Western Digital is increasing capacity on their My Passport Elite and Essential external USB connected hard drives to 500 Gb. This is a good size for an external hard drive to house digital data such as movies, photos and music.

With the Passport and Elite line of hard drives, Western Digital is addressing two of the more common concerns of consumers. The first is expanded capacity, and the second is backups. With all this data, a simple backup solution needs to be in place so that no challenges are experienced with such a critical function. To this extent, Western Digital has included a one touch backup software to automate data backups.

The new drives are very portable, weighing in at only 7 ounces. Construction is solid, allowing for the rigors of daily use. With it’s small size, these hard drives easily fit into either a backpack or a pocket.

Some of the other features include 128 bit encryption, the ability to recover forgotten files while on the road using a MioNet enabled pc, and a capacity gauge to allow at a glance inspection of how much free space is available. All this is backed by the Western Digital 5 year warranty.

The Passport and Elite drives are available in 4 colors: bronze, titanium, westminster blue and cherry red;

[via Slash Gear]