My Passport ultra for backing up photos
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Backing up photos with WD My Passport Ultra – giveaway

ByEmma

Like most people (and probably more so than a lot of non-bloggers or non-photographers), I have a lot of photos and other essential documents on my laptop that I really don’t want to lose.  That means backing up photos and documents on my hard drive regularly.

I’m not the only one who values their digital content.  According to WD research, the average consumer values their digital content at £3,241 and 1 in 4 (26%) say their digital content is ‘priceless’.  1 in 3 (31%) run out of storage capacity at least monthly.

I did have a scare about 4.5 years ago when my old laptop died with a motherboard problem.  Thankfully at the time I had a WD My Passport external hard drive, so I knew lots of my photos were already backed up on there but my more recent ones weren’t.  Luckily a computer expert retrieved my photos and ever since I’ve been a big fan of external hard drives.  Yes I have a (very full) drop box where some photos are saved, but I don’t find it user friendly and begrudge paying for extra space which works out expensively compared with external hard drives.  So since then I have bought a couple more external hard drives.  Of course, owning them doesn’t mean regularly backing up, but I try to do it every 6 months or so.

Recently WD approached me to review one of their products – the WD My Passport Ultra 1TB.  Having already used the My Passport range in the past, of course I wanted to share my experiences with them.

My Passport ultra for backing up photos

What I want from an external hard drive like the WD My Passport Ultra is a lightweight, compact, easy to use, fast hard drive, that will work with no problems with my laptop and any others I need to connect it to.  It does all of these things…and looks pretty because you can have it in various colours.  I’ve had the blue before, but the red’s pretty nice too.  Being a bit of a girl, they’d look fab stacked on a shelf together, although I do usually keep mine hidden away from N’s sticky fingers and the OH prodding them about wondering what they are!

The main thing I love about the WD My Passport is how easy they are to use.  The Ultra will let you set up auto back ups when you want, and you can also back up to the cloud if needed.  All you need to be able to use one is to plug it into the USB port.  I usually use mine by opening windows explorer and just dragging and dropping the files or folders as I do with normal document management.  Simple.  The only thing you would need to watch out for is if you want to use it with a Mac. It needs reformatting to do so.

WD My Passport Ultra

Everything is encrypted, so your back ups will be secure, you can even set a password.

The transfer speed from pc to hard drive will depend on the speed of the passport, space, number of files and the USB port speed you have.  The Ultra’s compatible with both USB2 and USB3 ports.

It always amazes me how many files you can get on small hard drives.  The My Passport ultra is small enough to be held in one hand, and the 1TB will hold thousands of photos.

What I love:

  • Ease of use through drag and drop
  • Small compact size
  • Speed of transfer
  • Secure and stable – so far I’ve not had a problem with using one across a couple of different laptops. There’s a 3 year warranty just in case.
  • Price – you can often get good deals on the Passport ultra and other WD products
  • Choice – a range of colours, and storage space – the one I’ve reviewed is 1TB, but I’ve also got a 3TB device.

The niggles:

I’ve only found one apart from the fact I need to remember to do my back-ups rather than it miraculously doing them without my intervention.  When I transfer over folders, if I’ve got the folder already on my passport, it doesn’t merge the two, it duplicates.  So I’ve found I have to copy at the lower level rather than just copying the whole lot.  Of course if you delete everything from your computer after putting it on your device (and the cloud for a second back up), then it wouldn’t be an issue because you’re just copying over new folders.

There’s not really an excuse for not backing up and I really need to get into a month habit of doing it.

You can buy the My Passport ultra from the WD store.

For one lucky reader, I’ve got one My Passport Ultra 1 TB to giveaway.  Just put your answer in the comments below, then complete the rafflecopter widget.

