. Pros Compact size. Includes automatic backup software and 256-bit AES hardware encryption. Reasonable price.

Cons Design won't appeal to everyone. Bottom Line The 1TB Western Digital My Passport is a utilitarian portable hard drive that features a fun design and solid performance at a decent price. Sometimes you just need a little extra storage, but you don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it. That's exactly why you'd buy a like the Western Digital My Passport. It comes with automatic backup software, along with 256-bit hardware encryption and password protection, but it's light on flashier features like cloud storage—which is fine considering its low price ($79.99 for 1TB). The remains our Editors' Choice pick due to its larger capacity, excellent price-per-gigabyte value, and superior performance, but this drive is a good alternative if your needs are modest.

Design and Features The overall look of the drive is almost identical to that of the 4TB. Everything from the half-glossy, half-textured design to the six different color offerings is the same. Besides capacity, the only real difference between the two is that the 1TB My Passport is a bit slimmer and lighter, measuring 0.64 by 3.21 by 4.33 inches (HWD) and 5.92 ounces instead of the 4TB's 0.85 by 3.21 by 4.33 inches and 8.6 ounces. This makes the drive pretty compact and easy to toss into your bag or pocket. The is, as its name implies, slightly slimmer at 0.5 by 4.5 by 3 inches, but not by much. The 1TB My Passport also shares the same automatic backup, drive utility, and security software as the 4TB version, including 256-bit AES encryption and password protection.

It's formatted for NTFS out of the box, and is compatible with any PC running, Windows 8, or Windows 7. Western Digital does offer a Mac-compatible version, but reformatting this drive is another option. That's about it, however.

Hard Disk 1tb Price

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but features like cloud storage can be helpful as they allow you to access your files even if you don't have your hard drive with you. The Seagate Backup Plus, for example, comes with 200GB of free storage for two years. Finally, the My Passport comes with a USB 3.0 cable and two-year warranty. Performance and Cost The 1TB My Passport isn't the fastest portable drive on the market, but it performed respectably on our benchmark tests. On our PCMark 7 hard drive test, which measures performance across a range of general-usage scenarios, it scored 1,467 points—behind the Seagate Backup Plus (1,985) and the 4TB My Passport (1,737) but slightly better than the Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC (1,423) and the 2TB (1,432).

The drive also took 12 seconds over USB 3.0 to complete our file transfer test, where we time how long it takes to drag and drop a 1.22GB folder onto the drive. That time means the drive is speedy enough for your average backup routine or manual file copying. Price-wise, the 1TB My Passport costs 7.9 cents per gigabyte. That's not quite as good as the 4TB Seagate Backup Plus (3.8 cents), the 4TB My Passport (3.9 cents), or the 2TB My Passport Ultra (6.5 cents). But if you don't want to spend more than $100 and can be satisfied with a terabyte of storage, then this drive is a strong choice.

Conclusion If you're a bargain hunter looking for little extra storage, then the 1TB Western Digital My Passport should be on your radar. It comes in multiple colors, and includes essential features like automatic backup, 256-bit AES encryption, and password protection. You won't find fancier extras like near-field communication support, as you will on the Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC, and you don't get 200GB of cloud storage the way you do with the Seagate Backup Plus, but if you prefer a no-frills product? This is a good deal.