Wow, WDWP seems awesome, should I buy it?

WD External Drives My Passport Wireless
#5

I trust that the 75MB/s spec is correct. Online I read different reviews, some say it’s half an hour for a 128GB SD card, others say they are transfering much slower than that, I guess it has to do with perhaps them using a slower SD card. I’m sure connecting the USB3 cable to a laptop will provide for full speed, but I am mainly interested in autonomous SD card to WDWP speed and autonomous WDWP to second external hard drive over the USB 2.0 host port.

USB 2.0 speed theoretically means 60MB/s, USB3.0 means 640MB/s theoretically.

But if the SD card to WDWP actually is specced by WD at 75MB/s, that’s still fine. I wonder what the specced speed of the USB 2.0 Host port can be to copy each SD backup to an external hard drive. This would be my backup method, copy each of my 256GB SD cards to the WDWP and copy from WDWP to an external hard drive, still keep the SD card also. That means I would have 3 copies of everything and I would try to leave one copy elsewhere (such as back in my Airbnb or hotel room) at each time.

Would be nice with a WDWP2 with 150MB/s or faster SD->WDWP, with WDWP consisting of two RAID hard drives totalling 2x2TB=4TB at $199 and even one with 2x4TB=8TB at $399. And with a USB3.1 Host port to output also at least 150MB/s to any external hard drive. Also to be able to backup from SD to WDWP and to external hard drive both at the same time at 150MB/s speed or faster.

WD’s business is to sell more Hard drives and with their owning Sandisk to sell more SD cards, with this WDWP2 they would be selling at least 3 hard drives (2x inside WDWP2 and at least 1x regular external) and a bunch of SD cards (evt probably some new high end ones UHS-2, V60/V90) to every semi-pro film maker and photographer.

#6

I went ahead and I ordered the WDWP 4TB with the hard case that has 18 SD card slots although my plan is to not store my SD cards in the same place as the WDWP, the whole point for me is for the WDWP to store a backup of my SD cards and I keep the SD cards until I have stored a second backup to leave somewhere else safely. My Lexar 256GB and 128GB cards are 1000x, they say they have 150MB/s read speed, so I look forward to test and see how fast it can copy a full 128GB SD card and a full 256GB SD card to the hard drive autonomously. And I’ll be looking at Computex end of this month, perhaps WD will release WDWP2 at that tradeshow, with double the bandwidth, with 150MB/s read-speed from SD card to WDWP, with full USB3.1 Host port to clone a second copy to any external hard drive also or to copy in at full 150MB/s or faster speed from any external storage device. That would be very impressive… I also guess dual RAID drives for an extra layer of reliability (even if that makes the device thicker) and a Gigabit Ethernet port and an “apps store” for adding features like “direct YouTube uploading”, “auto-ftp uploading”, “upload to Amazon Drive or Google Drive, or to both” and on-board Plex transcoding support could be nice. I wonder if it’s easy to just connect any Smartphone to it, Android or iOS and just click a button from within the app to backup to WDWP and clear storage space on the smartphone but still make all the data easily available on the smartphone as if it was local storage. And I wonder if there’s some quick sync with NAS storage, I guess it can do that as a regular USB 3.0 hard drive with the cable, but I wonder if there’s anything wireless that might be happening to sync all the data with that. Perhaps it should backup automatically over Gigabit Ethernet or Wi-Fi when it’s charging and it can detect that it is home…

#7

Hi @Charbax , looks like you’ve really done your research on My Passport Wireless Pro! :blush: I’m psyched that you’ve got one of our 4TB models with a hard case on the way!

I noticed you had some questions on features and specs - let me see if I can lend a hand…

Q: Can My Passport Wireless Pro backup files to Google Drive automatically overnight?
A: In the My Cloud mobile app, you can add Google Drive as a service. Uploads will need to be initiated manually, but you can certainly offload a card to the My Passport Wireless Pro and then use the My Cloud app to copy those files to Google Drive. (Just make sure to go to “Wi-Fi” in settings and connect your My Passport Wireless Pro to the internet)

Q: Can My Passport Wireless Pro backup my smartphone camera roll wirelessly?
A: Yes you can, with the My Cloud mobile app! Just a heads up, depending how many photos/videos you have on your phone and whether you’re connected via 5GHz or 2.4GHz, this first upload may take awhile.