Terms and conditions

  1. UK entry only, over 18s
  2. Giveaway closes 11.59pm 27th March 2016
  3. Entries will be validated according to the rules of entry
  4. There is 1 prize of a WD Passport Ultra 1TB device.
  5. There are no exchanges or monetry exchanges.
  6. The data of anyone that enters won’t be passed on to any third parties or used for any unsolicited marketing communications.
  7. Winner will be randomly chosen, and will be shown on this post, and may be shared on social media.
  8. Winner will be notified via email, and will need to respond within 3 weeks to claim their prize otherwise a further winner will be drawn.
  9. The prize will be sent directly from the prize sponsor.
  10. This giveaway may be featured on Loquax, Prizefinder and Superlucky

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Disclosure: I was sent a My Passport Ultra for the purpose of review, all words and opinions are my own.

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385 Comments

  1. Family photos. Currently use a dual bay NAS drive with RAID 1 disks and an external HDD for backup.

  4. I’d hate to lose the pics of my children. I haven’t backed anything up like I should have done because I still have all the originals on the SD cards that were in the phones I took the pics with. Really I should back them all up in the same place.

  6. I’d hate to lose family photos and it would be really inconvenient to lose documents. My son handles the backups, currently everything is backed-up to a second computer and also the Virgin Media cloud, but that is closing soon so we’ll have to find somewhere else!

  7. I would be very sad to lose the photos of my daughter from her first days to her first year

  10. I hate to loose my university essays. I usually email them to myself so I have back ups wherever I go.

  12. i’d hate to lose my photos and clips. I use cloud back ups because I can access my data from any internet access point around the world.

  13. I’d hate to lose anything related to my business! I back up everything on the cloud and a portable hard drive!

  15. I’d hate to lose all the family photos. I do backup to a hard drive but as the rest of the family also back up to it we are running out of space.

  16. I have all my picture of children that are precious , I store two copies on different hard drives

  18. My family photos, we did use a external hard drive to back up files but it recently died on us.

  19. I’d be devastated if I lost the baby photos of my children. Currently have some backed up on external hard drive, but need to add the most recent ones.

  21. would hate to lose my photos, I put them on a external drive its only small though

  23. My photos, which are currently backed up on an an ageing and rather bulky external hard drive.

  26. All my photos from New York, my family, pets. I currently don’t have them backed up!

  27. My photos, moments in time you can never replicate, currently back up on old hard drive.

  30. My photos of family and travels – I am tardy when it comes to backing up my computers

  32. I would hate to lose all my photos. I have an external drive to do my backups but it’s full now!

  34. I back docs and pics to two hard drives as I don’t just trust one. It is pics of my grandchildren that are the most precious. I print out some then digitally file others by name. Takes some keeping up with though!

  35. All the thousands of photos we have- we put them on DVDs at the moment but a passport would be ideal!

  40. Like many others I would hate to lose photographs, especially those of my Dad which sadly cannot now be replaced. I back up a few on a USB stick

  41. It would be my portfolio and drawings from university. I currently back them up on a very old WD drive plus some dvds, but it is running out of space!

  42. Its mostly photos and videos, back them up to an old computer but thats running windows XP and not sure how long it will be compatable with new software

  44. Id hate to lose my photos – I’ve no if we back up stuff, I don’t know how!!

  45. i’d hate to lose my photos and some bits of genealogy research, currently don’t back up, naughty i know

  47. Photos of the children when they were smaller. I currently have our old pc at the computer shop trying to retrieve them from our old hard drive

  50. I would hate to lose my photos. I stupidly dont back them up as I am not sure how to.

  54. I have lots of family photo’s either backed up on DVD & a USB stick . I really should do regular backups but at present on this laptop I don’t have any important files & some are already on my Windows Smartphone

  55. I currently back up on an external hard drive. I’d hate to lose my photos and all my family history research.

  59. photos, to back up I save all my documents onto Microsoft online and upload all photos to Facebook

  62. I would hate to lose my photos. Currently, I copy them to the cloud but I’m not altogether happy with that

  64. Photos. I believe my photos go to a cloud, but where that is and how they get there I have no clue.

  66. I would hate to lose my old photos. They are on an old hard drive but need backing up before it conks out so this prize would be ideal.

