WD links the portable drive with Dropbox online storage

You can never have too much backup, especially since anything in the world can fail just like that. We’ll touch wood to hope it doesn’t happen to us, but a new external drive from Western Digital aims to make it easier to have your data in two places at once.

The newest WD My Passport Ultra hard drive will retain its slim and compact size with USB 3.0 connectivity (backwards compatible with USB 2.0), but add Dropbox integration when the WD SmartWare Pro software is installed.

“WD’s My Passport Ultra combines USB 3.0, a range of colours and capacities and the best software and hardware functions currently found in our line of My Passport portable storage drives to create the ultimate portable digital safe for today’s active consumer,” said WD’s Jim Welsh.

“Adding WD SmartWare Pro technology with auto backup and password protection to one of the industry’s fastest interfaces and largest capacity drives gives consumers the convenience and peace of mind to enjoy, share, and protect their personal digital content everywhere they go.”

The My Passport Ultra range released in Australia includes 500GB and 1TB varieties, with the half-gig model coming to stores for $99, while the one terabyte model fetches $139. Both will arrive with a small pouch to store the hard drive in.

While Dropbox support is included, we doubt you’ll be uploading the full gigabytes of storage, and suspect the software will let you choose which of the important files get the double-backup treatment. Still, it’s a neat idea, and one that will help secure those valuable files.