Is this automatically switched on or do you have to switch it on? I’d like to buy a MYPassport, but not use the passport encryption etc., because I heard bad things and also want to let the drive do as less extra stuff, than possible (so it doesn’t get confused).
From my understanding, yes, it is always on. The drive is always encrypted regardless of whether you use a password or not. And I should add, if you want a drive that does not have encryption, check out the WD Elements drives instead, if memory serves those do not have encryption.
Thanks for your answer.
Currently both models cost the same here (Germany). They also have the older case design version of the pasport ultra and I am wondering, if there is one of the too that got better reviews in hintsight.
I know they did come out with a new version of the Passport a while back which is supposed to have some improvements and that does include a slightly different case deign. I will say that I have a My Passport and have had no problems with it. Are you just using it for a backup? If you follow the recommendation to keep data on at least 2 separate drives…even if 1 of them did have an issue, you can then restore from the other drive.
Thank you very much.
The problem is, I had given a friend of mine a case and a HDD from another vendor, but the HDD has already growing SMART values for “recalibration retry”, so I decided to buy her a new one. No, since they cirrently have the Passport and Elements for arround 55-60 EUR instead of 89,-EUR, I thought I try these, instead of building one out of a WD scorpio blue and an external case. But I fear that drives from the recent times (the used drive with the “recalibration retry count” was from 2011), do only last 3 years (other than many drives I had from the early 2000s onwards) and I was also told this in a general computer forum that it is totally normal these days to buy a new HDD every 2-4 years, because they are defective then anyway.
Well I might let her keep both, so she has a backup.
On the other hand you rarely see average “consumer” users doing a 2 backups strategy. (The old one has to be replaced, though, even if she would only keep one drive and the most important stuff additionally on a flash drive.
I’m not saying you have to have 2 ‘backups’…what I mean is if you simply are backing up your computer, by having the data remain on your computer as well as on the My Passport…you then have the data in 2 places. If your computer dies or My Passport dies, you can still recover from the other drive.
With that being said, the cost of portable hard drives has gone down so much in recent years, having 2 portable hard drives is easily affordable…and if you have critical data, it’s not worth taking the chance for the small cost of an extra drive.
And yes, 3 years may not seem like a lot…and of course it depends on how you use it and how often, but again, when we are talking about critical data, it’s always a good idea to be on the safe side.
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