  67. I’d like to back up all my photos – currently I’m using a memory stick for this.

  68. Like many others, it’s irreplaceable memories such as photos and videos of family past and present. Part backed to cloud and a small inadequate portable media device of around 1gb – laughable in todays world 🙂

  69. my gardening course work especially as deadline approaches. Hubby usually backs up my computor every coupl of months, bless him.

  72. I would hate to lose all my photos and important documents as i recently got a virus that did just that x

  73. I would hate to lose all my photos, and I don’t currently back them up so this would be brilliant for me to win!

  74. I’d hate to lose my photos. Currently back up very occasionally on an external hard drive

  75. Our wedding photos! I have them backed up on an old hard drive but it’s not the most reliable so I need to look into getting a new one.

  76. I’d hate to lose photos but i’m pretty secure with them. They are backed up to the cloud, and posted on FB so they are unlikely to be lost forever.

    Work files/reports are on my computer and they’d be a real frustration to lose.

  80. my photos – I have a large collection of micro sd cards which have loads on would be nice to put hem all in one place tho

  85. I would hate to loose my photos so I back them up on an external drive. Plus I print a photo book a year.

  86. Would hate to lose all of the photos of my grandchildren, you can never get that same picture again.

  87. I’d definitely be most upset at the loss of my photos and videos, though I do also have a couple of spreadsheets I would be pretty upset to lose!

    1. Oops, got so distracted thinking about how upset I’d be if I lost all my photos I forgot to say how I currently backup! I use a combination of a couple of USB sticks, and I have an external hard drive – but it’s now full which isn’t very helpful :-\

  88. family photos of members who have sadly passed away. I don’t currently back up my photos. I know I should.

  92. I would hate to lose my photos I get some printed as they are nice to browse through but i take too many to have them all printed so i also back them up on DVDs

  93. Pretty much everything I have on the computer as it’s all precious, and as I use a Mac I keep everything updated with my time machine 🙂

  95. I’d hate to lose our family photos, currently I don’t back up my computer. I do have a separate usb stick for the photos though, but it is full up.

  100. I do a lot of travelling and take a lot of photos of the places I visit, so would hate to lose these as they are fantastic memories to have to look back on. I currently store my photos in DropBox, but running out of space.

  102. My photos. Over the years I have lost so many good photos and memories due to corrupted data, not enough storage, losing camera or it breaking! I really would love some extra storage so I can keep it all in one place!

  108. I would hate to lose all the photos of my daughter. Things like her first steps and days out. Currently i back up to onedrive.

  111. Cherished family photos and Excel documents of the family finances. I’m currently using a detachable hard drive, but could do with a more spacious one 🙂

  114. My photos and my videos of my children since they was born I’d cry if I lost all of them because I could never replace them! I currently have most of them on icloud but would love to store them all myself offline

  115. I would hate to lose the years of research on my family tree and all the family photos. I do not back up anything at the moment but do worry about it but do not know the best way to do it.

  117. Photos of my mum and sister from years back, both passed now. Funny though I have backed up the old physical photos to a CD and now thinking of putting them on the ‘Cloud’ (Still worry about that as a safe medium). So if there is a fire etc I will still have some sort of record.

  120. I would hate to lose all my photos. Digital is convenient but there is no negative to get extra prints if you lose them.

    I currently back up manually to a 2nd hard drive

  125. I wouldn’t like to lose my photographs and also my document and research results from tracing my family tree.At the moment I use Cloud to store my files but could do with a better backup system.

  127. I would hate to lose all my photos -my family do my back up as I am a technical incompetent!

  129. I’d hate to lose my pictures, I tend to just back them up by uploading them all to Facebook!

  130. I’d hate to lose my photos, don’t currently back up the computer but this has made me think I should look into the cloud thing that I don’t really understand…. yet!

