Western Digital yesterday updated two of its hard drive series: the My Passport Essential and the My Book Essential. The secure My Passport Essential and My Passport for Mac ultra-portable external hard drives now feature WD's new WD SmartWare software and are equipped with hardware-based encryption.

Similarly, the My Book Essential and My Book for Mac desktop external hard drives are also equipped with the new WD SmartWare software and hardware-based encryption.

The new portable drives with WD SmartWare software visually present consumers' data in a control center, providing them peace of mind that their precious photos, videos and files are securely protected.

All of them also provides user-selected password protection combined with military-grade 256-bit hardware encryption, which scrambles files before they are stored.

The new My Passport Essential drives are offered in capacities of 320 GB, 500 GB and 640 GB; My Passport Essential SE drives are offered in capacities of 750 GB and 1 TB. My Passport for Mac drives are available with 320 GB and 500 GB. Price ranges from $109.99 to $249.99.

The new My Book Essential drives are offered in capacities of 500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB with price ranging from $99.99 to $249.99.