

Once replaced with a new batch of drives, all have performed well and members of my staff that use them rate the Passports with high marks. No requirement for external power is especially useful for some. Since our purchase, I've discovered one of my vendors uses 30 of the Passports to carry and deploy images for their training PCs. They have had similar experience with a few bad drives, but once they got working ones, all works well. It is their primary mode of deploying environments for training, now.

Well I had the original drive for one day, and it went dead. So I had to call WD and get it replaced. It is an ok drive, I was not really impressed with it. I had looked at them in the past (store suggestion), but did not buy one.

Not sure how much use it will get, I purchased it for a different reason.
With the first one dying, I had to rethink what I wanted it to be used for. I guess it will be good for a short back up, or a drive to carry files around when I can not use a thumb drive.

I ordered this product because I am moving to a new job and new city. I needed to move all the files from my computer at work (nothing proprietary), and I ordered this, plugged it in, and it worked. It has its own software, and it backed up my desktop computer, plus all my network files in my personal drives. NO problems whatsoever.

YMMV, but my 80GB drive died after 6 months. I found this be very handy to have around to transfer large files between work and home, but I expected it to last longer than 6 months given that it was well taken care of. I'm glad I back up my data in more than one place.

Small, light and high in capacity, this is a good choice for your external drive needs without having to use an extra cord for the larger models. My Passport has worked flawlessly so far and came with some very useful software. One word of caution - it has to be formatted to NTFS instead of FAT or you won't be able to copy files larger than 4Gb.

I tried the product in three different computers and each time received an error: "Power limit has been exceeded on the USB Port". I went to the Western Digital site which offered two solutions: (1) buy an extra cable which powers the hard drive by using two USB ports or (2) simply ignore the error (they claimed the hard drive would still work). The extra cable is hard to find (it was out of stock on Western Digital's site). Regardless, I located a cable, but still got the same error message. So, I moved on to the next solution: ignore the error. That did not work either. The computers automatically disabled the port. Not to mention, the hard drive was obviously dead as a door nail. I did further research and found that this is a common problem (in many cases, the product was found to be defective). Someone suggested using a powered USB hub. I tried that, too. Hard Drive still dead and same error. So, I returned it. Long story short: this is a common problem. Sometimes it can be corrected with an extra cable; sometimes it is just a defective product. You are taking your chances with this product.

Two negative things to say: I was expecting a 22" USB cable with my order, as published on the package. But instead, it came with a 6" USB cable. And the WD Sync does not work - it keeps giving me a runtime error about half way through the process.

It's been a great hard drive. it's easy to use and very solid. there is plenty of room and the best thing is that my fiancee and I can store our files on it even though she has a Mac and i have a PC!


Had to return the drive as it didn't work. Was replaced by a working version.

So far I find the item to be working per spec.

At my job, it's been my responsibility to send tens of thousands of digital images overseas to our international clients. At this point, I believe I've bought about twenty-five of these things - mostly the 80gb, some 40gb, and a couple 60gb. (I haven't tried anything larger than the 80). I've plugged them into multiple PC's (using XP Professsional). The drives are always read right away and have never required any driver downloads. I've not experienced any errors in copying data to them. I've sent the drives to fifteen countries. No one has reported any problems. As I've been sending these to countries with different power inputs, it's been a great boon that the drives get power via the USB connection.

Like I said - Made of Awesome.

Attention shoppers!!! This is only $80.00 on newegg. Until Amazon gets a more competitive price, just say no.

PS Great product!!!