  135. This would be great to put all my university work on so its easier to take to study days.
    I don’t back up and I’m sure one day i’m going to regret this!

  137. My photos, spreadsheets, docs, emails – so much to lose.

    Currently I back up to an external USB hard drive.

  138. The photos of my twins. I back up to sub and some are on the cloud and most are on my social media accounts too

  140. My family videos & pictures, I back up on another external hard drive but as it only has a small amount of storage, I haven’t backed up in months!

  145. I would hate to lose my photos and music. We use an external hard drive but need to back up a lot more often than we do!

  151. I would hate to lose my pet and family photos and also a few documents that I must keep for 7 years. I have only just got to the point at which I need to think about backing up.

  152. I use a WD Passport already but have so many photos another one would be great. Family photos are such precious memories, I’d hate to lose them

  159. I’d hate to lose my photos. I have an external hard drive to back them up but it’s not got a huge memory and it’s nearly full.

  165. I would hate to lose (and have lost all the baby/toddler) the children’s photos. We’ve always backed them up but unfortunately our ASD son ruined our Harddrive and the pics along with it

  166. Photos mostly.

    Look at offsite back up too, easiest being online but alternatively keep back up drive at relatives or friends in case something happens to home like fire or burglar.

  167. I have years worth of photos which would be great to have all in one place. I don’t back up my computer often enough!

  168. The photo’s as usual would be the worst loss. Currently they are backed up to an old NAS

  169. My pictures would be the worse. I wouldn’t like to lose anything but pictures can’t be replaced. I currently back them up to external HDD and have a lot of them on Google Photos.

  170. I’d hate to loose my photos of the children growing up – they are irreplaceable. I back up to dropbox at the moment

  171. I’d hate to lose all of my laptop photos, and I don’t tend to keep any back ups

  173. I’d hate to lose photos and our family business stuff. Currently back up to drop box and external drives.

  176. I would hate to lose my photos and I don’t really back up but my photos are stored from my phone in drop box

  180. I (much to infrequently) back up to an old external drive. I also have a partitioned drive on my laptop to back up to. Photos are printed into books and backed up online. I couldn’t bear to lose them!

  184. I would be devastated to lose all my photographs. I have not got any back up for my PC, but I do have some of my photos on a cd

  188. I’d hate to lose the photos and videos of my children and my wedding photos. I currently use one drive to back up.

  191. Would back up photos and documents. Don’t really do enough back up at the moment

  192. My digital photos and some old ones I have scanned in, I back up to an external hard drive

  193. Mainly my photos. I’ve got some back-ups on my laptop but it would be good to have something separate.

  202. All of my family photos, especially the newborn pictures of my nephews and niece.

  203. I would hate to lose our wedding photos. I’m very bad at remembering to back things up, I think my Anti-Virus program does it automatically, not sure though – I should really check in to that!

  210. Family photos! I currently back up the most important stuff onto USB sticks or try and print the most important photos so that I have a physical copy

  212. I absolutely agree with how hard it is having so many precious files as a blogger, I have two years worth of nail art pictures on my computer with little place to back them up but if they vanished I think I’d survive.. What I’d really hate to lose is my folders full of my previous family and pets, I don’t get to see them often and some have passed so they are even more valuable to me <3

  213. It’s actually my work documents that I would be my worst nightmare to lose. I currently back up to an external hard drive which isn’t very big and getting quite full and for some things I burn to disc.

  215. Entered to win this for my son, I would hate to lose my mind (I already crazy according to my family) lol

  216. Family videos and pics – currently have a tiny 1gb flash card for backup and it’s full.

  217. All the videos of the fetes I helped to organise and the quiz night questions I compiled over the last few years.

  218. All my holiday photo’s which are backed up on a external hard drive and also on discs as a double redundancy because i nearly lost them all after a hard drive failed.

