Where To Buy Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black)

I got this back at the tail end of March. Currently, I am using a 500GB model partitioned into two (free space and for time machine). So far things work great. It's plug and play, Leopard immediately asked to make it a time machine drive and it's been bliss ever since. High density storage for a cheap price, but other things seem cheap as well.

Immediately out of the box, the drive is absurdly light. It's almost a feather. The lightness makes me think there is nothing in there to store info on, but somehow it manages to backup data on something inside the case. The instructions say to not move the drive while it's writing/reading (when the light flashes), and that's almost all the time. I fear the day I accidentally bump this seemingly fragile equipment and forever corrupt my data. I immediately bought a Case Logic case for travelling around with it. Finally, I needed to get some files off of my old powerbook G4 I lent out and the drive would not be recognized. The USB light would flash and the drive would make a horrible clicking/grinding sound and the free partition (not time machine) would not be recognized. I thought my drive was dead after a month, but it continued to work on my new MacBook. UPDATE: I believe that creating a time machine partition along with a storage partition makes it impossible for the drive to be interchangeable between computers with and without time machine.

The drive does it's job as a storage space. It works...that's a primary selling point...the price also helps for the amount of storage. Not being able to serve as a standard hard drive between computers takes away an entire star because I'm between computers all day. The lightness also gives the idea of something that is not rugged. By definition, portable means it should travel well. How can you travel with a drive that feels a light as a few pieces of LEGO and thus...NOT RUGGED?Get more detail about Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black).