This backup drive does exactly what it says. No complaints, Perfectly satisfied, though it may not be as fast as advertised on some systems, including mine.
On my computer, which is a 2014 era 1.86Ghz ASUS with 4Gb Ram, the process is a bit slow, even on a USB 3.0 slot. I used the included software to backup about 45 Gigs of documents, photos, and music for an initial trial. It took about 90 minutes for 45 Gigs. That's about 1 Gig per two minutes, far from what some users report at 5 Gigs per second. This was on a USB 3.0 slot. So, just to warn you ahead of time, it may be pretty slow on low performance computers. Especially for large back ups.
You can schedule backups hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly automatically, and the backup software that is included in this drive will update any information you've saved on your computer's hard drive in that span of time. This is really convenient for me as a writer. I don't have to manually back up my files anymore. If I've been working on a long file like a book for over a month, I can back up my whole document on the first backup, and then it will back up just the part I've written since the last backup, in subsequent backups. For instance, I did my second backup today, and it was just 13 Megs of information that I've added since my initial 45 Gig first backup. This second backup took about 40 minutes total. Backing up information can be done in the background if you want to work on other things while it is taking place, which makes the included software convenient. Just click one button for each subsequent backup, or if you have the Western Digital drive attached, it will backup at the specified hour, day, week, or month that you want to backup, automatically, with no click of a button..
You can initially choose which file paths and folders you want to backup. You don't have to back up your computer's whole hard drive in automatic backups. In my case, I chose just Documents, Photos, and Music.
As other users have hinted, the files are backed up on the Western Digital drive in a special file format with different file extensions than the source file on your hard drive. They appear in a "bin" folder on the Western Digital hard drive. Though not that obvious, they are still easy to find. Restoring backed up data is basically one click of a button as well, using the software included. I have not tried restoring data as yet.
However, if you would rather back up your files manually and exactly as they are on your computer's hard drive (same file names and extensions, etc.), you can do so just as easily as with any other USB drive. Simply copy the files directly to the Western Digital hard drive using your Windows File Explorer, like you would with any USB drive. Just out of curiosity, I copied my 45 Gigs of files manually a second time, not using the Western Digital backup software, but Windows file explorer instead. The process was painless and easy since Western Digital drive is formatted in NTFS, just like most computer hard drives. It only took 2 minutes for my computer to copy 45 Gigs of files directly to the Western Digital drive using Windows copy feature rather than Western Digital's software. This was on a USB 3.0 slot.
So, it easy to use this drive with the included software, or just as a supplemental hard drive saving to it like you would any USB drive.
| Hard Drive | 1 TB usb 3 |
|---|---|
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 1 |
