Designed for Mac and ready to be used with Time Machine, the 4TB My Passport for Mac USB 3.0 Type-C External Hard Drive from WD can be used to create system backups, store your photos and videos and much more. The drive comes preformatted in HFS+ for Mac and works out of the box; simply plug the drive in and begin transferring your files. A WD My Passport formatted with Mac file system will be a dud on the Windows and vice-versa. Thankfully, MS-DOS FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file system to make your WD My Passport work with a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously.

• Pros Slick, compact chassis. Matches the black and silver motif of newer Macs. Terrific dollar-per-gigabyte value. 2 year warranty.

Large 1TB storage capacity. • Cons Does not support USB 3.0 nor FireWire 800. Slightly on the slower side.

• Bottom Line The Western Digital My Passport offers a spacious hard drive for casual Mac users who simply want to back their data up, but there are faster drives with faster connections available. You've made the conscious decision to purchase an iMac or MacBook Pro and have now come to the unfortunate realization that you need more space to store your stuff. What to do, Mac devotee? Sure, you can purchase any ordinary external hard drive, but it'd make more sense to get one that comes formatted specifically for Macs so it can work right out of the box.

It also wouldn't hurt if the hard drive shares the aesthetic sensibilities of your Mac to create the appearance that it's a natural extension of your system instead of an incongruous foreign appendage. Enter the Western Digital My Passport for Mac (1 TB), a portable that, at $159.99 (direct), offers a terrific dollar-per-gigabyte value while complementing the silver-black motif of most newer Macs. Beneath its stylish surface, the My Passport for Mac (1 TB) comes pre-formatted with HFS+, the native Mac OS file system, and also fully supports Apple Time Machine. And while the My Passport for Mac (1 TB) can be reformatted for use with Windows, it's clearly designed with Mac users in mind.

Momentum indicator forex strategy forex charts for mac. Still, the drive could have benefited from additional connectivity options, like USB 3.0 or FireWire 800. Overall, it's a solid option for everyday Mac users looking for capacity and ease of use, though not necessarily the best fit for power users regularly working with large amounts of data. Design and Features You'd be hard pressed to find a more compact portable hard drive than the My Passport for Mac (1 TB).

Measuring 3.2 by 4.4 inches and just under an inch thick, it's roughly the size of my wallet and felt comfortably unobtrusive in my pockets. The drive successfully emulates the Mac aesthetic, with a two-toned black and silver color scheme.

Its light 8.3-ounce weight is attributable to the sturdy plastic material encasing the drive. The result is a design that fits in your hand as comfortably as it does in your chinos. A single Micro USB 2.0 port on the back panel is used for both power and data transfer, so nothing beyond the included USB cable is required for users on the go. The My Passport is the lower-priced version of Western Digital's two Mac-specific hard drives, the other being the (1 TB) ($179.99 list, 4 stars). In addition to its USB 2.0 port, the My Passport Studio comes with two FireWire 800 ports that you can use to daisy chain and a higher price tag. Neither of these Western Digital hard drives supports USB 3.0, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since no current Mac features USB 3.0. Those seeking a USB 3.0 port for cross-platform use or for possible future Macs would be better off with the (500 GB) ($174.00 list, 3 stars).

The My Passport for Mac (1 TB) comes formatted for HFS+, the native Mac OS file system, making it readily compatible with Apple Time Machine. If you don't use Time Machine and prefer to manually store your data, this is still a handy storage drive, though no other backup software comes preinstalled.

This may be an issue if you still use Mac OS X 10.4 or earlier versions. The My Passport for Mac (1 TB) also comes loaded with a drive health utility that goes into more detail than the Disk Utility included in Mac OS X; a WD + Turbo utility that speeds some disk operations (we tested the drive without the Turbo utility); and a WD Security app for hardware encryption to shield your data from unwelcome eyes. Like the (1.5TB) ($219.99 list, 3.5 stars), the My Passport for Mac (1 TB)'s two-year warranty is better than the standard one-year warranty typically included with most drives, though it's not as extensive as the three-year warranties that come with more expensive drives, like the (1 TB) ($199.99 list, 3 stars). Performance On our tests, the My Passport for Mac (1 TB) was an average performer. Using USB 2.0, it performed slightly slower than comparable portable drives in its class, copying our 1.22 GB test folder in 47 seconds, which is 5 seconds slower than the Iomega Helium Portable HD, another portable USB 2.0 drive. The My Passport for Mac (1 TB) is also slower on the same test than the My Passport Studio (44 seconds), the Verbatim Store 'n' Go (42 seconds), and the Seagate GoFlex Ultra-Portable (37 seconds). While a difference of a few seconds is not exactly glaring, it's worth noting that these other drives all support FireWire 800, so they come equipped with the potential of transferring data at a much faster rate than the My Passport with its USB 2.0 interface.