Performance, Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts
Performance:
WiFi Reads:
WiFi Writes:
Direct connecting to a PC or Mac via USB 3.0 will automatically disable the built in WiFi and switch to direct connected mode, which transforms the My Passport Wireless into a straight up My Passport, along with some noticeable speed advantages, handy for loading up with media before that big trip:
USB 3.0 Writes:
…, or offloading all of those photos after you return:
USB 3.0 Reads:
Very good direct connected throughput.
Conclusion:
Pros:
- Portable, compact, efficient, silent
- WiFi + pass through, with SD and USB 3.0 connectivity
- FTP access and SD card offload
- Easy out of the box setup / experience
- PC or Mac not necessary for those pure mobile users
- Good WiFi throughput. Excellent USB throughput
Cons:
- Battery life may be an issue on long trips (but can power from a USB charger)
Pricing:
- 500GB: $130 ($0.26/GB)
- 1TB: $180 ($0.18/GB)
- 2TB: $220 ($0.11/GB)
The added cost of battery, WiFi radio, etc, drive up the cost/GB of the lower capacity models, so your best bet here is to go larger, as the relative cost drops significantly. Going from 1TB to 2TB only adds $40 to the price.
Warranty: 2 years.
Final Thoughts:
The Western Digital My Passport Wireless is an extremely versatile WiFi connected mobile hard drive. 2×2 Wireless N MIMO enables fast throughput for such a small device, supporting up to 4 simultaneous HD video streams. WiFi pass through lets mobile devices surf while streaming music over the same wireless link. SD card offload and FTP access will be of great use to photographers in the field. USB 3.0 enables fast transfers as well as a convenient way to recharge. The My Passport Wireless is basically the storage equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife for those on the go.
You forgot to add battery
You forgot to add battery tests for a wireless storage device. I expected to read what battery life was for a single, and multiple(5) users streaming a full hd video file from the device. Also this review sorely lacked how good/bad the app for android/ios device is and any potential issues arrising out of the app. As not many people buying this drive would be using it via a smart phone or tablet.
The mobile based apps were
The mobile based apps were not yet updated to access this device at the time of testing. It uses the standard My Cloud app, which is proven and does stream audio / video and browse photos just fine.
For battery tests, we are working on them and will add a note to the review. Battery testing takes time to confirm repeatability, fully charge, etc. The claim is 4 simultaneous streams (8 mbps per stream) for 6 hours. Will know more on that result soon.
iOS My Cloud app
iOS My Cloud app functionality and screen shots have been added to page 2.
Thanks a lot. For me as a
Thanks a lot. For me as a photographer it definitely is a good deal. still curious about battery life is like as this will be used in remote locations to back up 4k videos. That SD card reader and option to back them up automatically. Its going to extremely useful in field. Max 4 user limit is not as good as some of the competing products.
I would love to see a battery
I would love to see a battery test watching 2-4 1080p streams (MKV files?) from it to see how long it lasts. I would also like to see how easy it is to navigate via a mobile device rather than a PC. I’ve been looking at the Lace Fuel and I’m curious to see how this device compares to it when it comes to battery life.
The verdict on power
The verdict on power testing:
Streaming 1080p video to 2 iOS devices, via the My Cloud app, with fairly heavy wireless passthrough usage from a 3rd connected laptop: 5 hours, 27 minutes.
Streaming video via SMB to 4 simultaneous connected devices (HDD spindown seems to have a harder time when doing this, and as a result it remained spinning the entire time, even in lower power mode): 4 hours even.
From the looks of battery trend on the first test, I believe it would have made it to 6 hours if not for the heavy internet passthrough usage during the second half of the test. It was at just over 50% 3 hours into the test (before the other heavy simultaneous WiFi usage).
Are there any security
Are there any security features when in a public place to keep people from accessing the drive?
Yup. There are several ways
Yup. There are several ways to lock down access, all within the config options.
Hey al what is the best msata
Hey al what is the best msata ssd to buy today?
The Plextor M6M looked pretty
The Plextor M6M looked pretty good when we tested it.
Direct connecting to a PC or
Direct connecting to a PC or Mac via USB 3.0 will automatically disable the built in WiFi and switch to direct connected mode
So it means we cannot have it connected all the time to a PC and at the same time browse pics on it from an iPad or smartphone? That’s a shame. I wonder if a futur firmware could fix this?
It appears to be only one way
It appears to be only one way or the other. The device completely switches into a different mode when connected to a PC for data. I think the reasoning is that you would want to bypass all of the (slower) other parts of the device and get full 100+ MB/sec speed from the internal drive. Given how quickly it transfers when connected this way, I don't see it as a deal breaker.
Thanks al☆
Thanks al☆
What about swapping an SSD?
What about swapping an SSD? Would battery life improve?
I’m sure it would, but at an
I'm sure it would, but at an added cost/GB.
Just got mine in today. So
Just got mine in today. So far it has taken almost 2 1/2 hrs to download 9GB off of a 32GB lexar sd card. This is a newer card and a fast one. I called WD and they have instructed me to reset the drive when it is done downloading as it shouldn’t take that long. He said it might take as long as an hour for a 16gb card to download!!??!! If so, this thing’s going back. Ain’t nobody got time for that….
Wow that sound really really
Wow that sound really really bad.
It’s of no use while in a middle of a shoot. Even on a trip late in the evening who has the time to wait for such a long download.
I would fall a sleep 3 times until its finished!
