Western Digital Redesigns My Passport Essential Portable HDDs

Western Digital appears to be especially pleased with having retained hard drive shipment dominance over the past FY quarter, as it decided to pay some more attention to the small things that make external/portable hard drives appealing. When making a regular storage device, aesthetic value is the last thing on the minds of hardware developers. On the other hand, portable solutions need that touch of style in order to stand out from the fold. Knowing this, WD added several case designs to its My Passport Essential series.

A new exterior is not all that WD implemented. In fact, it went ahead and released a model with a storage capacity of 500GB, allowing for an even higher number of files to be stored and carried wherever consumers may go off to. The device also boasts 256-bit hardware encryption, which ensures that whatever data is stored on it remains private, and the WD SmartWave software (bundled), which makes backup tasks easy to accomplish. The drive communicates with host PCs via the USB 2.0 interface.

As for the pinch of aesthetic value, Western Digital provided five new designs in total, whose names are Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave. They were created by students from the California State University.

"The contents of individuals' portable storage contain all the ways they express themselves - music, images, and videos - and tell a story about who they are," said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing of WD's branded products group. "Expressing individual style is important. That's why we teamed up with California State University, Long Beach design students, who have their finger on the latest fashion trends."

The company has already made its new models available and is selling the 500GB models at a price of $119.99. All are backed by two-year warranties.