WD My Passport Wireless SSD Review: Network Storage On The Go
My Passport Wireless SSD: Final Thoughts and Conclusion
While Western Digital's My Passport Wireless SSD is likely a niche product, it offers a valuable role in the right workflow. If ease of use, portability, and data redundancy are important to you, then the My Passport Wireless SSD deserves strong consideration.
Conceptually, it checks a lot of boxes on our wish list for a device like this. Solid State Drives are less susceptible to damage from shock, vibration and impact versus magnetic spinning drives. Also, its wireless capability make this product accessible to all your devices at once. And the built-in USB port and SD card readers make importing data simple and convenient. This really does sound like a working photographer's best friend.
So, why are we hesitating to recommend it outright? The file transfer speeds are rather sluggish. The only place where the My Passport Wireless SSD can stretch its legs is during USB file transfers to and from a PC . Even there it fails to keep pace with the competition.
We would like to see Western Digital refresh this product with a forward-looking interface. We accept that improving the wireless radios would likely come at the cost of battery life, but its physical ports are a bit outdated. The drive should offer Thunderbolt 3 connectivity via a Type-C connector that can pull double duty for USB-C connections to smartphones and tablets. This Type-C connector could also be used for importing files from increasingly common Type-C flash drives.
It would also be nice if the Type-A port similarly was upgraded to support at least USB 3.1 Gen 1 speeds. This is particularly true when cameras are exceeding encoding bitrates of 400 Mbps. We would not complain if the SD card reader increased in speed as well, but its 40-50 MB/s is reasonable.
Security is perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this product. If the My Passport Wireless SSD is running on a controlled, private network, then it is probably fine. However, connecting this to a public network is inadvisable with SMBv1 exposed and doubly-so if FTP is enabled. At the very least, we would like to see WD add an option to password protect FTP transfers.
In short, if the sometimes sluggish transfer speeds do not deter you, the WD My Passport Wireless SSD is a solid solution for photography, video and other media-rich backups. Its price seems a bit steep (starting at $289 for the 500GB model), but it lacks meaningful competition, outside of the more-expensive Gnarbox, with its NAS-like capabilities and great software integration. On the other hand, if you do not need the extra ruggedness a solid state drive provides, Western Digital's own My Passport Wireless Pro with a mechanical hard drive should offer similar performance in most areas, except USB transfers, for a much lower price.
Conceptually, it checks a lot of boxes on our wish list for a device like this. Solid State Drives are less susceptible to damage from shock, vibration and impact versus magnetic spinning drives. Also, its wireless capability make this product accessible to all your devices at once. And the built-in USB port and SD card readers make importing data simple and convenient. This really does sound like a working photographer's best friend.
So, why are we hesitating to recommend it outright? The file transfer speeds are rather sluggish. The only place where the My Passport Wireless SSD can stretch its legs is during USB file transfers to and from a PC . Even there it fails to keep pace with the competition.
We would like to see Western Digital refresh this product with a forward-looking interface. We accept that improving the wireless radios would likely come at the cost of battery life, but its physical ports are a bit outdated. The drive should offer Thunderbolt 3 connectivity via a Type-C connector that can pull double duty for USB-C connections to smartphones and tablets. This Type-C connector could also be used for importing files from increasingly common Type-C flash drives.
It would also be nice if the Type-A port similarly was upgraded to support at least USB 3.1 Gen 1 speeds. This is particularly true when cameras are exceeding encoding bitrates of 400 Mbps. We would not complain if the SD card reader increased in speed as well, but its 40-50 MB/s is reasonable.
Security is perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this product. If the My Passport Wireless SSD is running on a controlled, private network, then it is probably fine. However, connecting this to a public network is inadvisable with SMBv1 exposed and doubly-so if FTP is enabled. At the very least, we would like to see WD add an option to password protect FTP transfers.
In short, if the sometimes sluggish transfer speeds do not deter you, the WD My Passport Wireless SSD is a solid solution for photography, video and other media-rich backups. Its price seems a bit steep (starting at $289 for the 500GB model), but it lacks meaningful competition, outside of the more-expensive Gnarbox, with its NAS-like capabilities and great software integration. On the other hand, if you do not need the extra ruggedness a solid state drive provides, Western Digital's own My Passport Wireless Pro with a mechanical hard drive should offer similar performance in most areas, except USB transfers, for a much lower price.
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