I got one of these because I no longer have a desktop. I needed a way to get images off of a CF card onto my iPad Pro. Works good but it takes a while to boot up. I have the 3 terabyte.
Jonathan J Scott Films What are the options for connecting it to the TV to watch movies from the drive - is it only wireless or can you hard wire it as well? Thank you, nice review
6 months later. This originally looked like such a good idea, but in my instance, not so much. I save the RAW files from my Olympus OMD’s SD card to the WDMPWP. They show up on my 12.9 iPad Pro through the WD app. The files are labeled “.ORF”. Can’t figure how to import to the iPad My Photos. The icon will not highlight when the file is selected. BUT, I can import the same exact file through a dongle to the iPad directly from the SD card which pretty much defeats the purpose of the WDMPWP for me as far as I can tell. It sure would be nice if I have overlooked something.
Hello. An informative video. I have Western Digital My Passport for mac, It is about 3 years old, I only use it on my Mac. If I get this new model, can I transfer my files from my existing My Passport for Mac? It only has a usb /c connection. Thank You.
If I have backed up data from an SD card, and delete older files from the card and back it up again, will it delete the data that it doesn't see on the card anymore, or just append to the directories it's created for the SD card? Thanks for the help!
Any idea why it is so hard to find this information? I asked the same question to several reviewers and you are the only one who was kind enough to answer. Thanks again.
If you have your videos transfered to the passport wireless pro, are the videos then still on your sd card. And if they are, is there an option that removes the videos off your sd card?
Yes they are still on the SD card, you can obviously then format the SD cards in your camera if you want to wipe them, but as explained in the video I will always keep both until I've finished editing
I am tempted to get one of these at some point. Would prefer the SSD version but the costs are very high for those. Just not sure how much I would use it. I was thinking of using it as a wifi server of sorts but now I have a NAS that I am very happy with I do not have that need.
Hi Jonathan, thank you for this video. All the reviews that I have seen talk about this external drive to backup SD cards, but I would like to use it literally as an external memory for my daily work as a graphic designer. Do you see that it is a viable use? There are two reasons why I am interested in this model: to free up space on my laptop, and to have a drive that does not generate one more cable. My only worry is it will not load files fast if used for my work as a graphic designer. Thank you!
Be much cheaper to buy a standalone external drive that uses usb. For the sake of one cable you'll be spending a lot of extra money. If you only have limited usb ports buy a usb hub. Hope that helps
Awesome review! I'm getting my 4TB soon and was wondering... once I transfer all files from an sd card, can I reformat the card, reuse it and transfer the new content?
I'm climbing Kilimanjaro in a couple of weeks and want to get this. I'm just wondering if I store all of my 4K footage on it and then clear my SD card to continue filming. When I re-upload will it wipe the previous clips on it as it will be filed under the same name MOV1.mp4 and so forth?
Leighton Milton no, it won't wipe footage, each time you put an SD card in it saves to a new folder. Try it out before you go though. Also I'd highly highly recommend a second drive, as if your wiping your cards and the drive fails/gets lost etc. All your footage is gone.
unrelated question, but i noticed you've been using the GH5 for professional work. What other lens do you recommend reside the standard Leica 12-35mm f2.5? william
Hi Johnathan. Thank you for your informative review. I want to buy one of these drives but I have been scared by some negative reviews which describe these drives as a "lemon". I live in Australia and there have been a few stories of people buying one of these drives and on getting it home, find it to be "DOA". But it gets worse, the aggrieved person takes the drive back to the shop; they can't get it to work so they give him a replacement. Guess what... the guy gets the replacement home and it too is DOA! Can I ask if you have heard of any other such bad experiences?
Jenny Gavin-Wear it comes in multiple versions from 1TB-4TB, WD sent me the 4TB version. Links in the description to prices for US and UK. Hope that helps.
Jonathan, thank you for the great review! One question, can you connect to this drive via wifi AND use ethernet for internet? I am wondering if I can access this drive this on my desktop which is wireless enabled, without disrupting my internet access through ethernet.
Does it offer the ability to take the photos and videos from an iOS device, and put them on this drive? I have been having trouble finding a device that does this well, transferring from the photos app on my iPhone, to a storage device. Thanks in advance! Great vid!
Nice review. I got mine a year ago. Viewing of the data on phone is slow and the app doesn’t support raw files. The sd transfer stop working after 3months of use. It keeps on failing during transfer. I contacted the support but no response from them. This is the Worst gear i bought. I still use it as a normal external drive though.
