Why is the SD card import so slow?

WD External Drives My Passport Wireless
1

This is a major deal breaker for me.

I only bought this as a backup for my SD cards in the field, but it is approximately 10x slower than importing on a Mac.

Why is this so slow?

Lack of memory is probably the first cause.

I had the same issue with a ChromeBook.

Disappointed $200 doorstop :frowning:

ET

2

I was interested in purchasing this for the same reason…dumping video files so I can reuse my cards.

is it really that slow? What sd card were you using? Does it help if a fast sd is used?

3

Hi ET,

Could you provide some more details about your system ie: connections and devices

4

I am using the Sony 64GB 94MB/s card for this test. This is one of the fastest cards available. I also have Sandisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s. I don’t use cheap or slow cards.

This product is defective.

Don’t waste your money on it.

By way of contrast, I still have an Epson P5000 Photo Viewer.

It has the same fucntionality and it’s SD card to internal HD is fast!

Unfortunately, the capacity is too small now to use it.

I would return mine if I hadn’t ripped the box trying to open it.

I’m going to contact Amazon and see if they will take it back as-is.

ET

5

Ye, if its that bad then contacting Amazon is the best.:neutral_face:

6

What method are you using to transfer the files from the SD Card?   Are you using the GUI, or are you doing network file transfer?

7

Using the drive directly or using the GUI, doesn’t matter which.

If I was doing a network transfer, that wouldn’t test how fast it would be in the field :wink:

ET

8

I have learned that the My Passport Wireless’s internal HDD is connected to the Wireless NAS portion of the circuit, including the SD Card Reader, via a shared USB 2 port. This is limiting the SD Card Copy/Move performance. The My Passport Wireless is reading and writing through the same USB 2 port and that is limiting it.

My MacBookAir has it’s SD Card connected off a USB 2 port also, visible in System Report but it doesn’t need to share the USB 2 port with anything else. 

Enjoy!

9

Sounds like typical crab software, Seagate needs to be serious about selling these or fire the developer, I can connect with my iPhone, but not my iPad some some strange reason. Junk in junk out

10

Seagate??

I read your other msg about not connecting to your iPad.  I see a reboot helped, and for that matter reboots are always in order when something has been changed.  Get to know your MPW better before being quick to diss it due to your unfamiliarity.   :wink:

11

A reviewer at Amazon complained about the slow SD card transfers, and WD Support responded to his comments and said:

“The Passport has two options for taking data from a connected SD card; Move and Copy. If you have the option for Move selected, we advise changing this to Copy, which may be a faster method for moving data. Moving data takes an extra write in the process, and may take more time to complete.”

12

I got my drive last night.   Very excited at the prospect of being able to dump my Video files from SD to the HD.   I read up on everything.  I had it set for copy and not move.   I also made it so when I put the SD card in it would automatically start.  Sure enough it started… I was moving about 45 gigs of files from a very High Speed SD card.   about 20-30 minutes later I look at the drive and the wi-fi light stopped blinking so I thought WOO HOO!  done.  I plugged the drive into the usb 3 port to look at it and… .FAIL!  it had copied MAYBE 4 gigs before it stopped.   So I decided to try it again this time I used my cellphone to access the software and import the SD card over to HD.   I had the Drive FULLY charged and it wasnt plugged into the wall.   I got up this morning to find the drive in the off position (battery died)   Plugged it back into the USB 3.  and… it had copied maybe 80%   This is a HUGE failure.   a 6 hour battery life and in that time it cant copy over 45 gigs of data from a directly connected device??  That would have taken 10-15 mnutes if I connected an SD card reader to my computer.

Any thoughts?  (other than sending it back to Amazon?) 

13

Sure, send it back to Amazon if you want to, or next time keep the darn thing plugged into it’s AC adapter.  Mine is plugged in 24/7 unless I use it away from home.  Another tip:  never leave a new, untested device running overnight where you cannot monitor it.  What if it had caught on fire!  Anything can happen with something new and untested.

EDIT: May/2016, Many months later. I found that leaving a MPW plugged in 24/7 into AC adapter is NOT a good idea, the battery life can be shortened dramatically. DO NOT keep it charging all the time. In fact, new firmware in 2016 has features to keep unit from overcharging.

