Some months ago I purchased three 500 GB Passport Essential external drives so I can swap them on alternative days and keep one off-site.
They appear to have been doing their job quietly backing stuff up in the background however until today I have never actually done a full restoration from any of the drives to be sure all files can be recovered if an HDD crash or stolen PC should occur.
After recently upgrading my PC with a new SSD I re-installed the Win 7 Pro OS. After installing WD SmartWare (v 1.6.0) and plugging in one of the external drives I no longer see the Passport drive on the right hand side of WD SmartWare. Going back to the old OS system (which I still have on an old SSD for quick restoration of the PC in case the new SSD and OS should pack up) I found no problem seeing the Passport drive on the right hand side of WD SmartWare.
However then I started to explore whether the files on the drive were in fact updated and found that no, they were months out of date … luckily I have another backup of my work on my laptop also!
Anyway after much fiddling I have given up on the WD product - clearly it has serious problems and is unable to perform the function for which I bought it.
I have spoken to the shop where I bought and they are happy to take all three drives back and give me something else. What should I get instead? I notice that there is a new Seagate Backup Plus product on the horizon which is similar (multi colours, automated backup, no power pack etc) … has anyone got experience with that and can recommend it? Or any other suggestions please?
Thanks …
