{"id":20748,"date":"2018-01-10T13:45:40","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T22:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/?p=20748"},"modified":"2018-01-10T14:17:50","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T23:17:50","slug":"a-look-at-the-new-western-digital-my-passport-wireless-ssd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/a-look-at-the-new-western-digital-my-passport-wireless-ssd\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look at the New Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Outdoor and travel photographers, take notice: This week, Western Digital unveiled their brand new My Passport Wireless SSD<\/a>\u00a0and it’s something you’ll want to check out.<\/p>\n

So much more than just a hard drive, the\u00a0WD My Passport Wireless SSD<\/a> is a powerful, multi-function tool that solves a number of very important issues for photographers who like to travel with minimal gear. In other words,\u00a0leaving the laptop at home.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a durable, shock resistant SSD hard drive that has an SD card slot, a USB port, Wi-Fi\u00a0connectivity\u00a0and and 6700 mHa charging battery built right in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s what you can do with it:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Download images from your memory card for backup right to the drive.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. View\/transfer your images (even RAW files) to your mobile device via the WD My Cloud App.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Stream 4K video from the drive to your phone or tablet.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Charge your mobile device via the powered 2.4A USB port.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    So yea, this thing is pretty awesome!<\/p>\n

    For a long time, the main crux for photographers who like to travel with only a phone or tablet has been how to backup\u00a0your images. Apple has the camera connection adapter, which lets you copy photos from\u00a0an SD card, but it takes a long time to transfer and it eats up a lot of battery power.<\/p>\n

    And aside from that, do you really want to store all your shot images on your phone or iPad? Probably not. Most mobile devices aren’t really made for that. Download a couple of decent sized cards and you’ll fill up your iPad in a real hurry.<\/p>\n

    If you have a Fujifilm camera or any other wi-fi\/Bluetooth enabled camera, you can transfer your images that way,\u00a0but that’s only a realistic option if you’re transferring a few select images, not your entire card.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Built-in SD Card Slot & Wi-Fi Connection<\/h3>\n

    With the WD My Passport Wireless SSD<\/a>, you just stick\u00a0your memory card into the\u00a0SD card slot, press a button and your images will automatically be copied to the drive. With a 65MB\/s transfer rate, it moves\u00a0about 4GB per minute.<\/p>\n

    Then, you initiate a wi-fi connection from the drive and boot up the WD My Cloud App on your device. This allows you to view and manage your files, and transfer images to your mobile device, even RAW files. From there, you have all of your regular options- share, email, send to printer, open in third part apps, etc…<\/p>\n

    You can also connect the drive to your computer via USB and transfer image to and from the drive. When you’re back home, this offers an easy solution to get all of your images to your computer, instead of having to copy\u00a0them card by card.<\/p>\n

    Back up To or From Your Computer<\/h3>\n

    Another way to use this device is to put a batch of images onto the drive before you go on your trip, then you’ll have access to them when you’re on location.<\/p>\n

    I have the first generation My Passport Wireless and I used it this way during a trip to Labrador and on my 5-week Romania trip back in 2015. I put a folder\u00a0of my best images on the drive, so if I client contacted me and needed some images, or if I wanted to access my photos\u00a0for social media\/blogging use during the trip, I’d have ready access to them.<\/p>\n

    It worked like a charm, although being the first version, it was a little clunky and quite slow. Being an SSD drive, this\u00a0latest version is WAY faster,\u00a0with speeds of up\u00a0to 390 MB\/s, and I imagine the software performance has been improved as well.<\/p>\n

    4K Streaming – Up to 8 Devices<\/h3>\n

    In addition to letting you transfer your images back and forth, the\u00a0WD My Passport Wireless SSD<\/a>\u00a0also lets you stream movies and 4K right from the drive to your mobile drive.\u00a0You can connect up to 8 devices. You could either use this to preview video clips or show your work\u00a0to clients, or use it as your travel entertainment hub and store movies on it that you can\u00a0watch in your hotel, on the plane, or yes,\u00a0even\u00a0in your tent.<\/p>\n

    10 Hour Battery Charge<\/h3>\n

    The 6700 mHa battery inside the\u00a0WD My Passport Wireless SSD<\/a>\u00a0has a 10-hour life. This give you pretty decent amount of working time between charges when copying, transferring and viewing images. You can also use some or all of that charge to power up your mobile devices using the 2.4A USB port.<\/p>\n

    I carry a Goal Zero Venture 30<\/a> everywhere I go when I travel. It’s a\u00a07,800 mHa battery pack, and I use it all the time to charge my phone and and camera batteries.<\/a>\u00a0The My Passport could\u00a0potentially replace that on some trips, or else double my charging capacity. If you don’t already have a battery power pack like the Venture 30, this would give you a great charging source.<\/p>\n

    Durable and Shock Resistant<\/h3>\n

    Not does the\u00a0SSD design eliminate moving parts, which makes the drive more durable and reliable, it has a removable rubber bumper that makes it even more crash-proof.\u00a0With the bumper on, it’s built to early survive a 1-meter drop on to the rocks. You can also take the bumper off if you want the unit to be a bit more compact and streamlined. So, again great for outdoor shooters<\/strong> and people who are rough on their gear.<\/p>\n

    It’s\u00a0already a pretty compact device for all that it does. It’s just over 5″ square, and 1.2″ thick. The\u00a0smallest configuration only 14 oz., while the largest 2TB version weighs about 22 oz.\"\"<\/p>\n

    Great All-Around\u00a0Travel Photography Device<\/h3>\n

    With wi-fi enabled cameras, better apps, and the occasional adapter cable, true mobile\u00a0photography workflows have\u00a0inched\u00a0closer to hitting that sweet spot, and this\u00a0new WD My Passport Wireless SSD<\/a>\u00a0finally\u00a0gets us there with a unique, but extremely useful and well thought out offering.<\/p>\n

    I definitely plan on getting one of these and I see it becoming an essential cog in my own travel and outdoor photography setup.\u00a0If you’re travel or outdoor shooter who is looking to put together a more mobile, laptop free setup, then I highly recommend giving this thing a look.\u00a0It comes in three sizes: 500GB, 1TB and 2TB<\/a>, although it seems like the 500GB would get you by in most situations.<\/p>\n

    WD still has their regular non-SSD, non-shock resistant version of the My Passport Wireless<\/a>, which comes in for sizes, 1, 2, 3 and 4TB. They’ve been upgraded considerably from the original version, which is the one I have. If you’re looking to save a little money and are ok with slightly slower transfer speeds and don’t need 4K video streaming, you might consider this model.<\/p>\n

    Even if you do take your laptop with you on your trips, this unit\u00a0could still come in quite handy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Outdoor and travel photographers, take notice: This week, Western Digital unveiled their brand new My Passport Wireless SSD\u00a0and it’s something you’ll want to check out. So much more than just a hard drive, the\u00a0WD My Passport Wireless SSD is a powerful, multi-function tool that solves a number of very important issues for photographers who like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[544,288,332,391,149,171,482,92,480],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20748"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20759,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20748\/revisions\/20759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}