14

In my testing, I found out what was going on with the copy/move stopping.

When not powered/charging off something (AC Charger, USB Power Pack, etc), the drive wants to go into Standby Mode with the Wi-Fi, if nothing is connected. If the unit doesn’t have anything connected to it (Wi-Fi)(Smartphones don’t count - see below), the unit will go into standby, stopping the copy/move and leaving the LED flashing that the drive is copying/moving from SD Card. If the unit is brought out of standby using short power button press, the copy will resume.

So, if you need to copy/move a SD Card onto the unit, for now, have it either plugged into something and/or have something connected to it, via Wi-Fi. Smartphones don’t count because when they power off into their power save mode, they disconnect Wi-Fi. 

I’m working around the issue 1) keeping it plugged into something or 2) keeping something connected to it(Wi-Fi). WD is aware of the problems because I have taked with them. Hoping for a quick fix soon.

Enjoy!

5 Likes
15

A Kudo for you!

16

A Kudo from me as well.

17

Hi guys!

Am i glad my order didn’t go through.

Only now do i see the flaws on this forum on the primary reason why i could buy this hdd.

Let me explain the siuation:

I’m going backpacking for a few months and will document my travel with a GoPro.

MicroSD cards cost a fortune, but still I bought some. Then I realised filming in 1080p (50fps) will take up almost 32gigs for 2hours of filming. I won’t have near as much cards as I need to if i want to film from time to time. I will not be taking a laptop since its not really practical and too heavy.

The reviews about this hdd made me think this was the best solution out there! But the problems concerning the sd transfer make it unusable for me I think…

Problems:

  1. will it work with a converting piece from microSD to SD and then transfer?

  2. 64 gigs is pretty impossible to transfer as I read here.

Any ideas or alternatives you guys can think of?

Much appreciated,

Vince

18

vcdsmet wrote:

 

Problems:

  1. will it work with a converting piece from microSD to SD and then transfer?
  1. 64 gigs is pretty impossible to transfer as I read here.

 

Any ideas or alternatives you guys can think of?

 

Much appreciated,

Vince

  1. If you have a Mini or MicroSD Card, just use the adapter to get it to the larger standard size SD Card. They work. A recommendation is to bring extras because they can break. I have broken a couple of them already. 

  2. A 64GB card will work but it will take awhile. I’m going to be doing some testing of full 64GB SD Card, over the next few days.

Other Suggestions:

Bring extra USB battery packs. They are not very expensive and work well. Everyone is selling them. Costco sometimes have GoalZone products for solar and battery packs for just such a trip. 

There are alternatives but a more expense. Nexto DI has some products but they are $$$$, especially with Wi-Fi. They are specifically for photographers and videographers. Some of their products have preview color LCDs. I have couple older units (no Wi-Fi, no Color LCD and they do their job well). 

Also remember that you want to keep, at least two copies, of everything. You might want to buy two of whatever you chose to make sure you have a backup. Losing a day’s work of shooting, or longer period of time, is very tough and discouraging. I have traveled twice to Africia and yes it is a pain, but I brought an extra HDD to back everything up on. I konw folks that just travel with lots of cards but that has its only issues. SD Cards can be lost so easily. 

Also, when traveling home or to other locations, on your trip, split your copies to different people, if possible, or different bags, on your trip, to carry. If you lose one bag, you don’t lose your trip’s photos. There is nothing worse than losing everything, including your photos and video. 

Enjoy!

19

Yup, micro SD works as well.

Already did a full 64GB transfer with RAWs, as you need to be WiFi connected for the transfer to work all the way a fully charged MPW didn’t last all the way sorry to say, about 500 RAWs short before it died.

20

I found setting to Performance (vs Battery Life) improves transfer speed.

I’m able to transfer 100 Raw images (about 24Mb each, so 2.4GB) in 6 minutes 36 seconds. This pace was consistent with other transfers of smaller numbers of images.

At this pace 64GB should take just under 3 hours. Still slow, but within battery life parameters.