WD 1TB Elements USB 3.0 Portable HD

There is not much to say about this external hard drive. I bought it for using as a Time machine backup device in my macbook pro. For that purpose it works okay. I needed to reformat it for mac for that purpose but before that I tried it on my pc and it is ready to go with no need for reformatting or setting up The USB 3.0 capability is a plus (but it is also backward compatible with USB2.0 as well). I have seen a data transfer rate of upto 80.6 mb/sec and an average of 70-75mb/sec while transferring a 2.2gb video file into the drive. When I transferred the same file from the drive back to my laptop the maximum transfer rate was 101mb/sec and the average was 80-90mb/sec. Of course these values depend on the file as well but I measured similar values with different files so I can say it is consistently fast.. It comes with an approximately 18.5 inches long transfer cable and through this cable it transfers both data and power. Other than that it does not offer a case or anything else. The device has limited warranty but, to me it is very difficult to make a warranty claim for an external hard drive since the warranty only covers none user mediated errors and most drives do fail either due to dropping or not safely removing neither of which are covered by this limited warranty. However, This hard drive is UL certified and that is a plus in terms of electrical safety (yet it does not guarantee it won't ever fail). WD is a reliable brand in external hard drive market and in addition to this 1gb WD element, I also have a WD passport ultra which I use for backing up my PC. The main difference between these two exactly same size (3.2 X 4.3X 0.5 inches) devices is that the ultra comes with the full version of the WDsmartware software which automatically backs up the PC when the device is connected. This cheaper model has only the trial version of that software but honestly, if you are buying it for mac's you don't ever need it anyways (time machine does the same thing for free). Currently (april 2015) this is one of the cheapest (among well known brands) 1tb device in amazon market place so I can easily recommend this as a backup drive to whoever is looking for one...