Q: Can My Passport Wireless stream 4K videos?
A: Yes! In terms of bitrate, you should see My Passport Wireless Pro’s wireless speed at ~150Mbps but it depends on your distance from the drive and other network “noise.” You’ll also need to be connected on the 5GHz channel. It can definitely handle 4K videos copied from my GoPro HERO5 and DJI Mavic. And yes, in my experience, you can open videos using VLC…even MKVs. :slight_smile:

Q: What’s the transfer speed of the SD card reader?
A: The max burst speed is 90 MB/s, and the sustained data rate depends on the card. But sustained data transfer speeds should be comfortably in the 60-75 MB/s range.

Q: Is there a quick sync with NAS storage?
A: So, my own preferred method is to plug my My Passport Wireless Pro into the front of my My Cloud Pro PR4100 and press the one-touch import button on the front of the My Cloud Pro. Everything on the My Passport Wireless Pro gets copied onto the NAS @ 100MB/s+, and then it’s uber-easy for me to organize my newly imported photos and videos, share them out, or just stream them to my phone, tablet, or TV.

I can’t wait for you to receive your My Passport Wireless Pro! It has absolutely become part of my personal “every day” carry…as well as my “every trip” carry, my “every vacation” carry, my “every flight” carry…etc. :wink:

#8

Thanks a lot AlexJ! I look forward to pick up my WDWP at the Amazon Locker when I visit the US next week. The WDWP 4TB and the Hard case (with the 18 sd card slots) is not available here in the UK so I thought I could pick it up on my next trip to the USA.

I’m a video-blogger at consumer electronics tradeshows over the last 14 years and I’ve often been asking WD and Seagate if they’d ever add an SD card slot to backup the SD card files at full speed to one of their battery powered (or even to a plugged to wall USB charger) portable hard drives, I didn’t realize that WD (and a few other companies) had already started doing this I thought I was the only one with the idea!

I think this combo makes a lot of sense, and I hope WD continues in this direction with even faster speeds and more features for the future product roadmap. I kind of like the idea of dual HDD in RAID for reliability and if one of the hard drives fail to be allowed to swap it within a decent 2-5 year warranty. I had WD replace one of my failed portable hard drives once and that experience was very smooth, they’d pre-charge me the cost of the hard drive, I’d get the replacement shipped quickly and I’d not be charged as long as I return the failed hard drive within 2 weeks or a month I forgot how long. Same should be from that RAID WDWP, if ever one of the two drives should be so unlocky to fail, it should be easy for the user to swap it for a new one.

I wonder if WD recommends that users of the WDWP don’t backup SD cards to WDWP while carrying the WDWP in a backpack while walking around? I would imagine, even though it’s a portable hard drive device, that it’s always recommended to leave it steady on a table while the SD card is being backed up? I was using 20GB portable hard drive multimedia players from Archos in 2002, I would play my videos while carrying the device around and it’d be fine. I expect since then portable hard drive technology has progressed with all kinds of very accurate and quick accelerometers that prevent the hard drive from getting any damage even when being used to write and read data to/from the hard drive while walking around? This is why perhaps also the RAID would make this more reliable cause it would I guess be unlikely for both hard drives to break at the same time.

Sustained data transfer speed of 60-75MB/s sounds great. with my $1000 Dell XPS’s SD Card slot
using a Lexas 128GB 1000x (150MB/s written on the card) and an external portable USB 3.0 Seagate hard drive I get around 110MB/s to backup the SD card to the hard drive, so really that’s not much faster I think. Although it would be amazing if the next gen WDWP2 would be able to at least match the transfer speed performance of any high end Windows Laptop and somehow also have a USB3 host port and be able to also copy at the same time the SD card data to that second external hard drive both at full speed all in one go. Imagine how awesome that would be, backup any SD card at full speed to the WDWP and to any second external USB3 hard drive all at the same speed as it’d take to copy to only one hard drive using any expensive laptop.

I’m very much looking forward to try the My Cloud mobile app, I wonder if it works as kind of a remote control for some features on the WDWP or if all the features in the My Cloud app run on the phone and thus for example if I’d set to upload some files that are stored on the WDWP to YouTube or to Google Drive or to Amazon Cloud Drive, then I wonder if all the data has to go through the phone or if it can be set to just work overnight reliably from the WDWP (while it’s connected for example at the hotel to charge).

I wonder if it might be possible to connect a USB Ethernet adapter to the USB 2.0 Host port to get up to Gigabit Ethernet internet connection, would be nice for using the WDWP as a full speed Wi-Fi router and for the maximum speed to upload the files directly to any online cloud service such as Google Drive, Amazon Drive or to upload the videos to YouTube overnight. I believe USB 2.0 Host should be fast enough for Gigabit Ethernet dongles, not that Gigabit speeds would be needed, just that it’d be faster than a 100mbit capped USB Ethernet dongle in case the upload speeds over Ethernet are around or a bit above 100mbit/s (12.5MB/s) then it might work at that full speed (just as if uploading using any laptop and its ethernet port).

