AVOID ALL Passport Wireless Pro!

WD External Drives My Passport Wireless
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I will make this as simple as I can since its been a year (3 units, 2 models) and WD still hasn’t resolved the issues myself and other’s have reported many times
For faster typing: PWP = Passport Wireless Pro

Windows 10 SMB shares specific problem

Issue 1.1: Starting with 1703, but not really enforced until 1709, disabling of SMBv1
Issue 1.2: Starting with 1709, SMBv2 requires Auth if using with Pro or Enterprise SKU’s (auth currently impossible for SMB on the PWP)
ACTUAL Solution 1: Disable SMBv1/2 on the PWP (currently impossible) use only SMBv3 or give option to chose which SMB version to use!
WD Workaround 1: enable SMBv1 on your PC
Verdict 1: don’t worry about the fact that WD and more importantly, Microsoft wont patch it further and SMBv1 is problematic as is, its just going to be a little leak!

PWP specific problems

Issue 1: units sleep settings result in ABSURD power on/off count for the drive
ACTUAL Solution 1: add option to control drive sleep aggressiveness
WD Workaround 1: none…
Verdict 1: seriously, i hear the thing spin up and down every few min its so unreal that I manage to have 6000+ spinups (others I have talked to have about 3k+ as they dont leave on at home connected to wifi like i do), the thought is to not worry, I hear turning it off then on again thousands of times is perfectly healthy for the mechanical parts!

Issue 2: unit wont reconnect to WiFi after being powered down
ACTUAL Solution 2: fix the problem… (seriously, I tried legacy linux - and _, or just ! and ? or a mix! issue remains)
WD Workaround 2: WD’s KB literally says the unit WILL NOT WORK if your wireless password has special characters, you CAN ONLY USE alpha numeric only, which we KNOW is BS as it connects the first time, and you can make the internal WiFi use special characters,
Verdict 2: dont worry, make your wireless password 8 characters, you will be fine WPA2 was only cracked, oh wait… nevermind…

Issue 3: when formatted to exFAT, the spinup/spindown and power off/on of the unit outside of its USB function causes problems, continually says needs to be scanned each time it happens and upon plugging in as USB drive you see all the lost files/folder that are generated (even if nothing lost, it adds up!
ACTUAL Solution 3: fix it? (getting old)
WD Workaround: use NTFS!
Verdict 3: we just made an SSD version, dont worry, it still has all the same problems!

I have a few more, but I will come back and edit or just post again when I get back from my blood draw tomorrow!

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Sorry yoy have issues, but my MPW and SSD models work fine.

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Windows 10 + wifi + smb
It’s real ■■■■ !
Much too slow, can’t synchronise my folders without trouble.
More than that, it changes the rights of certain folders so i can’t synchronize correctly anymore nor delete them by smb.
When will they make a light firmware without the ■■■■ Plex you have to pay for or all those ■■■■■■ things making the drive too slow.
Even when you turn everything off, the system does too many things like thumbnails or i don’t know what else !
And I had to uninstall the ■■■■■■ software from the pc too. When there are notifications like i had, 20 or more, and you click “delete all”, it opens as many windows as you have notifications and you have to enter login and password that many times !
It’s even written somewhere on the manual or on online help and they think it’s normal.
But who are the idiots who made that ?
Never buy that ■■■■ !
I’m very upset !

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I myself have run into myraid of problems with the 4TB Wireless Pro drive. I bought one, returned it, swapped with another device that turned out to be the same as first. Openend RMA with WD and got another replacement device which turned out to have same issues. Broadly it has the following problems.

  1. Extremely slow speeds over wifi.
  2. If the data is copied from Windows and Mac to the same folder. Then the folder’s permission gets changed or something. Its then not accessible from the other device(Windows/Mac)
  3. Continous connection drops and connectivity issues over wifi.
  4. 5GHz connection issues, either the device doesn’t broadcast it. Or even if it does, you can’t connect to it .
  5. Even when entering the correct password ( or mac OS ,iOS putting in the already stored password) the drive network keeps throwing the errors about invalid password.
  6. iPhone backups halts when there is 400/500Mb of data to be transferred and data gets corrupted.

I have reset drive several times, got myself a new home router to support the hard drive. But all in vain.

Its just a worthless product, can be used only as a USB drive nothing else.

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Strange. I would try formatting the drive to NTFS to make sure it’s not a file system corruption issue first as the exFAT file system tends to have issue easily after insertions. Also try bringing the drive closer to your Wi-Fi router to make sure distance isn’t the problem.

If problem remains, contact WD Support directly for further assistance.

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Hello, there.
I felt the need to share.
PWP is somehow disappointment.
I won’t rephrase the issues mentioned above but I share almost all of them.
It’s a well marketed product that fills all the needs to sell. but don’t care about the final users needs.
No firmware updates since years… Not to mention inconsistencies with iPAD iPhones. Please don’t claim a product in compatibles with both worlds if at the end you push us to stick on NTFS. (read Only on iOS… ) So I add my warning to the ones above … Don’t even think about it, find your self another solution !
WBR

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A favorite device. . . . but definitely has limitations.

Shame really; but in 2022 I find that most use cases for the MPWP have been supplanted by various other services and functionality. It’s no longer in my “overseas travel bag”