WD My Passport Ultra 1 Terabyte Portable Hard Drive Review And Giveaway

If you are looking for an unusual Mother's Day gift that protects what is of value and could save a lot of heartache and annoyance as well as being beautiful, then My Passport Ultra might be just the thing.

Western Digital (WD) are specialists in making sure you don't lose any of those precious memories saved on your phone, tablet or computer. They sell a huge range of back-up and storage solutions to meet any need you may have, and one of their most popular is the My Passport Ultra portable hard drive. Not only user-friendly and useful, available in 4 colours and with matching accessories it looks darn good too...

WD have sent me their My Passport Ultra 1 Terabyte portable hard drive to review. Backing up your laptop regularly to protect family photos, work, music or anything else you store on there is really important - we've all had at least one heartbroken friend say "my computer's broken and I've lost everything"...

WD's research found that the average consumer values their digital content at £3,241. I agree with the 26% of people who consider their digital content as 'priceless'. My photos of the children growing up are all over the place, it would be lovely to have them all together where I know they are safe.

I've deleted photos to make space and then regretted it several times, just like 56% of consumers. I've also run out of storage on my phone and had to transfer everything to my computer many times. I lost my Christmas list and last year had to beg everyone for addresses. You can get some back, but you rarely find it all.

1 Terabyte is enough to store around 30,000 full resolution photos, 86 million pages of documents, 200,000 songs, or 250 movies*. That's got to be enough to keep anyone going for a while...

When I plugged the My Passport Ultra into my Windows 10 laptop it gave me choices about back-up without downloading anything, so it really can be 'plug and play', however My Passport Ultra also comes with it's own back-up software included, which can be downloaded swiftly from the WD Website and adjusted in seconds.

You can set regular automatic back up times and dates for your whole computer or your chosen files/folders. You can also choose to back up to the cloud. Back-ups only replace any changes or add new files, so are relatively quick. and it really is simple enough for a true novice to use effectively.

Packaging is neat and minimal, the supplied USB3 cable is 45cm long - handy enough to put in your bag, long enough it isn't annoying. The hard drive itself is exceedingly quiet (as expected), and really good looking and light. WD have made it something special by adding colour, and you can buy mix and match accessories too.

I can't really fault My Passport Ultra. It does exactly what you'd expect, and it does it well. It's intuitive and simple to set up and use, even for a novice. The back up software is great and it's fantastic to know I have a place to store all my old photos, as well as a regular back up of everything I'm writing and editing right now!

A 1 Terabyte WD My Passport Ultra costs around £62.99 - available online at the WD Store and from selected retailers. Other capacities are available - 750gb, 1, 2 and a staggering 3 Terabytes of storage, and it comes in 4 different colours - Red, Blue, Black and White. All have 256-bit hardware-based data encryption and a three-year limited warranty.

I'm delighted to say that Western Digital have kindly offered one of my readers a My Passport Ultra Portable Hard Drive as a giveaway prize. Entry is by Gleam form below, UK entries only, sorry. The giveaway will end at midnight on Sunday 27th March. For full terms and conditions please see the bottom of the Gleam form.

For help with Gleam, or to see my other giveaways (of which there are many) please go to my Giveaways Page...

WD My Passport Ultra 1 Terabyte Portable Hard Drive Giveaway

*Thanks to Kelly Brown of the University Of Oregon for the 1 terrabyte statistics...