Hi!
Thanks for having this forum! I purchased my Passport wd2500bmv for I think it was $65 in 2009 on sale because Western Digital was going to discontinue manufacturing it. It has worked very well. My computer warned me that it wasn’t working, can’t recall the exact one sentence warning, several times the last couple of days. Is my passport considered very old? It has a 250GB capacity. I’m a writer and only have used 32GB so far and 200GB available after all of these years, both text and some photos. This external drive is very important to me because my novels and a lot of other things are stored on it. I have a couple of other small flash drives I also store things on but my main storage going back to 2007 is on my external drive and on the hard drive of my desktop. Is it risky to expect to keep relying on it? Must I buy another external drive? I’m trying to save money, but my writing is very important. I did connect it to another USB port on my desktop and seems to work okay. I did hear one “click” from it but only when I first held it directly to my ear. I waited and it didn’t click after that and have never heard it click from where it sits next to my desk top. I just plug it in and unplug it once I’ve moved my data for storage and don’t usually leave it running when it’s not of use. Thanks for your attention and for this forum!
Kindest Regards, Mike
Hello,
Any hard drive both old or new can fail without a warning. I always recommend having your important data stored in more than one location just in case the drive decides to go on vacation and never return.
Just like you I have a Passport from 2010 and mine is working just fine. However, I have my data backup on another drive just in case.
Hi Hamlet!
I have some questions as far as what you might have to offer in your line
of products for storing my writings, a lot on typewriter etc. and some
other things relating to storage digitally. I have most but not all on my
desk top hard drive of things I’ve written on PC, more of that stuff is on
my USB powered WD2500 than anything because I always am low budget and over
the years have had second hand computers, including the desk top and laptop
I now have… I did own bran new – two Apple computers and changed to PC
in about 1996. I’m older now and have a lot that was never stored
digitally that I want to pass by you to get your superior advice in regard
to storage devices you might have with you company. I think you mean in
your email by storing to “another location” meaning on a separate external
drive like my WD2500 Passport, right? Western Digital has been very
good. The only digital space I’m taking up after all these years is 32GB
and with 200GB available on my old WD2500.
Another storage consideration, or maybe nothing else needed with something
like another WD2500 external drive is all my typewritten and handwritten
writings. I could end up using or buying an optical scanner as I have
three book length manuscripts, a collection of about 21 short stories,
essays, and old journals I hand wrote in. So most of that except of course
the journals was all done on a typewriter too, the only copies I have! I’m
going to scan it all and toss the tangible paper files and probably all the
original journal books I wrote in. There is a lot too I printed from my
two old Apples I owned from 1994 to 1996 and had on floppy disks. That
will all hopefully go on the external drive too. Now I realize I also have
about 11 hand written journal books going all the way back to 1975! So I
am talking about all the writings I have done practically all of my life as
I am 62 now!! I forgot I have about a 200 page typewritten book I had
written for my professor for a field study project when I lived in Mexico
too, a lot to scan!
Something in me, even though it wasn’t published… wants to hang onto it
all, at least digitally as I’m single and in the latter phase of life in
this temporal world. I don’t know who to even pass it on to, but that’s
not the consideration right now, it’s just having it stored digitally as I
can’t deal with all the file tubs I have and need to condense my things.
So for now, per any of your much appreciated advice, I need to plan on
putting it all on some type of maybe top quality external drive that your
company makes.
I also have old fashioned color slides of the remote places I lived in
Mexico in 1982 with a University of Minnesota field study I did but wonder
if you might know if there’s some way there might be where some optical
device would pass a beam through a slide and store them as color digital
photos? The photos are of some of the last indigenous people in Mexico who
lived in like 1800’s life style in villages I went to that had no roads to
them, villages along a trade route trail established by the Aztecs. They
said I was the first white person or foreigner they’d seen in 10 years. I
went on Google Earth as I haven’t been there since and found that it’s all
changed now and huge pine forest and another huge area of tropical jungle
all gone! Have you heard of that type of transfer to digital with the old
fashioned color slides? I have about 450 slides of some amazing places
with the indigenous people of rural Mexico.
So a lot of text and hand written documents and the slides, and also
tangible photos I’d like to scan and store. Do you have any advice as to
which of your external drives would serve me the best? I feel like I don’t
need to buy a lot of Gigs when I don’t need to, but maybe I’m considering a
lot more than the 32gigs of data I already have that spans since about
1996. It’s important so I guess I am willing to buy something that has
more space than I need just to be safe. I was thinking of something like
your company’s WD2500 that I have, a USB powered external drive I guess,
your best quality one. Let me know if that’s the best idea for my case,
better quality, longer lasting on external drives than just the flash
drives, right? This is verbose and sorry about that! If you can’t answer
I fully understand. If you might know someone I could ask I’d appreciate
that too. Thanks again for answering my email as it means very much to me!
With Kindest Regards,
Mike
Hello,
Seems like you have very important data that you want to secure.
I would recommend 1 or 2 extra Passport drives. This will allow you to have your data stored on more than one location in case one of the drive fails.
Hi Hamlet!
Thanks for taking the time with me! From what I had described, I was
wondering what particular external drive you would, in my case, use? If
you don’t know is there anyone there who might? Also, is there only one
model of “Passport” that your company makes? Also, do you know of any good
optical scanners that aren’t expensive? Is an “optical scanner” basically
what comes with printers? It was quite a while ago I asked a computer tech
person what I should use to store like all the typewritten novels etc. that
I have. I think he meant that with such a scanner I could then convert it
all to regular computer text and that such a scanner is not like storing a
photograph or a photocopy. Is that what an optical scanner does, convert a
visual document into digital text that can be edited and re-written, then
the final stored digitally and then at any time be printed? Thanks for
your attention!
Kindest Regards,
Mike
Sincerely,
Mike
