Keeping Wireless Passport Plugged In

I just purchased the Wireless Passport and initial impression is very favorable. When I am at home can I keep the drive plugged into wall power without impacting battery life or the drive?

Yes, leaving it on AC power is fine. The drive spins down when not in use, and the type of battery in the Passport is OK with AC power. I think that WD designed it to work that way.

I have a questions, What happen if the ac power is turn off suddenly during operation, will the drive switch automatically to battery?

& if after that the battery is out / drained up too during operation, will the drive automatically shutdown?

Will the drive need manually shutdown before the battery drained up, or it can work like smart ups to shutdown automatically when the battery level hit lowest level.

Thanks

Agree with Scandy.  The battery is a lithium like most new products today.  I not only keep my MPW plugged in 24/7, and have also kept an iPod plugged in constantly for years; ever since I have it permanently connected to my stereo system. Same goes for my laptop PCs which serve as my “desktops” today.

Besides having the MPW plugged in constantly, it is also right next to my router and conneted wirelessly to the network.  Now, MPW can be accessed by any device in house, easy to send files to it, and when I unplug it to take with me it is also fully charged.

So, unplugging (or loosing power from AC) is not a problem, because the MPW (like any other modern device with a battery) keeps the battery fully charged and it doesn’t matter if power is removed – it immediately switches to battery operation.  If battery runs down (when unplugged) the MPW (like most devices) shuts down gracefully.  I actually think the batteries last longer this way because of not discharging/re-charging a lot.

Thank you mike27oct for answered my questions. Now I assured to buy one, since Im actually already waiting for some time to have device that function as nas wireless with ups power protection, now its all in one device. 

Can wait to get & try it for my self. Thank you again.

Yes, as I mentioned, I have my MPW set up as a wireless “mini” NAS on my home network. I say “mini” because it is not a full fledged NAS with all the bells and whistles of a true NAS device, but it does act as a great file server as does a NAS.  I use it to store my music, videos and photos and they can be accessed from the MPW using my iPhone/ iPad mobile devices, their apps and my computers.  If I want to take the MPW with me, I just shut it down and take it with me, and when I get back home I put it back on the power and the network.

While you are waiting for your MPW to arrive (BTW, Amazon reduced the price recently by $20 for the 2TB model) you could visit the MPW Support page at:  http://support.wdc.com/product/install.asp?groupid=227&lang=en  and download the Guide and User Manual and get familiar with it beforehand.

Some tips for setting it up:

I found that electrical interferrence near my computer station caused issues setting up the MPW, so I moved away from it with the MPW and my iPad to do the setup. 

Once connected directly to the MPW signal using the WD My Cloud app, try playing the Sample Media on the drive.  After you have confirmed this all works, THEN add your own media to the MPW.

To do this, I connected the MPW to my computer and made folders for music, videos and photos and then coped my data to it from the PC or other drives on network.  For example, I copied my iTunes Media folder into the music folder and when looked at on the MPW it looks exactly like it does on my PC.  Same for videos and photo folders and files. 

Once all my current media was on the MPW, I wirelessly connected it to the home network  Worked great. For best results, my MPW is right near my router, and plugged into its power supply 24/7.  The better your router, the better the results.  I have a dual-band router, and even though the MPW connects to router with the 2.4G signal, I connect my mobile devices with the 5G router signal and this improves speed noticeably and my videos stream perfectly.

When I have a few new music or videos, etc to add, I just access the MPW on the network via the PC and copy my new data as with any other drive.

Last but not least, install the current version of firmwate soon as you can after initial setup.

Good luck and enjoy your MPW, and come back if you have other questions. 

Thank you once again for your swift respond, but just cross my mind another question.

If after the battery goes low and the drive shutdown, could i set an automatically power up once the Ac power become available.

Thanks

If you keep the MPW plugged into its power supply all the time, the battery will be kept at 100% forever – even if you are using the MPW wirelessly.  If you remove the MPW from its power supply and use it, of course the battery will run down.  Too long, and it can be drained.  It is no more complicated than that. 

The MPW charger has a 5v, 2A output, so you can charge it from any charger that has that output; not just the one that came with the MPW.  Use nothing less or more than these specs.  Many chargers today have the same output; e.g.  a charger for an iPad can charge a MPW and vice versa.

Thank u for the explanation, but what i mean is, i want to all the time connect the drive to AC power and use it to record feeds from wireless ip cam to monitor my house, but incase of power outage from the power producer while im maybe not at home, i understand that the drive will able to operate using the battery, but incase when battery depleted and the AC power still not available yet, the drive will gracefully shutdown, now what I need is how I can make the drive auto power on when the AC power become available while im still not at home to manually switch the drive on?.

If it can be done, then whatever happen with the electric source, i can get peace of mind that my ip cam will automatically recorded again as soon as the AC power available again, basically its like using smart ups with nas.

I know its bit asking too much from the device, but if it can be done, then i will not need nas with smart ups as surveilance system for my home. 

Thanks

Likely can’t be done, so use a UPS.  I really dont think a MPW is best suited for this – it basically is a drive for your portable mobile  devices to serve up media files, mostly.

mike27oct wrote:

I really dont think a MPW is best suited for this – it basically is a drive for your portable mobile devices to serve up media files, mostly.

+1

Not only media, though. It’s very comfortable to edit documents right on MPW from any devices including tablets that do not write on their external SD but do write on MPW.

For you purpose I’d use an external HDD connected to a router or a special file server device.

I see, thank you for your help with my question.

Regards, 

I need to experiment with a good position for my Passport when plugged in. Near the router might be better I understand, but I would prefer to have it in the room where my home netrtainment system is and where there is also a power surge box. (I live in Mexico so outages are quite frequent!). My question is: would it be safe to stand it on top of the amplifier? or between the amp and the power surge box, where there is a gap of about three inches? I am concerned about interference and/or damage from electrical components!

Thanks in advance.

Keeping it near other equipment so closely could cause interferrence to it or other devices. Keeping it near your router is good for max wifi connection of MPW to home router.  Once connected to your network,you have internet service and you connect devices to MPW via the network wifi and not rhe direct connect to MPW signal.  If you want surge protection buy another one – they are not expensive.

Hi is there any chances that the MPW get overheat if its plugged in for morethan 20 hours continues and its powered on ?