I bought one of WD's USB-only Passport models a few months ago, and it was total junk. It didn't work on any machine to which I attached it, laptop or desktop, Wintel or Mac, computer port or powered hub. I should have paid attention to the reviews from other users, but I tried to be optimistic.
Of course the company didn't want you to know that your typical USB port doesn't provide enough juice to drive these things, and that you need to get an adapter cable that takes up two USB ports - one for data, the other for power. I ended up having to return it to Buy.com and get a refund. I had an old dual-format portable enclosure from Macally and I ended up swapping out the old 40 Gig drive it was holding for a 160, and it works great. FireWire's got the gumption to run these things.
BUYER BEWARE - Only buy this product if you have an available FireWire port!

The entire Western Digital "My Book" series of external hard drives are unable to boot a non-Intel Mac.

<http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1715>

Curiously, they blame it on Apple instead of WD's use of the Logical Unit Number "0" to flash the annoying lights on the front of the enclosure instead of addressing the actual disk drive.

They're waiting for Apple to fix it. Right...

/rant on

Is it just a WinTel mind set that there ought to be all kinds of flashing lights and indicators that your computer or hardware hasn't hung up?

I see the laptop-zillas in many St.Arbuck's (patron saint of American capitalism! - you go, girl!) with their drive operating lights flashing, and blinking network connection L.E.D.s and glowing Ethernet ports and battery status monitors (OK, I know about that incredibly intrusive green/yellow light on the top of the MagSafe connector to let you know if it's charging) and I wonder what it must be like to have to constantly pay attention to whether or not your computer is still working!

/rant off

At 5 ounces, these will be great for keeping in a laptop bag, or backpack. Especially if they're as shock resistant as planned.

Seems ambiguous about whether the thing can be Firewire bus-powered or not...I'd also like to know if it would work w/Mac OS 10.3.9...just as a FWHD, without all the features...

from the site: http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=469

"FireWire or USB powered - No separate power supply is needed.*

* An optional cable is available for the few computers that limit USB power.


System Requirements

* Available FireWire or USB port
* Mac® OS X 10.4.11+, 10.5.2+
* Windows® 2000/XP/Vista

Compatibility may vary depending on user's hardware configuration and operating system. FireWire interface requires use of the USB port on the drive for power."

...HUH?

Also their web site states 5 year warranty. Pretty sweet!

Maybe the street price of this will be less. But BestBuy has a 250 GB USB 2.0 WD essential for $99.99. $60 for Firewire 400 seems a bite in the rear.

Firewire used to be faster, but I heard on a macgeekcast that while the FW400 chipset developed by Apple handles FW throughput, the Intel USB spec gets faster with bus and processor speeds. So if you have a new Mac, USB 2.0 is probably faster than FW 400. Any guess that's why Airport/Time Capsule have USB, not FW?

Oh. You want to boot from an external drive? Any number of web posters say USB 2.0 works fine. (Haven't tried it myself).

You've already paid for Disk Utility to reformat your new drive to HFS+, unless you lust for their little draw string baggie, don't pay WD for that 15 second operation --

They make it look nice in the picture, but when you see in person it is just another cheap plastic case. The bag is to hide what it actually looks like.

I also agree with the last post about needing an additional cable for powering USB.... on a Mac Air you can forget about it as it has no FW and only one USB

From their website: "FireWire interface requires use of the USB port on the drive for power."

If you look at the pictures on their website, they have two cables connected.
Does this mean that you have to connect the USB cable to the computer? or to an AC-USB adapter? I am guessing any would work if the USB port can provide enough power.

Buried in the fine print in the notes, WD makes a stupid design decision, drawing the power only from the USB port, so not using FireWire bus power.


“If using the FireWire cable, you must plug both the FireWire and USB connectors into the device.”

These drives, like some others, require more current than SOME USB ports (especially on laptops) can provide. Thus the two USB cables. You could plug the other cable into a USB power source, like a portable battery by Macally, etc.

As for FireWire, the problem is probably that the drives use a 4-pin connector, rather than a 6-pin connector, at the drive end. (Go to the linked web site and click on the 3-D view. There is an animation of plugging in the drive that pretty clearly shows a 4-pin FireWire connector.) A 4-pin FireWire connector cannot provide bus power. For the larger market, that's not as limiting as it might appear, as many PCs (especially laptops) only have 4-pin FireWire connectors and cannot provide FireWire bus power to anything. On PCs, FireWire connections are probably most often used for camcorders, which don't need bus power, though many newer camcorders also have USB 2.