I know I’m always asking for too much, I’m just wondering how much of a role I will be able to give the WDWP in my video-blogging work and for the ways I’d like to always backup all my footage, how I’d like to back it up to Amazon Drive and upload it to YouTube also each night while it’s charging from whichever Airbnb or Hotel that I am staying at…

Sounds awesome that it can reliably stream up to 4K video locally. I’m looking forward to fill a part of it up with whole TV series and movies to be able to watch through my phone. I have a Moto Z with the built-in pico projector, meaning I could be having Terrabytes of video content to choose from on the WDWP and be able to project it on the wall wherever I go.

That MY CLOUD PRO SERIES PR4100 looks awesome, configuring it with 24TB is very tempting and easily one click backing up from WDWP at 100MS/s+ sounds just great. Can the MY CLOUD PRO PR4100 reliably backup all data also automatically to Amazon Drive and Google Drive? I will be looking at the latest NAS from Synology when I video-blog at Computex at the end of this month, just in case it seems Synology has lots of “apps” that run on the NAS autonomously to do things as backup to Amazon Drive (perhaps set it to only run at night or only run when it can detect that I am not using bandwidth for anything else at home), run things like a BitTorrent server, perhaps run it through a Seedbox or VPN, I wonder which of WD’s NAS products or Synology might be able to do all this the best. I’m probably also going to buy a good NAS next month. Dual bay at sub-$200 might be enough if there’s a good one. I want my NAS to be ARM Powered yet have full speed networking and USB3 backups, I don’t want anything guzzling power running on an x86.

#9

Hurray, I’m glad it’s only a short wait until you get your My Passport Wireless Pro! :smile:

As far as backing up on the go - as awesome as My Passport Wireless Pro is, I’d still recommend keeping the drive steady when the HDD is in use. I’m pretty cautious with my drives (and data), so I try to minimize motion whenever platters are spinning.

For the My Cloud mobile app and uploading to YouTube/Google Drive - the data goes through the phone, so you’ll need to stay connected via Wi-FI and use the app. The cloud services we currently support via the My Cloud app are Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Adobe Creative Cloud…but you can also “send to” others via your phone’s built-in OS functionality!

(I haven’t had a chance to see the pico projector in the Moto Z just yet, but I love the idea of having my own HD projector wherever I go - I’m a stickler for image quality :wink: )

For My Cloud Pro, we currently have cloud backup options for Dropbox and Amazon S3. You can also code and install your own .bins, and of course there’s SSH support if you’d like some command-line access. We also have apps like Transmission in our app store as well as built-in My Cloud-to-My Cloud remote sync.

If your budget is $200 (for a NAS without any drives), then I’d recommend our My Cloud EX2 Ultra. It’s got a 1.3Ghz dual-core ARM CPU and 1GB of RAM, and should be a great solution to backup and stream your HD videos.

Since it sounds like you’re deep in the 4K video scene, though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t encourage a look at our My Cloud Pro PR2100…that Intel Pentium x86 CPU enables hardware transcoding so you can stream your 4K videos anywhere you have a network connection, and it’s also got that handy front-mounted USB port for quickly importing content on your My Passport Wireless Pro (or any other drive for that matter). But, like our My Cloud EX2 Ultra, My Cloud PR2100 is still super easy to setup and use.

#10

There are issues you need to know about if you are using an iPhone. Read this:

Alexj >>> I can’t wait for you to receive your My Passport Wireless Pro! It has absolutely become part of my personal “every day” carry…as well as my “every trip” carry, my “every vacation” carry, my “every flight” carry…etc.

I also take my MPW gen 1 on vacations, too, but I quit using it on airplanes – too big, Instead, I put some music and m4v videos on a Sandisk Connect Wireless Stick I just keep in my pants pocket, and enjoy the media during flight on iPad with less hassle.

#11

That’s a good point about setting the iPhone/iPad auto-lock to never for that first (potentially massive) upload; thanks for reminding me!

The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick is also a really great product - I have one too! I love my My Passport Wireless Pro, though - the 802.11ac connection speed is perfect when I’m streaming a MKV or a higher bitrate 1080p video. And, with a larger capacity, I can just keep everything on one device. :wink:

#12

I will be traveling to Europe in the fall and am trying to prepare for the possible electronics ban. I will be fine from the U.S. to Europe, but it is the trip home that concerns me. I plan to use the drive to backup photos (not for playing media). I have an Adobe CC account and Microsoft OneDrive. Because of the possible ban I am thinking of only taking my iPad. Will that setup work? Also I have a Sony a6000 which I plan to take which has wireless capabilities. Could the drive download directly from my camera? The other question I have is with spotty wireless while traveling outside the U.S. How does that work? Thanks.

