Is WD 250GB Portable Hard Drive good?

Video Production With WD 250GB External Hard Drive - Review

Western Digital WD 250GB Portable Hard DrivePurchased a Western Digital WD 250GB Portable Hard Drive. S$199 from Challenger Tiong Bahru.

There were two models on the shelves. One with backup software (Elite) and one without (Essential).

I chose the model without backup software, cheaper of course. They call it “My Passport Essential”.

Passport? The drive does look a bit like a passport, we can even choose colors. Blue or red. I chose blue. Wanted black but there was no stock.

Then there were three specifications to choose from. 160GB, 250GB and 320GB. I have many 160GB drives, so the next thing to try is 250GB. I needed only 100GB actually.

Western Digital WD 250GB Portable Hard DriveThe last minute decision to get this hard drive is for a video production project that was shot with 3 camcorders. That’s 18 hours of video footage. One hour of video in PAL DV format takes up 12GB of hard drive space. The video production project requires immediate and dedicated attention for delivery within one week (which is eaten away by 1 May Day holiday).

Is WD 250GB Portable Hard Drive good? How is it?

First the bad points.

  • Packaging Hard To Open. I wish there was instruction on how to open the plastic packaging. Cannot use bare hands to open. There is no “tear here” mark. I can only think of using scissors. Then again there is no proper corner to start cutting.
  • Short USB Cable - Less Than One Foot. The provided USB cable was not long enough. Have to place the drive in awkward positions.
  • Pre-formatted with FAT32 - Obsolete! This is so obsolete. I am having doubts now. Is WD up to date. For video production editing, you need NTFS file sytem. FAT32 file system does not allow you to save files bigger than 4GB. This problem is so pre-historic.

Anyway, I reformatted “My Passport Essential” WD 250GB Portable Hard Drive to NTFS File System and started digitizing the 18 hours of video.

The good points? Let me use it first.

Got to get back to work now…

In the mean time, here are reviews from 3 other bloggers about Western Digital External Hard Drive:

Enjoy!
Adrian Lee

Blog - http://Adrian.VideoLane.net
Product - http://InstantViralVideo.com
Service - http://VideoLane.com

PS:

Left Overs of WD 250GB Portable Hard Drive.

Can someone tell me how to open this type of packaging the gentle way?

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