On a recent six week trip, I decided to use a Passport Wireless Pro instead of a laptop to back up my SD cards. However, because these are photographs and video, I need a second backup. (And backing up to the cloud is not possible when travelling.)
Normally, I would just mark the SD cards read-only but because of the length of this trip, that wasn’t a viable option. (I needed to re-use the cards.) So, instead, I wanted to be able to copy files from the SD Card Imports folder to a second portable USB drive.
Unfortunately, the “My Cloud” app only lets me import from a USB drive for some reason.
Why can’t I backup to something other than the cloud? That seems like an artificial limitation.\
You can backup files manually from your My Passport Wireless to a USB drive. For this, open the mobile App and select the files you want to back up, at the top right-corner select the three dots and then “Copy”.
A new Window will open where you’ll be able to choose the backup destination, in this case the USB drive and/or its sub-folders, then select the Paste icon.
The best/fastest way is how you would copy from any drive: connect both drives to computer and use copy commands to copy files/folders from drive A to drive B. Do not use wireless connections unless you want it to take a long time!
Mike, as I stated in my original posting, the whole point of the Passport drive is to obviate the need for a laptop.
The My Passport Wireless Pro (what a stupid name!) has the necessary secondary drive connection; it just seems to be designed to copy in only one direction. G_Ryan’s post gives me hope that there is in fact a way to do what I need.
Relax guy; your comment, “the whole point of the Passport drive is to obviate the need for a laptop.” is YOUR opinion only. That comment is not in the promotional info, whereas the fact that one can take their media files with them and SD cards of data to MPW is mentioned. Don’t agree the name of device is “stupid” but its not great, either.
Now the wireless transfer speed in these things is OK, but not real speedy, so as I said, the fastest way to add to or take data from the drive is to connect it to a USB3 port of PC. I have loaded tons of media files to mine and that, my friend, is the way to go with this.
Actually, being able to leave a computer at home IS one of the great benefits of MPWP. I’m really happy that this product is enabling more folks to do just this!
And, yes, the method outlined by @g_rayn is exactly what I do too. Hope you’re having a great time with your My Passport Wireless Pro, @keithhanlan !
Hope you’re having a great time with your My Passport Wireless Pro
Thanks Alex. In general I am quite happy with the device. I think that the user interface could be improved on a number of fronts. This issue is one of them. Another general problem revolves around its use as an access point; I had mixed results. A third issue for me is the timestamps recorded in the SD Imports (Incorrect timestamps on SD Card Imports). I have been advised by @G_Rayn to open a ticket and will do so when I have a bit more free time.
As a feature request, I would like to be able to have the “backup to cloud” interface modified to be a more general “backup” interface where “the cloud” is just one possible target but a drive attached to the USB3 interface might be another. The bottom line is that a single backup is not enough for my application and it would be nice if this device made it easier for me to manage the second backup.
I hope that WD continues to improve the software software for this device.
Noted and thank you for the input! I of course cannot comment on what’s going on “behind the scenes” but user input is always welcomed and appreciated, and definitely helps the development process!
To have to individually tag several hundred files is ridiculous and a real pain in the behind. Come on WD, please provide a software update, the current functionality (or lack of it) is crippling the use of what is otherwise a good device.
I’m really happy that this product is enabling more folks to do just this!