"Cloud" or "passport wireless". Which one is better?

Hi there.

I’m trying to choose between “WD My cloud” and “WD My passport wireless”.

But I can’t figure it out. Need your help.

Here’s what i’m looking for:

  • I want to the equipment to stay on 24/7. So I’m happy to plug the equopment to a wall outlet (with a usb adapter or a regular one).

  • I need to access the drive wirelessly from all the devices at home.

  • I will *not* be travelling with the device. So don’t specifically need it to run without battery.

  • One of the folders in the drive will be my default download folder for Google Chrome. So all the files should be downloaded to the drive directly.

  • There will be a private and a public folder on the drive. The private work files would only be accessable to me. The files in the public folder can be accessed by anyone.

Keeping that in mind - would you recommend “WD My cloud” or “WD My passport wireless”?

Thanks a ton for your time!

Muhammad

For what you’re looking for, go with the MyCloud. It’s the only one with the features you want. As long as all devices are on the same network (ethernet or wireless), you should have no problems connecting to it.

Hopefully WD provides ‘private’ folders with an update for MPW because it currently doesn’t support it unless you ssh/scp.

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Thanks PuDLeZ!

I see that you recommend the Cloud - mainly because of the private folder requirement.

What if I skip that feature? Lets say i don’t need it for now.

Would you still recommend My Cloud - or is Wireless better?

Thanks again!

Yes, I would still recommend the MyCloud because:

  1. They’re cheaper
  2. You can get more storage
  3. You will not be traveling so unless you cannot plug it in with ethernet, the battery/wireless connection is not required.
  4. If you’re into the modding scene, there’s more documentation for MyCloud and there’s next to nothing for the MPW

I have not compared the performance for the two devices but think the MyCloud can transfer data faster since it’s connected via ethernet. Hopefully someone else can chime in on this with actual results instead of just my opinion…

P.S. The MPW was design for a signle user on the go or traveling, at least that’s how I see it.

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Thanks PuDLeZ

  • They’re cheaper
    You’re right. But it’s just slightly cheaper. Not much of a saving long temr.

  • You can get more storage.
    Again price is not an issue since they’re so close.

  • You will not be traveling so unless you cannot plug it in with ethernet, the battery/wireless connection is not required.

It’ll stay plugged into the router with ehternet cable - but I do need the wireless connection to my laptop.

  • If you’re into the modding scene, there’s more documentation for MyCloud and there’s next to nothing for the MPW

Can’t mod if my life depended on it :slight_smile:

I’m starting to think niether of them have a big leg up over the other. They’re looking pretty similar. Wish there was a feature comparision table at WD’s site.

-Again price is not an issue since they’re so close.

Where are you looking at the prices? You can double the storage on MyCloud  vs MPW for the same price. At least on Amazon and Bestbuy (unfortunetly my local Microcenter doesn’t have the MPW).

  • but I do need the wireless connection to my laptop.

I connected to MyCloud from my laptop, FireTV, and AppleTV wirelessly without issues.

Let’s see what others say, I personally think MyCloud is faster but that can be just my opinion since I haven’t done any actual performane test.

Good points.

Iwas almost sold on the cloud device. Went to amazon to checkout the reviews.

And good Lord!

The 1 star reviews are quite a bunch. And make it sound like an endless nightmare.

I can understand it can be hard to setup for newbies and non-techies.

But when technically knowledgable people can’t get it to work - then it’s worrisome.

Like this review:

http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-WDBCTL0020HWT-2TB-Personal-Storage/product-reviews/B00EVVGAFI/?filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

Thoughts??

Wow, that is a lot of 1 stars! I wonder if all of their issues are involving the phone app (never used) or accessing outside of their home network. For me (using as a media & storage share on my local network) was just plug in and go to the web interface to setup user-password. I also have it’s IP assigned via DHCP too so the static address is not required… I also haven’t experienced any hanging with transfering multiple files (videos and mp3s).

While I agree with the slower write speed comments (even on a pure gigabit network), unless you spend a lot more money on a “real nas” (synology is great), you will get about the same speeds as other devices and brands in the same price range. At least with what I experienced and witnessed… I would recommend building a desktop to be your nas but if you will be using it for other things, you sometimes have to reboot it and that hurts the score on the spousal test :slight_smile: That’s why I have the MyCloud on the official firmware since she’s the main user of it and I rarely touch it besides streaming to the AppleTV or FireTV. Once I’m done playing with the MPW (mainly if no real recovery method is found), I will be migrating her to use it instead of the MyCloud and then I will install a clean Linux on the MyCloud because I did notice a small performance increase when I did it on my older MyBook.

Interesting!

You seem to be a lot more technically adept than me.

Like I don’t even know what DHCP means :slight_smile:

I just need a plug and play device.

Also - I just got an idea.

And sorry if it’s a dumb one.

But how about hoooking an external hard drive to a wireless router and accessing it wirelessly. How is that any different than the WD cloud?

I don’t want the WD software anyway. I’m just happy just accessing the files on the drive, directly.

Here’s the kind of wireless router I’m talking about:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IMYMG12
or
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KU2E9IW/

What do you think?

Yeah, I’m into technology :slight_smile:

DHCP is basically plug and play for networking, everything is just automatic… I can’t speak about personal experience with those devices but I would assume they would be slower than MyCloud since they’re only USB 2.0. Would be intersting to see a performance test or know the read/write speeds people get from it.

I say find a local store that sells the MyCloud and ask them what their return policy is if it doesn’t work for you. A lot of places will give you a few days for a full refund since this is hardware and not software. You also don’t have to install the WD software, as a matter of fact, I can’t even tell you what it looks like since I never use it. I don’t even remember if it came with a disk or software on the drive. I did backup the stuff on the MPW though (some how-to videos and manual. Maybe software but I didn’t really look) since I was planning on setting it up for her to use instead of MyCloud. I know she always wants to watch/listen to stuff while she’s on the go and hates cords, even for USB.

Let’s get this solved for you.  For background, I have a MPW, I have a similar wireless drive from Seagate, and I have a Pogoplug system (similar in many ways to a My Cloud device.  Plus, I have many devices and hard drives connected to my home network,

About you:  you are  saying that you don’t know what DHCP is, tells us you don’t know much about home networks yet.  If you did, you would not consider a MPW because it is “wireless”  You don’t need a wireless device for your other wireless devices to connect to  – you DO need a well constructed home network.  It’s OK that you don’t know much about networks, neither did I and many others before we needed to get educated if we wanted a home network, and YOU need a home network set up if you want your laptop, other computers, iPhones, iPads, Kindles, Android things, etc. to access your data from one another and hard drives that store it all.

1,  You do not need a MPW, you need a My Cloud unit, AND a decent home network to use it on.  You need a dual-band router that uses 2.4G and 5G data speeds at a minimum, and a new faster DOCCIS modem, which you can rent (a combo modem/router) from your Internet provider or buy your own. I own my router and modem.  I have a gigabit network system  (i.e. “fast”) so data zips from place to place in my network to work well, and not frustratingly slow.

The MPW is basically a portable system  – a hard drive to store your media files on for your mobile devices for when you are away from your home network.  You don’t need this.  It also has an SD card reader, and from what I can tell, you don’t need this either.

2.  You most likely need a My Cloud, IF you have a lot of data to store on it, and plan to add more.

You could step up to a true NAS: WD has new models called Expert and Business series, but that would be overkill for you now.

So, get a My Cloud and be sure your network is modern enough to get all you can from a My Cloud.

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Hi PuDLeZ…

This reply is not relevant to the current topic, it is rather to this one -

Can you please help me out with the back up MPW files ?