Jonathan J Scott Films maybe they fixed this issue when they release the newer models. All 4 leds was blinking after a few minutes i inserted the sd card. At First i thought the fault was on my sd card but it did the samething with my other sd cards. I have read in a forum that many had the same issue with this product.
I had the same issue. I got a response from support, they suggested I had a corrupted card -apparently it struggles with micro SD cards. So I reformatted it, reinstalled the most recent firmware. It worked a few more times to the point I thought it was fixed, then started acting up again. I decided to not rely on it as a computer-less backup. Like Christian’s drive, mine works fine as a normal backup drive and as a battery backup. I never lost data - but the data transfer from SD to the WD is unreliable. Maybe there are lemons out there, but it makes me reluctant to buy another one.
What do you mean by plug and play? If using the cable connection the yes of course, it's just usb3. If you want to use the wireless connection on your phone/tablet you have to install the app
@@JonathanJScottFilms Yeah but can we plug it to power adapter and then use it wireless at the same time? By the way, can you tell about its Down/Up speed over wireless connection?
You said you can view RAW files that are stored on the portable drive. What software on your phone allows you to view the RAW pictures? Thank you for the review - very imformative and well presented.
Bill Dillon I didn't need any software, the my cloud app that you use to view files on the drive has support for raw files, at least canon cr2s anywyay.
Thanks Jonathan, I have a couple GoPro cameras and they produce RAW files with an extension of .gpr. I'd like to be able to view those but that isn't a game changer if I cannot. Thanks again for the review and also the fast reply to my question. Cheers.
Jonathan J Scott Films I was watching another review where a guy was having trouble with his Pro WirelessHDD and in his update WD said the Pro Wireless does not support Mirco SD cards. As all my cameras and drones use MicroSD cards it defeats my purpose. If possible could you please confirm if a Micro SD will work or not? (Only if you have some) Thank you so much. 🙏🙏
Jonathan J Scott Films Thanks Jonathan. Very much appreciated. Yours is one of the better reviews of this product. Thanks for taking the time to create this content. 👍
About 4K footage when copied into the hdd it lag right? Then if you copy them on pc or upload them for example on UA-cam will then fix? Thanks great video
It work back then when it was released but now, the App never update and it struggle to access files even through Wifiband 5.0g as well as 2.5g. Anyone has the same issue?
Yes - you need to do via the My Cloud app which lets you access the hard drive, SD card and any attached USB storage. You can move Video, photos and other docs both ways (onto and off the ipad) but you can't move music across because Apple has locked out access to that because of DRMs - you have to use iTunes for that.
Jasons Jungle there is a way to move music to and from it to the iPad/ iPhone. You need the Documents app to save the mp3 file on your iPad/iPhone for playback but Apple Music wont let you save them anyway and you still will need iTunes. I save mp3’s on the WD My passport wireless SSD for music video projects that I edit on LumaFusion.
I haven't checked you out before but that's ok, brilliant commentary and you gave me all the info I need, the 4k streaming worries me but good to know, I have a Samsung 7edge, I guess it's not overly important but thanks, good job.
I bought one, worked fine once, 3 months later i took it on location again and wouldnt work - non stop flashing lights. Loads of people with the same problem and no solution anywhere to be found - never again
I bought this WD Drive for use while traveling to manage and edit my 4K video’s. The offload from SD cards works fine BUT streaming the video to my iPad to Luma Fusion is terrible. The videos constantly lag making it unusable in this regard. There is even lag within the WD app when viewing on the iPad. It just does not do the job it advertises. I regret buying this. Be warned.
To be fair, the point of the Gnarbox is to have the computing power to edit 4k video be in the box, with your phone as the controller. This is just storage plain and simple. They're similar feeling products, but the intended uses are fairly different.
This device is 1st class of crap. It's completely useless. Extremely slow and unresponsive. It's waste of money and by far the worst device WD ever released
i buy one and heard before buy it it wasn't a good product. i just lost all my photos because for no reason the wifi connection and link doesn't work lost 245€
Hopeless product. I bought two of these and both suffer from a defect harddrive (click sound) and all lamps blinking just after a few days. These drives should be recalled to WD.
