Western Digital (http://www.westerndigital.com) has introduced its new My Passport Essential portable hard drive (pictured), My Passport Essential SE portable hard drive and My Book Essential external hard drive.

All three drive families come in a variety of capacities and offer USB 3.0 connectivity (which will run at USB 2.0 speeds on Macs as they don’t support USB 3.0 yet). My Book Essential is now available in a 3TB capacity, in addition to 1TB and 2TB capacities.

My Passport Essential, still WD’s smallest portable drive, is available in a 500GB capacity and comes in five colors: Midnight Black, Cool Silver, Real Red, Pacific Blue and Arctic White (Arctic White is only available in the EMEA and APAC regions). My Passport Essential SE portable hard drives are available in 750GB and 1TB capacities and come inblack, silver, metallic blue and metallic red colors. The pocket-sized My Passport portable hard drives are powered directly through the USB cable; no separate power supply is needed.

My Book Essential touts capacity storage ranging from 1TB up to 3TB.. The drive is compatible with both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports.

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the My Passport Essential portable drive is US$99.99 USD. MSRP for My Passport Essential SE drives ranges from $129.99 to $169.99. MSRP for My Book Essential drives ranges from $129.99 to $249.99.