It took about 20 minutes for
It took about 20 minutes for me to copy a full 32Gb Transcend Class 10 SDHC card to the 1TB version of this drive in the built-in reader in the auto-copy mode. Card was completely filled with 4-10 second .mov files created by Canon 5D. Drive was mostly empty other than the documentation and sample footage that it came with. I updated the drive firmware to the latest version before I started copying the files. Copying was done on battery power alone, with the drive set in the “performance” mode (on battery power there is a “performance and “battery saver” modes available; when plugged into the power adapter, it automatically defaults to “performance”). That’s a pretty reasonable time for a Class 10 SDHC card AFAIC. I will do another test with a card filled with RAW/jpeg images, that may slow it down a bit more due to higher fragmentation, but your results seem way too slow. Did you make sure the drive had the latest firmware?
It took about 20 minutes for
It took about 20 minutes for me to copy a full 32Gb Transcend Class 10 SDHC card to the 1TB version of this drive in the built-in reader in the auto-copy mode. Card was completely filled with 4-10 second .mov files created by Canon 5D. Drive was mostly empty other than the documentation and sample footage that it came with. I updated the drive firmware to the latest version before I started copying the files. Copying was done on battery power alone, with the drive set in the “performance” mode (on battery power there is a “performance and “battery saver” modes available; when plugged into the power adapter, it automatically defaults to “performance”). That’s a pretty reasonable time for a Class 10 SDHC card AFAIC. I will do another test with a card filled with RAW/jpeg images, that may slow it down a bit more due to higher fragmentation, but your results seem way too slow. Did you make sure the drive had the latest firmware?
UPDATE on my post above:
UPDATE on my post above: turns out that during the copying process in my post above, only about 3 gigs were copied before hard drive stopped the process for some reason (the white activity indicator light stopped blinking). When I went back to check the files on the hard drive through the USB connection, only fraction of the card was copied over. I just repeated the test with the same card and same data, under same conditions, now the drive copied all of the data, but it took 73 minutes.
Technical specifications in the manual claim SD card reader speed up to 25 MB/sec, which translates into about 90GB/hr, meaning the process of copying the entire card SHOULD have taken about 20 mins. The real-world speed I got using the built-in card slot was 32GB/ 1hr 13 mins, so around 7.6 MB/Sec (hard drive fully charged, running on battery power).
Just to compare, I copied the same data from the same card to the same hard drive connected via a laptop via USB 3.0, using a USB 3.0 car reader and a MacBook Pro. The transfer time was right under 25 minutes using this method.
So I have to agree that the built-in card reader speed is unreasonably slow. It may work as a last-minute option if you are somewhere in the field with no access in the laptop and a big break between two shoots, or as a backup option during a long trip, but forget about offloading your data DURING a shoot to free up your memory card. And always check the contents of the hard drive by using your phone or tablet before formatting the card, or you may end up losing your invaluable photos forever.
I will say that all the other features of the drive work beautifully with Mac OS, Windows 8 PC, iPhone and iPad. App interface for iOS is clean and speedy. With MacOS and Windows 8, it appears as a shared network drive. Streaming of HD video files compressed for distribution is OK, but the high-bitrate video files straight out of the camera stop to buffer all the time, even in direct connection mode.
Hi Allyn,
Thank you for your
Hi Allyn,
Thank you for your review on this device.
I was a litlle disapointed when i read:
Direct connecting to a PC or Mac via USB 3.0 will automatically disable the built in WiFi and switch to direct connected mode
For me the ideal was to have both wifi and usb in simultaneous.
Do you know if even with the usb connected, you can enable the wifi mode via software or do you have to phisically unplug the usb cable?
Thanks in advance,
David
Hi Allyn,
I wonder if anyone
Hi Allyn,
I wonder if anyone can help me this weekend as I can’t get WD tech advice until Monday….I received my passport wireless yesterday and all seemed to be going well to start with, but on my iPad I cannot get past the rotating cloud image when I try to open MyPassport. I only really want to use the passport to back up and store photos that I have taken out in the field and done basic Lightroom mobile editing on. I just want the iPad to talk to the passport and when I get home to be able to download images via USB to desktop.
Can you help?
Thanks
Sue
Hi, what is the voltage of
Hi, what is the voltage of the USB wall charger please? I am from the Uk and was just wondering if this could be a problem purchasing from the US? THANKS!
I see two other potential
I see two other potential issue; (1) what happens if battery bloat occurs… Given the constraints in space this could potentially damage the components. (2) potentially, since this device can stream to multiple devices, the chances of this being used while literally on the move increases. Given that the drive is a mechanical one, bad sectors will happen causing data loss.
You guys should have done a
You guys should have done a SD card dump test.
How long does it take?
I am trying to use Infuse to
I am trying to use Infuse to see MKV file from Passport wireless. For some reason I cannot see it
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Has anyone tried a HDD to SSD
Has anyone tried a HDD to SSD swap on this badboy yet? Was wondering if it’s just a standard sata connection as i know some of the other passports swap it out for a USB3 connection? I just picked one up, but wondering if it was worth cracking open to run some test with an ssd.
is there any chance to get a photo of the drive ports?
Curious if when being used to
Curious if when being used to access a public WIFI will the drive provide any firewall protection to the connected devices?
Has anyone tried replacing
Has anyone tried replacing the HDD with an SDD? And does anyone know if it is possible to buy this enclosure without the HDD? Since I would like to use an SSD instead of the HDD. Thanks!
Yes I have replaced the 1TB
Yes I have replaced the 1TB HDD with a SSD.
But it is a little bit difficult to find a SSD that works with the included board and have a low power consuption.
And you loose your warranty.
Hey, I want to do as you did,
Hey, I want to do as you did, replace the HDD with SSD.
But which SSD did you use?