Western
Digital introduced the My Passport Wireless 2TB drive in response to a
perceived increase in demand for high capacity wireless storage devices.
Seagate with its 2TB Wireless Plus drive launched on the market months earlier. Of
the two, Western Digital is the most expensive, selling for just around $300 on Amazon compared to around $230 for the Seagate model.
How
to justify such a massive price difference? Well, wireless hard disk drives are
not just storage devices. In the case of the My Passport Wireless, the drive
enclosure packs a 3,400mAh battery (which WD says will power the drive for up
to six hours - it will of course depend on your usage), a Cortex-A8
system-on-chip (similar to the one found in the iPhone 4), 512MB of RAM, 128MB
of flash memory, an SD card reader and a dual-stream 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi module.
At
its heart is a big hard disk drive, a 2TB 2.5-inch model from WD's stable, the
WD20NPVX, which runs at 5,200 RPM and has a mere 8MB buffer. Interestingly, the
bare drive by itself costs around $155.
Design
Physically,
the drive is chunkier and heavier than I'd expected. That's partly due to the
built-in SD card slot that's located on one of its sides, and also the fact
that the drive itself is a 15mm, four-platter model. The front has two LED
indicators (for power and Wi-Fi strength) as well as a power button on one side
plus a standard A-type USB 3.0 connector. Next to the latter is a dual-purpose
button that displays the battery level when the device is switched off and when
on, which also allows you to connect to Wi-Fi clients.
Performance
Another
smart feature is support for FTP which will be welcomed by advanced users,
especially photographers and anyone paranoid about saving their data to the
cloud automatically.
Power
users will also like the fact that it can be used as a bridge (to share an
internet connection with other devices) and includes a DLNA media server, and
the content of any SD card inserted in the reader can be automatically imported
(copied or moved) to the drive. As expected though, you cannot use the device
as a portable drive and a mobile media server at the same time. Note that you
will need Western Digital's My Cloud app in order to access most of these
features and to tinker with more advanced settings.
The
app, which is compatible across a number of WD's personal cloud storage
products, offers a decent amount of functionality although file support is
limited (cookie points for the clean user interface, though).
Verdict
All
in all, the My Passport Wireless offers average value for money. It's heavier
and bulkier than the competition, and the drive's performance won't set the
world on fire. If you are not interested in its advanced features, then there
are other products on the market (like Seagate Wireless 2TB) that offer a
better performance/value ratio.
The
intrinsic value of the incorporated card reader for a photographer is debatable
when a few points are taken into account. Firstly, a spinning hard disk drive
is more prone to failure than a solid-state one, and secondly, good, large
capacity microSD/SD cards are affordable. Finally, a wireless media reader like
this Kingston G2 Mobilelite might actually be a better bet when
combined with a 2TB drive, costing around half the price if you really want to
back up your pictures.
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