USB hard drives can be an important part of your backup plans. Lenovo l192 wide tft monitor driver for mac pro. Whether for home or business, they allow you to easily backup your files and then take them with you. You can even lock the drive in a safe for extra security. While you can also use the cloud for backing up data, redundancy with a USB HDD is very smart -- just in case.

Western Digital's USB hard disk drives are wildly popular, and today, the company announces a refresh of two such models for Windows and Mac -- the 'My Passport' and 'My Book'. The concept is the same -- a mechanical hard drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure -- but they are now more stylish. The My Passport comes in six fun colors -- the Type-A cable even matches!

WD My Book Desktop Review (2TB+4TB+8TB) The My Book desktop hard drive has a built-in 256-bit AES hardware encryption and a WD security software which helps in protecting your drive from an unauthorized to access and keeps your data safe. My Book drive, with the WD Backup, WD Drive Utilities™, and WD Security™. For Mac computers, go to the Apple menu and select Software Update or App.

'As part of the reimagined design, the My Passport drives will come in six vivid colors -- Black, Yellow, Red, White, Orange and Blue -- while still providing reliable portable storage that perfectly complements an on-the-go lifestyle. The My Passport for Mac drive is available in a stylish Black color. The trusted desktop storage device, My Book, combines personal style with a massive amount of storage space, up to 8 TB, so users can keep their photos, videos, music, and documents. Each storage device comes with an automatic backup solution for a seamless, user-friendly process, as well as password protection to keep your precious data safe', says Western Digital.

Redis for mac. Jim Welsh, SVP Content Solutions Business Unit, Western Digital explains 'as the storage landscape continues to rapidly evolve, and the bars for design and user-experience have increased, the team focused on the design and user experience to catapult My Passport and My Book to the next level. Through the reimagined design language, we want to engage consumers in a conversation about how storage is core to their lives and how they feel more empowered by the real benefits of capturing, protecting and enjoying life’s precious memories'.

Western Digital shares the following features.

• My Passport
  • New attractive design with textured bottom
  • Password protection with 256-bit AES hardware encryption
  • Automatic backup with included WD Backup software
  • Up to 4TB capacity
• My Passport for Mac
  • New attractive design with textured bottom
  • Password protection with 256-bit AES hardware encryption
  • Formatted for Mac OS X and Time Machine ready for easy backup
  • Up to 4TB capacity
• My Book desktop hard drive(Windows and Mac)
  • Password protection with hardware encryption
  • Automatic backup with included WD Backup software
  • Up to 8TB capacity

The 'My Passport' (starting at $79.99) features a 2.5 inch laptop drive, and is bus-powered. The Mac version is identical, except formatted for Apple's operating system and only available in black. If you are a Mac owner and prefer one of the other colors (I love yellow), don't worry -- you can always reformat them for Mac. The 'My Book' (starting at $129.99) features a 3.5 inch desktop drive and requires external power -- it is for those that need larger capacities.

While Western Digital does not list Linux support, there is no reason why all the drives can't be formatted in a file system such as ext4. The only thing that won't work is the included backup software, but there are plenty of free open source options available for Ubuntu, Fedora, and others.

Which drive will you buy? Which color? Tell me in the comments.

When it comes to backups, software is only part of the equation. There are many good tools on the market, but having a dependable hard drive on the receiving end as important, too.

Purchasing the “best” hard drive is all about what you need out of it. So we have two suggestions:

Our favorite external desktop hard drive

The best external desktop drive is the WD 4TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive – USB 3.0.

This drive connects directly to your Mac through USB. If you’re running a newer computer, you’ll see a huge speed increase thanks to USB 3.0.

The WD My Book is ready to go with Time Machine or SuperDuper! without any hassle. You just plug it in and can begin using it immediately.

Our favorite portable hard drive

If you need an external drive that’s small and easy to fit in your bag and go, the 4 TB WD My Passport Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive is the one to get.

The bus-powered USB 3.0-compatible drive is fast, quiet, and rather rugged. While I wouldn’t drop it off a bridge, the exterior case isn’t flimsy in any way. We’ve used several of these drives for a couple of years without a single hiccup. It’s small enough to fit in your hand (a little bigger than a deck of cards), and being bus-powered means it doesn’t need a separate power source — you just plug it into your computer’s USB port and you’re good to go.

Formatting a new drive

The only downside to these drives is that they are not formatted for macOS out of the box. Apple’s support document on Time Machine gives easy instructions on how to erase and format the drive to work with OS X (for use as a TimeMachine drive, or simply for use as extra storage):

1. Open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder).
2. Connect the disk if it isn’t already attached.
3. In the left side of the Disk Utility window, select the disk you want to use with Time Machine.
4. Optional: If you want to partition the disk, click the Partition tab and select a layout. Make sure “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” is selected in the Format menu for the partition that will be used for backups. Click Apply.
5. Click the Erase tab.
6. Optional: If you want to securely erase the disk, click Security Options to configure, then click OK.
7. Click Erase.
8. After erasing, open Time Machine preferences in System Preferences and configure as described in the section above.

We have a whole section of our site dedicated to doing easy backups of your computer. For more information on backups, check out our main Backups Page.