WD Passport Portable Hard Drive

TomsMom

I hope I've put this in the right place and the computer experts read this!

Following my plea for recommendations for purchasing an external hard drive in the I Want To Buy It section, I have now got an Western Digital Passport portable hard drive.

The instructions for installing it say that:

"when installed a menu displays a list including WD Sync and Google software. To install software, double click your choice on the menu; otherwise click Quit to begin using the drive".

Can someone please explain what the WD Sync and Google software is and do we need it? There is nothing in the Quick Install Guide to tell us what this is about and I don't seem to be able to find it on the WD support website.

Thanks.

Jzpop

The WD Sync software allows you to copy data such as Outlook emails to the portable drive, take the drive to another PC, access those files, then 'sync' with your own PC when you return, i.e. add a copy of emails that you have sent/received while at the other PC.

see http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1434&p_created=1149096211&p_sid=79Tz_aAi&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MSZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9c2VhcmNoX2ZubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PTE0MzQ*&p_li=&p_topview=1
and
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/portable/2579-701178.pdf (PDF file)
and
http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/passport/Passport-Black-QIG.pdf
and
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2005627,00.asp
for more info.

I presume that the Google software is a program that indexes the content of the drive, so that you can quickly 'google' for anything stored on it

colin79666

in short if all you want to do is backup your files don't bother with the extra bloatware

just plug it and then click and drag

TomsMom

Thank you both very much. Your help is much appreciated.

As you say 30111987 (wish I was that young and knowledgeable!) it is really to back up files in a way, storing photos and hubby's accounts, both of which will also be on a disk, so it looks like I don't need to load this software.