P.S. I just read that the My Cloud app does not support thumbnails for raw files. I have LR installed on my iPad. Would I be able to see them there. Also, just to confirm - the files are still there even if I can’t see the thumbnails, correct?

#13

Look into Sandisk Wireles Stick (e.g. flash drive) for easy of use and portability.

#14

Hi @Rosekit ! First, sorry for the delay - I’ve between traveling for fun and then for work, so time’s been tight. But on to your thoughts and questions!

Yes, I think My Passport Wireless Pro plus an iPad would work beautifully - it’s exactly what I did on some of my recent trips.

With an internet connection and your Adobe CC and OneDrive accounts, you’ll be able to download those files to your My Passport Wireless Pro, and vice versa.

The Sony a6000 is an AWESOME mirrorless camera - I ended up going with the Fufjifilm X100T a couple years ago, but the a6000 was a very very close second for me. As far as wirelessly transferring - I don’t think we’ve tested that particular model with the My Passport Wireless Pro. Let me know if you’d like to me to tag my engineering team here.

What you can do, though, is plug the camera into the USB host port on top (using the same USB cable that you recharge the camera with) and you can copy images off the camera that way. It would be faster to use the built-in SD card slot, but you should definitely go with whatever works best for you. :slight_smile:

When you say spotty wireless when traveling outside the US…do you mean cellular, or do you mean Wi-Fi? I’m afraid I can’t speak to cellular (as that depends on your phone / countries to be visited), but I would expect that most cafes, restaurants, hotels, etc nowadays offer Wi-Fi hot spots. The speeds may not be great, but you should be able to at least access email, social media, and share a few photos.

As far as thumbnails for RAW - you are correct. The My Cloud app lacks thumbnail support for RAW, but the images ARE there (you’ll see a “?” icon in place of a preview), and you CAN still work on them.

Here’s my trick for that : I shoot JPEG+RAW to the same card. The My Cloud app will sort photos based on name, so the list order is 001.JPEG, 001.DNG, 002.JPEG, 002.DNG, and so on. I use the JPEGs in the app as the preview, and then I tap the RAW files, tap “Open with”, and work on the images Lightroom on iOS that way.

Hope this helps - please let me know if you have any other thoughts or questions! :slight_smile:

Alex

#15

Ok, I purchased the My Passport Wireless Pro. I have everything working. I inserted a card and it worked perfectly. As a test, I downloaded two days’ worth of photos into two separate photo “albums” probably 30 photos in all. But, I am super frustrated. I am trying to get the photos into LR and am having an incredibly tough time. Right now from My Cloud (My Passport), on my ipad I choose Select All and Copy. I am copying them into an Adobe Cloud CC account. I wait and wait and wait and nothing happens. I can copy one or two photos over and that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. I cannot even tell where the copying is in the process. There is nothing to tell me that the files are being copied or that they are copied at all. I have a great internet connection at home here. I cannot even imagine the frustration I might have if the internet connect is weak. Can you tell me what I might do to streamline the process or is this just how it works? I shoot in raw with a Sony a6000.

I can conceive that I may have 50-60 files (if not more) per day to copy on my trip. There must be some better way to get them into LR. Any ideas?

#16

Hi @Rosekit - so if I understand correctly, you’d like all of your photos from a specific folder on the My Passport Wireless Pro to be accessible in the Lightroom Mobile app on iPad, right?

I’m looking to seeing if there is a way to do “batch add” from My Passport Wireless Pro to Lightroom Mobile, via the My Cloud app. Currently, to open one photo in Lightroom, tap on a photo, then tap on the “Share” button in the upper right, “Open in”, and then Lightroom Mobile. This will download the RAW to Lightroom Mobile and open it in the editor.

(I prefer to keep all my RAWs on the My Passport Wireless Pro as once you open them in Lightroom Mobile they can chew up a lot of space quickly on my iPad. So I usually go one-by-one for each shot that I want to work on to minimize how much space I’m using on my iPad)

Once those photos have been opened in Lightroom Mobile, they’ll sync over to your Lightroom desktop app the next time your iPad is connected to the Internet. Alternatively, if you have access to your computer, the fastest way to get your photos from your My Passport Wireless Pro to your Lightroom library may just be to plug in MPWP via USB 3.0 and click and drag to the desktop app.

