I chose WD because I have a few 1TB and below I’ve used in the past. I loved how they’re products are basically a plug in and easy drag and drop, no hassles storage device. Except this one wasn’t the case. I had to download software for this one which I didn’t mind but was slightly annoyed because again I loved the simple plug in and drag and drop. What really upset me is after doing a test transfer of 1 video and 1 picture it stopped working. I couldn’t get anything else to transfer. Spent hours researching why, changed my wires, made sure drivers and software were up to date, used recommended software, tried single drag and drop, nothing, no success what so ever. Then to make matters worse I wasn’t able to return or exchange it for a different one. When I ... MoreI chose WD because I have a few 1TB and below I’ve used in the past. I loved how they’re products are basically a plug in and easy drag and drop, no hassles storage device. Except this one wasn’t the case. I had to download software for this one which I didn’t mind but was slightly annoyed because again I loved the simple plug in and drag and drop. What really upset me is after doing a test transfer of 1 video and 1 picture it stopped working. I couldn’t get anything else to transfer. Spent hours researching why, changed my wires, made sure drivers and software were up to date, used recommended software, tried single drag and drop, nothing, no success what so ever. Then to make matters worse I wasn’t able to return or exchange it for a different one. When I purchased it online I hadn’t used it right away and by the time I tried to return/exchange it in store they wouldn’t allow it because it was a few days past the return date. So now I have this $100 paper weight….

I'm 72 yrs old and a still-active newsstand magazine publisher, freelance web designer, and pro photographer and videographer. Trust this: In terms of computers and drives, I've seen and been through it all. I've been using external drives large and portable since the late 1980s, my first being SeatGate, then La iCe (the worst0, and many others. I cannot tell you how angry I was when I lost hundreds of precious family photos that can NEVER be replaced on that SeaGate. I swore I'd never use them again, and I haven't, or those 8 La Cie's I got from the Apple Store (still sitting in a back room for the last 30 years, awaiting the day I can get to them and have the data and photos recovered, if possible). I learned one thing critical to all drives: Back Up, Back Up, ... MoreI'm 72 yrs old and a still-active newsstand magazine publisher, freelance web designer, and pro photographer and videographer. Trust this: In terms of computers and drives, I've seen and been through it all. I've been using external drives large and portable since the late 1980s, my first being SeatGate, then La iCe (the worst0, and many others. I cannot tell you how angry I was when I lost hundreds of precious family photos that can NEVER be replaced on that SeaGate. I swore I'd never use them again, and I haven't, or those 8 La Cie's I got from the Apple Store (still sitting in a back room for the last 30 years, awaiting the day I can get to them and have the data and photos recovered, if possible). I learned one thing critical to all drives: Back Up, Back Up, Back Up. There is no workaround to that. Here's what you may not know and sellers sure as heck don't tell you: Expect your drive (any drive) to last 2-3 yrs, if you're lucky. Maybe 4. Next, if it is, say, a 1-TB drive, if you load it with over 70-75%, it can cause your drive to malfunction at the loss of all your data. And this may not occur immediately. To avoid total loss of your data, ALWAYS buy 2 identical drives so you have everything backed up as I do, especially my precious family photos. Here's what I did 6 years ago when I started with Western Digital. Every week (or right then and there) I would load my latest information and data onto my newly purchased drives (Drive A) and back it all up onto the second drive (Drive B). Every 6 months I would buy 2 new drives (C & D) and put personal and family photos from drives A and B onto the new drives (C & D). Note: I keep all business data and projects on separate drives. To accommodate the growing size of my data/photos, I increase the size of my drives as I need them. With WD, I've gone from their 1TB to now their 5TB portable drives (BTW, the "...for Mac" models are no different, no matter what they tell you, than the significantly cheaper ones used for PCs, you just have to reformat them which is easily done) to store my personal stuff. I also back up ALL this unto two large (18 TB) G-Force desktop drives. So, the lesson here is that ALL drives fail, usually much sooner than later with typically no more than a few years of longevity. Whether a month old or 5 years old, they can go out on you for any number of reasons, including bumping or dropping them or smacking them down on your table unless they are SSDs, but even they can die on you too. If you're backed up to another drive, you're good. If you haven't done that, you're....well, you know. They can also die on you for no apparent reason at all even if you've handle and treated them like a newborn baby. And remember, you can be working on a report, term paper or thesis, website, editing photos, whatever, and have backed up two days earlier. Although you'll be safe with all that back-up date on the second drive, you'll have lost all the stuff you've been working on for the last 2 days that you hadn't backed up if your computer goes out! BACK UP every 30 minutes or so if you're working on very critical "ABSOLUTELY CAN'T LOSE THIS STUFF) data, photos, web projects, etc.). My 27-inch Mac Pro is sitting at a computer repair shop as I write this. The video card went out while I was working on a complex website design project and I hadn't backed up that day yet. Fortunately, the loss of the video card didn't cause the los of my work on the computer. But my work over the last few days is sitting in folders on that computers and I need to continue working. So, I'm taking a brand new Western Digital 5-TB portable drive over to them now to put all my folders sitting on my desktop onto that drive and I'll back up all that to a second drive and continue working but on my laptop. REMEMBER, always buy 2 drives, NOT one. And, to Western Digital's credit, since I started using their products 6 years ago, only a big external drive died on me. I have 16 (8 plus their back ups) of their portable drives and ALL of them still work, even the first two I purchased over 6 years ago. Forgive the length of my message but I hope it will help anyone buying external drives for the first time and remind others what you already know. Back Up, Back Up, Back Up. Western Digital cannot replace the data you lost (don't throw away those drives, have the data recovered by a trusted, professional data recovery service) but you can prevent losing your data and precious memories by BACKING UP your data and buying 2 new external drives every 6 months and transfer data from the old drives to the new ones and keep the olds ones (with their data) too.

