WD’s "essential" external drives are 3mm shorter

I’m sitting here in New York, using my 250GB external Western Digital Passport external hard drive, and a few moments ago, I received a press release touting the company’s newest product: “WD My Passport Essential.”

You may recall that I bought a 250GB Passport in early December, after giving up on waiting for the delayed 320GB internal drive. Both the 320GB internal and external drives are now shipping.

So, I’m wondering, “What’s the difference between a WD Passport and a WD My Passport Essential”? According to the release,

“Redesigned to complement WD’s popular My Book family of external drives, the drives introduce a sleek new form that feels good in your hand and fits neatly in a pocket or purse. Available now at select retailers and at WD’s online store (http://www.shopwd.com), the new My Passport Essential USB Drives feature a beautiful glossy black finish and put almost a third of a terabyte of digital storage in the palm of your hand.“

First off, the WD Passport that I have already has a glossy black finish. So, what else is different? Let’s check the specs for the 320GB versions of both.

WD Passport WDXMS3200 (the old one)

Performance Specifications
Serial Bus Transfer Rate (USB 2.0) 480 Mbits/s (Max)

Physical Specifications
Capacity 320 GB
Interface USB 2.0

Physical Dimensions
English
Height 0.590 Inches (Max) • Length 5.110 Inches (Max) • Width 3.14 Inches • Weight 0.23 Pounds
Metric
Height 15 mm (Max) • Length 129.78 mm (Max) • Width 79.78 mm • Weight 0.1048 kg

WD My Passport Essential WDME3200 (the new one)

Performance Specifications
Serial Bus Transfer Rate (USB 2.0) 480 Mbits/s (Max)

Physical Specifications
Capacity 320 GB
Interface USB 2.0

Physical Dimensions
English
Height 0.590 Inches • Length 4.967 Inches • Width 3.130 Inches • Weight 0.231 Pounds
Metric
Height 15 mm • Length 126.15 mm • Width 79.5 mm • Weight 0.1048 kg

So, it’s the same hard drive, same interface specs, same bundled software, same shiny black plastic for the case, same thickness, and same weight. However, the case is now 3.6mm shorter and 0.3mm narrower. That, I suppose, is what makes it “essential.” Oooh. Aaaah.