which is best hard drive . My passport or my passport essential se ?

The design of the case/housing and the capacity of the units. The HD inside is basically the same.

The Passport comes in sizes up to 2TB whereas the Essential goes up to 1TB.

Just pick the one you like the looks of, because thats what it really comes down to. Unless you need larger than 1TB.

WD makes excellent drives so either will suit you well.

My personal opion is that Western Digital HDs are the best of mechanical drives. But, just an opinion.

Here is what you really need to consider:

In regards to the Passports, they are external. The simply plug in via USB cable and can be moved to other PCs, or take with you on a trip, to the office etc fairly easy.
The downside is that in exchange for this mobility, they tend to be slower than a higher performance fixed internal HD.

Is that what your looking for? If you are in fact looking for a mobile, external drive then Yes, its fine and will do its job nicely.


If however you are looking for performance and mobility is not really a factor, then its probably not a good choice. You'd be better off with a internal drive which offers larger capacity and much better performance.
The downside here is that in exchange for the larger capacity and improved performance, that drive is stuck where you put it. In the PC its installed in.
It can not be moved elsewhere as simply as unplugging a USB cable as the Passports can.
If its going in a laptop, youll want a large enough size to simply replace the current one if you go this route. With a Destop you can simply add it to have multiple drives.


Essentially, you can buy a better performing internal drive but loose the mobilti of the passport for about the same price or cheaper.
Theres no right or wrong answer here on which way to go. It all comes down to your own expectations and needs.

I agree about the Western Digital, I won't buy any other spinners personally. Have had way too much bad luck with Seagates.

Another alternative is a hard drive dock, especially if you have USB 3.0 or eSATA. sEata is almost as fast as an internal drive. You can use it for several drives, as hard drives can be switched in less than 1 minute. You also have the advantage of being able to use faster internal drives in it which are still external. This is the one that I use and love it. It can be found in USB 3.0 too I believe. It takes 3.5" and 2.5" drives.
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