DISH TV: This 2TB drive is the is LARGEST capacity drive that is compatible with DISH TV Hoppers. The cord included with the drive works to connect to the USB of the Hopper. Look carefully. One end is unusual and fits in the Passport. Cord is a Super fast USB a, but does work with DISH even though DISH says USB 2 only. Step 1: Turn on TV. Step 2. Click DVR on your remote. Step 3. Click OPTIONS on your remote. Step 4: Click Manage recordings. Step 5: Plug in the Western Digital 2T Passport. TV asks if you want to reformat. Click YES. If you have been using this to backup your computer you will lose everything at this point. You need an external drive dedicated to your DISH Hopper. It will not work unless reformatted. Once reformatted it cannot be used to safe data ... MoreDISH TV: This 2TB drive is the is LARGEST capacity drive that is compatible with DISH TV Hoppers. The cord included with the drive works to connect to the USB of the Hopper. Look carefully. One end is unusual and fits in the Passport. Cord is a Super fast USB a, but does work with DISH even though DISH says USB 2 only. Step 1: Turn on TV. Step 2. Click DVR on your remote. Step 3. Click OPTIONS on your remote. Step 4: Click Manage recordings. Step 5: Plug in the Western Digital 2T Passport. TV asks if you want to reformat. Click YES. If you have been using this to backup your computer you will lose everything at this point. You need an external drive dedicated to your DISH Hopper. It will not work unless reformatted. Once reformatted it cannot be used to safe data from your computer, unless you decommission it from DISH TV use, and reformat it for computer use, at which point you lose all your TV programs. SO: 1 harddrive ONLY for DISH TV. A different storage drive for your computer. Step 6: After reformatting was done, I had to unplug the external Passport harddrive. Step 7: At this point I got a real scare. My Hopper showed me that I ONLY had an external HD, and I had 0 programs so step 7 is unplug Hopper. Wait a few minutes and plug in (external HD NOT attached). Now it will see your DVR programming again. Step 8: Click DVR Step 9: Click Options Step 10: Plug in USB from Passport to Hopper (mine is on the back, but yours may be on front)Step 11: Click OPTIONS Step 12: Click Manage Recordings Step 13: Click "Select ALL" or choose just what you wish to save by clicking each program separately. Step 14: Click Transfer. NOTE: If ANY program is recording, the entire folder with that program WILL NOT TRANSFER! For example: I liked "Mom", and am recording the entire season so I can rewatch in order. The entire Mom folder was skipped because Mom was recording at the time. You then need to go back and repeat starting at Step 8, and select only the programs which were skipped. I initially tried every hard drive in our house, and NONE worked because ALL had larger capacity. I DID manage to record a lot of programs to a 500GB Samsung FlashDrive, but resolution was reduced a lot. I am in the middle of downloading, so I am not positive resolution will be the same as on the Hopper, but I think it will be. DISH TV says : NO FLASHDRIVES. A Flashdrive would likely seem to be the perfect solution because they are now storing more and more data, but I tried a 2TB flashdrive, and reformatted it to DISH and it did not work AT ALL. The Samsung 500GB DID work, and that would have been a usable option, except it was too little data for all my programming and had lower resolution. Resolution was satisfactory for me, though lower, but the capacity not big enough. I am trying to move my programs to an external drive because I am switching to the Hopper 3 on Monday. My current Hopper can record or play on 3 different lines at the same time. The Hopper 3 has 16 lines. My old Hopper stores up to 1200GB. The new 2000GB . I bought this just to transfer my programming, but it will be able to live permanently connected to the new Hopper for an extra 2000GB storage. There is a new box that appears when I click DVR, right at the top. it allows choosing either the Hopper HD or the External HD. If that disappears, unplug the External, and reboot the Hopper by unplugging , waiting, replugging.