I just bought a Wireless Pro and have set it up. It works fine with my own WiFi network and I can access everything through computer, iPad and iPhone.
It also seems to backup flawlessly from SD cards. So far, at least.
But I’m planning on taking it with me in a couple of months to backup my photos on vacation.
Here’s the problem. I have only an iPad and iPhone and a desktop. No laptop. So a direct connection to see if a backup has succeeded is impossible, unless I spring for a laptop.
So the question is: Can I get the Wireless Pro to function through WIFI at three different hotels (all in the US) so I can look at the drive using the app on the iPad or iPhone?
If it is possible to do this, do I have to do a complete change of settings at each hotel and then again when I return home?
Any help on this will be much appreciated.
Yes you can connect get the amPWP to connect to hotel wifi.
However, you don’t need hotel wifi to check if everything backed up from SD/USB to your MPWP HDD . Just connect your iPad or iPhone to the MPWP’s own wireless network. You can use the MyCloud app to check content on the both the MPWP drive and USB/SDCards you have plugged into it. You can also use 3rd party apps to check content. I prefer to use Documents by Readdle (free iOS app) to connect to my wireless pro but that’s because I use it to manage files for many of my other apps too.
If you do connect to hotel wifi, be sure to turn off file sharing in MPWP or everyone else in hotel may be able to access YOUR drives files via hotel wifi 
Thanks so much. This is a great help. I’ll try the Readdle Documents app.
And I will turn off file sharing, though I always use a VPN when I’m in a hotel. Better to be doubly safe than sorry.
Again, thanks for getting back so quickly.
If using Documents, here is how to set it up.
Again, thanks, I now have Documents set up, though it does take almost forever to connect. It eventually does, though, after it asks for my login and password and I make that go away. Strange.
Now I can see if my files have loaded or not.
At first I couldn’t connect directly to the MPWP with the iPad, but once I shut down my connection to my network and also killed the VPN, I was okay.
So all is well thanks to your great advice.
I believe I understand what you want to do. and that is to assure the photos you uploaded from the SD card are now on the MPW are there. Good idea, but you are getting a bit confused. You do not need an internet connection, wi-fi from home network, or any hotel or from anywhere else.
You have a wireless portable drive with its own built-in wi-fi. So, if you want to see the photos right away or at any time afterward you connect your iPad to the MPW internal wireless signal. Start up the my Cloud app on iPad, and go into the upload folder likely named SD card Imports and go look at the photos in it… This is the whole intent of the MPW; no other wi-fi needed other than the drive’s own internal wireless signal.
The main reason set up had you connect the internal wi-fi is because the internal wi-fi is stand alone, and if you join it with your home network signal you now have internet signal so you can check your email and other stuff. But, again, you do not need that to examine and use the contents on the MPW.
IMPORTANT: Have your password for the MPW with you you are asked by device for it when you connect to your MPW signal or you will NOT connect. I suggest you connect to the faster 5G signal you see and not the slower 2,4G. Also, get the complete user manual if you don’t have it on drive or downloaded.
In addition, practice connecting at HOMF, by having the MPW off, then turn it on fresh. Now, quickly get into iPad wi-fi connections and locate and connect to the 5G connection. Do not connect to home wi-fi.
Once finished, turn off MPW, and the iPad will disconnect from it and return to being connected to your home signal.
Any questions, just ask.
I have to say, DM100 intentions are good, but his suggestion of using his favorite program Documents is a bad idea. You hardly know what to do, so just use the WD app, My Cloud for this task now.
Interesting.
The reason I asked my question in the first place was that I couldn’t initially make a connection between my iPad and the MPW without being connected to my home network. Nothing would happen when trying to use MyCloud. I also couldn’t connect through http://mypassport.local on my browser.
So I assumed, incorrectly, that I needed to be connected to the home network (or a hotel network) to get the MPW to work. It did seem counterintuitive, but that wouldn’t be unusual with a lot of software and hardware I use.