  219. I would hate to lose my wedding and honeymoon photos. I don’t currently have them backed up to anything other than the original CD I was given :/

  220. I would hate to lose all my holiday snaps, so many memories! I currently back up using an external hard drive, but it’s too small to fit everything on, so would be great to win this!

  223. My photographs. I save them on to a CD after a period of time or a special occasion

  224. – tend to back up by saving photos and bits and bobs temporarily in online mail drafts, until I can come up with something a bit more convenient and effective than the big brick-size backup drive with temperamental power lead that I have at the moment…!

  229. I would hate to lose all my family photographs and we back up with usb sticks at the moment

  231. I would hate to lose all my family photos, I use a memory stick and icloud at the moment

  235. family photos, I haven’t backed up in ages though :/ I’d use an external hard drive like tje one in the post.

  236. I would hate to lose all of the old family photos that I have scanned and painstakingly restored

  240. Family photos. I back up to the cloud but would prefer backing it up onto something a bit more physical like an external hard drive.

  243. Photos and videos of the kids growing up – backed up to external USB drive – never enough space

  252. Documents and photos – currently backed up to the cloud, a computer and also a USB drive

  257. Has to be my photos – just so many memories especially of loved ones no longer with us x

  258. I would hate to lose family photos. Currently i back my system up via Nortons Ghost on DVDR.

  259. I would really hate to lose my photos as most of them are of my children. Currently they’re all stored on my laptop.

  261. I try to keep everything important in the cloud, one drive, drop box, etc.
    It does mean I need the internet to upload new stuff though.

  262. I can’t live without my music!
    I currently have my old laptop to back up, it’s EXTREMELY OLD, but my new laptop has very little memory (it was a very thoughtful present from my none techy boyfriend)

  263. My photo’s of holidays with my family all which I treasure & could never get back x

  264. I would hate to lose my precious photos especially of those who are no longer with me. I currently back up on usb stick did use an external hard drive but it’s broke

  270. I back my family photos and videos on USB at the minute but would hate to lose them.x

  273. all of our pictures. my partner backs things up onto something similar, but it’s definitely not a terrabyte so this would be brilliant!

  280. I would back up photos – currently dont really back up but this has made me think about it

  282. Obviously family photos are very important, but I’d especially hate to lose those of my son. We adopted him when he was little and already missed out on so much from his first year, we’ve made extra sure to record all his subsequent firsts and they are so important to us – and also to him in terms of his identity.

  286. I have videos and photos on the pc that I wouldn’t want to lose, I think you can always find songs again. I use an old laptop to back things up.

  287. I would hate to lose all my family videos. We currently backup once every few months. Must do it more often!

  288. Like most other people it’s my photos I worry about. I managed to do my whole degree without backing up but I see now how foolish that was!

  292. photos, i stupidly put some on my first computer, got a virus & lost them or they got corrupted! so decided not to do that anymore, safer to download to hard disc straight away, just in case.

  293. Oh definitely photos and videos of the family. I currently back up on a paid cloud service which is almost full!

  296. Would hate to lose all the photos and videos on my laptop but I haven’t done so, will get it done asap now though x

  297. I’d hate to lose all my photos and all my old Uni coursework. I currently have a 320GB hard drive, but it’s full and occasionally when I plug it in the computer says it’s corrupt, eek! I also have lots of 8GB and 4GB USB flash drives, but I’d like to consolidate it all on to one larger capacity hard drive.

  298. I would hate to lose my memories. I back up to Cloud and use portable hard drives to store pictures, music and documents.

  303. My mother in law doesn’t have a computer but has loads of photos that have filled up her phone – I’d love to be able to put them all on this for her!

  305. I would hate to loose all my thousands f photos, I have Drives like this buy need more as im a photographer and take so many pics x

  306. I have a certain photo of someone from a long time ago that I would hate to lose. I keep my backups in the cloud.

  308. My phots & my music. I don’t back up as often as I should – only when my Hubby nags me! We have a small external hard drive, but I have to empty it before I can back-up.

