printer friendly version

A passport to offline backups

Backing up your data is a non-negotiable part of using technology today. Many years ago, technology’s unreliability made backups a must-have for both businesses and consumers. Today, technology is more reliable, and almost everyone offers services that copy data to the cloud as it is created or updated.

For many people, that is sufficient. They rely on the cloud to provide a backup for their data, and they can access the data from anywhere via the Internet. However, when we include cybercrime in the threats people face, the cloud is not the answer unless you have expensive, immutable backup software to rely on. If hit by ransomware, your data is encrypted, and if you have a cloud backup service, that data is also encrypted. Hence the need for disconnected backups.

Western Digital (WD) has released a consumer storage device, the WD My Passport, offering up to 6&bsp;TB of storage. SMART Security Solutions tested a 6 TB My Passport and found it is much more than simply another portable hard drive. The drive is small enough to transport easily, connects via a USB port, and it offers additional security if users want to prevent others from accessing their data. It includes a USB-A cable in the box, which can transfer up to 5 Gbps, making backups fast. A three-year warranty does not hurt either.

Additional applications

On the drive, users are provided with the WD Discovery application for Windows and Apple that manages the My Passport (Linux applications are not available). Once the application is installed, users can choose to install additional applications, such as WD Security to prevent unauthorised access to their data, WD Utilities to manage the drive’s health, and Acronis True Image for Western Digital.

WD Security allows you to add a password to access your My Passport, but users can set it to automatically unlock the drive when they are logged into their computer, an added convenience. It uses 256-bit AES hardware encryption to keep data safe. If it is attached to another device, the password is required. WD Utilities lets you check your drive’s health, put it to sleep if not used for a time period, and even reformat it (make sure you have a copy of WD Discovery if you do reformat).

The WD Discovery software allows you to back up cloud-based data from Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. You will need Internet access as it backs up your entire cloud dataset. Of course, users can copy data directly to the drive via copy and paste (or drag and drop), which is helpful for quickly backing up specific data.

Professional backup and more included

The real gem included with the WD My Passport (apart from having a fast 6 TB portable drive with additional security functionality), is Acronis True Image for Western Digital. This application provides a backup service and other security services with ‘Active Protection’, safeguarding your system and network storage against ransomware and crypto mining. Other tools are also available for managing your data and drives.

Users can also set Acronis to only backup over specific wireless networks, which is useful if they are on the road using cellular data. The settings also allow users to prevent a backup from running when their battery is below a certain percentage. The backup application offers a simple interface for backing up your data, but additional settings are available if users want to change specifics, such as how long to keep backups and more.

An upgrade option to the full Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office application with additional functionality is also available, although the version supplied with the My Passport is adequate for most users. The WD My Passport is aimed at consumers and not business users. Trying to cheat and back up business data from the cloud, such as OneDrive, can lead to error messages, unless the files are on your local drive.

The backup process is fast, except when the data is not on your hard disk as it first needs to download the files.

A portable 6 GB drive is a win on its own, but the added software available with the WD My Passport makes it a great option for backups you need to keep disconnected and safe from cyberthreats and hardware failures.

The WD My Passports, with different storage capacities, can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/2hjpxsmw

Share this article:

Further reading: