Not as fast, even less compatable, and not reliable at all
This is my second WD My Passport Studio, I owned another one for about 3 months before finding a bad region around 200GB where data could not be written. I had to return and exchange for another one (because it was the only FW external hard drive in stock).

The drive comes as HFS+J (Mac Extended format with Journaling) formatted as one partition encompassing about 499GB (99.8%) of the drive with the last 1GB used for a built-in "Virtual CD" partition that contains the drivers, Mac and Windows programs, instructions, etc.

You need to manually print the instructions (including the installation instructions) from the "Virtual CD" as the drive does not come with any hard copy of any instruction manual... so basically you need to figure out how to connect and mount the drive on your own or elsewhere before you can actually get to the instructions.

The HFS+J partition only works with Macs, if you want to use it with Macs and PC/Linux then you need to run Disk Utility on a Mac and reformat the partition to HFS+ (Mac Extended without Journaling) and set the permissions to "Everyone: Read & Write". I wasn't able to find a way to simply disable Journaling, so I had to reformat the partition. Linux will mount an HFS+J partition but only as read-only.
If you want to use it on PC/Windows, you need to still get it to a Mac and reformat it with the WD Smartware program (not Disk Utility) that comes with the drive (found on the drive's Virtual CD partition) and recreate the main partition as NTFS. This partition will not work well on Macs, there will be nodes above 200GB that will be unwritable in some cases on Macs so only do this if you want to use it on PC/Windows only.

I was not able to find a way to make it work on Macs and PC/Windows. There were no problems with Mac and PC/Linux using HFS+. If you plan to only use it with Macs only then leave it as HFS+J. I also want to add that I feel this incomparability-problem is solely the fault of Apple and Microsoft and not Western Digital.
The cables that come with the drive have incorrect labelling, if you try to roughly connect them you will damage the ports, below is the list of corrections to make:

Drive Ports:

FW800: Inverted
USB-B: Inverted
(Basically, the top side of the ports are facing you when you hold the drive upside down and the drive's undercarriage is facing you)

Cable:
FW800 to FW800: "Bilingual" label side is up, "WD" label side is down.
FW800 to FW400: "Bilingual" label side is down on the FW800 end, FW400 end is correct.

USB-A to USB-B: Inverted on both sides (USB-B label is on wrong side)
I made my own labels on paper and taped them over the cables to cover the incorrect ones.

In terms of speed, I did 2 days worth of read/write test on FW. After much patience, I got an average read-write speed of 285.71Mbps. This was disappointing because FW is rated at 800Mbps, even taking into account overhead this was too slow.

Works Great!
Initially I purchased the WD My Passport Studio 640 gb for TimeMachine backups (for MacBook Pro early 2008). But after reading other reviews about issues with creating bootable backups with older versions of My Passport Studio, I decided to switch my TimeMachine backups to the older WD My Passport Studio 500 gb (no e-label). My reason for considering the Passport Studio was to make use of firewire 800. It seemed as if my TimeMachine backup was faster but since I didn't time the backup made via USB port, I cannot confirm.

I followed the instructions on the WD website and updated firmware and uninstalled Smartware ... easy to do. I did have to format the new drive from Apple partition map to GUID Partition ... via disk utility. No problems there. I made a copy of everything on the hardrive using Carbon Copy Cloner. On spot check, I was able to boot the external hard drive.

Cons: no case included; warranty shorter ... older products carried 5 year warranty.

Before purchasing, I shopped around and Amazon had the best price ... with free shipping.

I hope this helps. I'm not a computer expert so if I can make this work, I think most people can.

where's the firewire?
I like the hardrive but I can't get a cable to utilize the empty firewire ports. The drive works very well on USB but slows the machine a little

Bad Product
This product has some serious mounting issues on a mac. It takes almost 5 minites to mount. Secondly even with the firewire the transfer speeds are 10 MB/min. From what I know it should be at least 50MB/sec. I have an SSD installed in my mac. So I know that the bus speed is high for my computer. Therefore there is something wrong with the drive. Then the caption perpetually says "VIDEOS 09". I have no clue what does that mean or how to get rid of that, since the users manual does not describe it. However, this is a minor issue. The major one is the load time which is just ridiculous. I was not willing to try another WD product and experiment. So I went with the Toshiba Canvio and it works super.

The best yet
After years of using LaCie Rugged drives, I've switched to these drives partly because they're smaller and lighter for travel. It's also conenient to Velcro them to my laptop. I do a film show so need the FireWire 800 for speed. It's been impossible to find anything but USB drives in retail stores. Also the software included gives easy access to see how your memory is being used I.e. Video,photos, music breakdowns. You can also digitally label the drive on the outside.