  309. I would hate to lose photos. I’ve got them backed up to usb sticks, which reminds me, I’d better check I can find them and that I’ve got it all backed up.

  311. i currently use drop box but am not confident at using it, i would hate to lose my holiday photos or photos of mum plus it would be a nightmare having to remember all the sites passwords

  314. My photos of my boys growing up. I have a hard drive I back most documents & photos on. You never know!

  319. It has got to be family photographs because of all the memories.
    I don’t even know how to back up but I would love to win this prize and be safe from such a loss.

  320. I’d hate to lose my photos, and I do have an external hard drive that’s getting full!!

  322. I’d hate to lose my photos. At the moment I back them up on a USB pen drive

  324. My sons laptop hardrive started to fail luckly he managed to save most of the files on there. On a few were lost and the manufacturer even covered this under the warranty.

  325. Photographs as sentimental. Don’t tend to use computer for photographs, maybe I should start. luckily have some friends who do use their computer for storing and viewing photographs and they have some photographs of mine. If they lived nearer to me I would get them to assist me in regards to computer skills etc.

  327. I have an external hard drive already, but its about to give up the ghost on me (and it’s full of my important photos!)

  329. I would hate to lose all my pictures although I don’t currently back them all up as I have nowhere to store them other than my hard drive.

  331. I would hate to lose my photos. I have a few on my mobile and I have backed up my pictures to drop box, but its not big enough for all my photos and I am running out of room..

  332. I just back up using a memory card.
    I would hate to lose my photos, they are irreplaceable.

  334. I’d hate to lose my photographs and my digital music collection. I back up about once a month but only photos, music and documents. I’d love an external hard drive so I could do a full image backup of my PC :o)

  335. Photos of my kids. I’d be heartbroken! i print them, put them all on Facebook and pop them on an external hard drive….but now that doesn’t work with my new mac!

  337. i would hate to loose photos and my scan pics i currently back them up onto discs , external hard drive and usb sticks

  341. I would hate to lose my photos they are on my phone and computer hard drive at the moment.

  342. I would hate to lose my photos. I have one drive on my mobile and ive got a few pictures in drop box, but that’s not big enough for all my photos.

  345. My mobile phone. My heart beats fast when I’ve misplaced it and I struggle to remember what i did with it.

  352. I would hate to lose precious photos, I currently don’t have a back up system tbh

  353. I would hate to lose precious photos. I don’t really have a good back up system at the moment though tbh

  356. I would hate to loose family photos, pet photos and also all my photos from concerts! Infact, I would hate to loose any of my photos! x

  357. Having previously suffered from complete hard drive failure on more than one occasion I’d have to say the whole hard drive. I back up individual files – photos, docs etc but the time consuming part is reloading all the different programmes I use all the time. I’d love to press a button and have the whole drive copies back

  359. I’d hate to lose all of the photos that I have on my laptop and I must admit that I’m not the best at backing them up

  361. my computer backs-up every hour, but I want a back-up for my back-up, would hate to lose photos and documents

  366. I haven’t really thought about it, but I’d hate to lose all my photos. The songs and films can be replaced, but not the photos and documents. I don’t currently back them up, although I’m now thinking I definitely should.

  370. I would hate to lose my pictures of the kids. They are on my phone, on the computer and on my icloud account. One more backup would definitely make me feel better

  377. I dont back anything up , i know i really should , i wouldnt want to loose pictures of my son when he was little and my grandkids

  378. Family photos! I currently back up on an external hard drive but i have had it for ages and its got low memory and nearly full!

  380. I do have a selection of backup devices but all are very small so I never know that I’ve covered everything – photos would be the big loss…

  381. Photos of special events and my kids first birthdays at the moment its all backed up to google drive x

  382. I would hate to lose all my photos! I currently back up on to an external hard drive which is very temperamental!

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