As far as Creative Cloud app - I’m not seeing a clear path for moving files from Creative Cloud storage mobile app to Lightroom Mobile…I’ll see what’s possible here as well, but I’m open to guidance in the interim. :slight_smile:

Let me know if this helps at all…and I’ll see if there’s a way to do batch add or move files from Creative Cloud storage to Lightroom Mobile!

Alex

#17

Thank you Alex. There are a couple of things I haven’t yet figured out. I decided to use Dropbox instead of Adobe Cloud. I have more space in Dropbox. I am really hoping that the laptop ban does not go into effect because I am so much more proficient on my Mac. One more question I have if I do have to use the ipad is, how can you tell when the copying is finished? Here is what I am presently doing using the ipad app:

Insert card into My Passport Wireless Pro
Download the photos
Go to the Download folder in the app on my ipad
Selecct all
Copy to Dropbox

There does not appear to be any way to tell when the copying is finished. I have resorted to checking on my phone to see how it is going.

Question #2 - How in the heck do I get a My Cloud account that I can access from my computer? I do have My Passport set up on my Mac and can see the dashboard. When I go to mycloud.com and select “Get Yours Now” it takes me to the main WD page. My only choice is “shop now.” I cannot see anywhere to set up a Mycloud account. A little confusing to say the least.

Otherwise I am very pleased with my purchase. I also took advantage of a recent Mac hardrive offer and now have a new WD 4T drive I have yet to hook up. The two HDs I have attached to my PC are also WD. I have been very pleased with WD products.

Thanks Alex. You have been incredibly helpful!

#18

Hi again @Rosekit !

At this time, the way to see if a copy is finished is to go to the main left hand side bar (the dark grey one) and tap on “Activity.” This will show you transfer in progress, as well as items you’ve recently opened, moved, or deleted. For adding to Dropbox, I’m looking at alternative method using third party apps and one of the advanced settings on MPWP…I don’t want to get hopes up, so that’s all I’ll say for now. :wink:

As far as the My Cloud account…yeah, I can see how this can be confusing, and I apologize for that. The “My Cloud account” is for when you have a My Cloud device (including My Cloud EX and My Cloud Pro series) - the account allows outside-the-home access to one of these My Cloud desktop NAS boxes. No account is needed to access the My Passport Wireless Pro.

I’m so glad you’re happy with your My Passport Wireless Pro! Please feel free to drop us a line in this thread or in this forum if you have any other thoughts or questions - I need to get better at responding more quickly, but I do read every post about MPWP! :slight_smile:

#19

Thank you. Actually, I thought that was a rather quick reply! I see the activity feed on the left. I think all my questions have been answered. I spent quite a lot of time last weekend delving into it. The one thing I haven’t done yet is connect it to my computer with the USB. I’ll probably test that out this weekend. I think it is going to be a very helpful travel accessory. I’ll use the forum next time. That way other people who may have the same question will see the answer too.

#20

Yup, please do! And for anything urgent, I’d still refer you to our awesome customer service team - but for everything else (including some cool new use cases you find, or “I’d like to…”), please feel free to post here! :slight_smile:

#21

Well get it done! Anyone transferring LOTS of data via wireless is wasting time via wireless. This is the best and fastest way to load up a MPW with data and media files. When I got mine, I just connected the MPW via USB to PC and treated it like any other HD, and quickly populated it from PC folders/files and other drives via network connections, etc.

#22

Originally I purchased the My Passport Pro because I am traveling to Europe and I was worried about the laptop ban. I was going to use it in conjunction with my ipad which would have necessitated wireless. I am hoping the laptop ban does not go into effect and that I can take my Mac with me, but that remains to be seen. I just had to know how it worked with the ipad.

#23

You really did not need to spend all the money on a pricey (and fragile) Passport Wireless. I traveled a few times with mine a few years ago, and the seats kept getting more cramped with less room for it. A year or so ago I bought a Sandisk Connect Wireless Stick; it’s a wireless flash drive (Sandisk is a WD company) and it fits in my pocket like any other flash drive I bought the 64GB model for $40 from Amazon. They come in other sizes, but this was the best bang for buck size. I have movies and music on it and listen to music and watch movies from it on iPad while on plane rides. Much better than toting a MPW.

#24

Our Connect Wireless Stick is definitely a handy solution for streaming media, but it’s hard to beat My Passport Wireless Pro with that built-in SD card reader for copying, streaming, and editing content from cards without a computer! (And I love that 802.11ac connection for streaming MKVs and high bitrate 1080p MP4s)