It wasn’t until, working things through using DM100s suggestions, that I wondered if I should also turn off the VPN on the iPad (which is on by default.)
I shut down the VPN.
Bam. I got a direct connection. Now both MyCloud and Documents function as they should. But only if the VPN is off.
As I said, strange. I would have thought that once I got rid of my connection to my home network that the VPN app wouldn’t have had any effect. Well, wrong.
Bottom line: If I hadn’t had my VPN turned on everything would have worked for me from the start and I wouldn’t have come here to ask my question.
But it’s always good to ask. If I hadn’t I might never have thought of turning off the VPN
On other matters, I always carry all of my passwords with me using 1Password on both the iPad and the iPhone so that won’t be a problem. And I do have a PDF of the manual.
Thanks for all the advice. Very helpful.
Now back to the photography.
Glad you are up and running. Also remember that once you have copied the SD card and then erase the card, the only place you have copies of the new photos is on the MPW. So, checking the photos are there is very good to do if you will need to erase the card for additional photos.
I’m curious why you had a VPN on. I used to need one for a job where I needed to connect to a secure company system, but I really have no need for a VPN these days.
I use the VPN automatically on my iPad because I spend a lot of time using what I consider less-than-totally-secure WiFi.
Over time, I found I was forgetting to turn it on in restaurants, waiting for my car to be serviced, at the golf course and the like. So I just leave the VPN running.
As for erasing the cards, I probably won’t do that. I spent three weeks in Spain last year filling multiple cards and worrying all the time that I was going to lose one of them. When I ran out of space, finally, I just bought another card.
So the MPW is acting as a backup, which I believe is sensible given my experience leaving things behind in hotel rooms. Of course I could also leave the MPW behind, but I’d rather not think about that.
Nice chatting with you.
Every media file on both my MPW and WD NAS is a COPY if the original data stored on drives at home.
Believe it or not, too many people at this forum say they erased the cards after they copied card to MPW, and find out later the data is not on the MPW, and therefore lost all the photos. Checking MPW is good.
Your personal VPN is a good idea. Which one do you use? I may want to do this, too.
The topic of VPN’s is of interest to me as well.
For a MPW product. . .VPN use is naturally moot, since these devices are not exposed to the internet directly like a NAS box can be exposed. The VPN becomes relevant when you send data to a NAS box at home. . .the point of the MPW is that you shouldn’t have to deal getting data from home to your palm. I have been in enough hotels with cruddy internet such that an upload of 30gb of images to the cloud or to home would be . . . unworkable.
I agree with both points in the previous posts. . . .
When travelling (in 2018), I would FIRST have lots of SD cards. 32gb (or even 64gb) cards are cheap. They can fit a good many 30mb raw files.
Second. . .the MPW as a backup for the cards. So. . if I lose my camera bag (with the SD cards). . . .I still have the images on the MPW.
NOTE: If I find that I must erase cards, a single backup to the MPW would not be sufficient in my mind. I would use either a laptop HD, or another external drive, to carry a second copy of the files.
NOTE: The MPW never is in the camera bag. It travels SEPERATE from the SD cards. Removing that vulnerability of all images in one bag is half the point of having the drive.
I am becoming fascinated with uploading files to a personal NAS. . . . I have the hardware, but even ignoring the known issues with WD NAS security, I would think that VPN for that application would be of interest. A good topic for a different thread, I suspect.
The VPN I use is TunnelBear, a Canadian company.
I’ve used others over the years but this one seems to me simple to use and not all that expensive. It’s $60US a year with unlimited data.
You can take a look at https://www.tunnelbear.com
As they say in the disclaimers, I have no connection to this company. Anyway there are plenty of others out there with various levels of service and costs. Every year I take a look around to see what companies are offering what.
I’m the most backed up person I know. My digital photos (I shoot everything in RAW) are backed up to two separate hard drives and the cloud.
The same with all my music files.
These backups are done automatically every day. So far so good.
Thanks for the info! Enjoy your MPW, too.