It's a terrible product. It's slow. And very sensitive to unexpected shutdowns, including just holding the power button down on a mac to force quit. This leads to the drive not being able to mount. The data is still there and you can you can find it when you use activity monitor to stop the fsck-exfat task (something like that). However you need to reformat it if you want it to mount automatically. I am now thinking I should just shuck the drive out and stick it in my drobo. Waste of money.
This thing is 100% trash! It failed me in less that a week & their support said, “we are not responsible.” Absolutely terrible product. Absolutely terrible customer service.
This is the worst WD product. All my drives are WD however if I knew the amount of time that I would spend trying to fix the issues straight out of the box I would not have bought the product. The first one failed and I exchanged it then the replacement one suffered the same issues. If you are looking for something reliable do not but this product. It appears to be luck of the draw who gets one that works and who doesn't. WD appear to know that this is an issue and offer no real solutions except to replace it until I guess you get one that actually works like it should. None of their trouble shooting solutions work. PC/Apple cannot see the drive, wireless function is dead, and all the WD support pages do not help any of these issues. It is unfortunate as this would be a good product to have in your bag. Sorry to say the product is a dud.
Purchase it here (Also really helps the channel) 4TB USA: amzn.to/2D1RcWA
I got one of these because I no longer have a desktop. I needed a way to get images off of a CF card onto my iPad Pro. Works good but it takes a while to boot up. I have the 3 terabyte.
Bill Dungan cool, thanks for sharing 👍
thanks and I didn't know it can review RAW files on the phone. I'm attempted to get one.
Very well articulated but once again nothing about how to add and delete files.
Going to test this one during my travel around Japan.
Since most of the hostel doesnt offer an pc with an usb port(They dont want virus)
Jonathan J Scott Films
What are the options for connecting it to the TV to watch movies from the drive - is it only wireless or can you hard wire it as well? Thank you, nice review
You can if your TV supports it i.e it has a usb connection
6 months later. This originally looked like such a good idea, but in my instance, not so much. I save the RAW files from my Olympus OMD’s SD card to the WDMPWP. They show up on my 12.9 iPad Pro through the WD app. The files are labeled “.ORF”. Can’t figure how to import to the iPad My Photos. The icon will not highlight when the file is selected. BUT, I can import the same exact file through a dongle to the iPad directly from the SD card which pretty much defeats the purpose of the WDMPWP for me as far as I can tell. It sure would be nice if I have overlooked something.
John Huron try the app documents by riddle
Hello. An informative video. I have Western Digital My Passport for mac, It is about 3 years old, I only use it on my Mac. If I get this new model, can I transfer my files from my existing My Passport for Mac? It only has a usb /c connection. Thank You.
If I have backed up data from an SD card, and delete older files from the card and back it up again, will it delete the data that it doesn't see on the card anymore, or just append to the directories it's created for the SD card? Thanks for the help!
It just adds files, it won't delete anything
Great! Thank you.
You're welcome
Nice review. Can’t seem to find and info on saving photos from my iPhones Photos app to the WD Wireless Plus. Is this possible?
Sorry not sure
Any idea why it is so hard to find this information? I asked the same question to several reviewers and you are the only one who was kind enough to answer. Thanks again.
@@johnhuron5989 sorry, I really don't know, other than googling I don't know what to suggest. I don't use an iPhone so I can't try it I'm afraid
Great video. Can you test how long to upload 4gb video?
also if you did not want to use wireless, then can you use it like a normal drive with cable.
Bruce yes indeed you can
That's interesting, indeed, thanks for this guide! Can you trim your footage on the smartphone? That would be great!
Theoretically yes I suppose, never tried it though
After copying files, they show on the drive but no thumbnail image.... How to fix this?
If you have your videos transfered to the passport wireless pro, are the videos then still on your sd card. And if they are, is there an option that removes the videos off your sd card?
Yes they are still on the SD card, you can obviously then format the SD cards in your camera if you want to wipe them, but as explained in the video I will always keep both until I've finished editing
@@JonathanJScottFilms Thanks for you quick response!
I seriously wonder if WD has sorted out the issues that a lot of people were reviewing at Amazon. Quite a lot of negative reviews over there.
They're resolved by updating the firmware/software.
Saw that, kinda scared me off
you provided the information that I needed as to whether or not to purchase the product. thanks.
Glad it was useful
i now have the wireless pro and not sure what am doing wrong but i can not access my pro (photos) when away from home does any one have any insites
Thank you it is a very useful review. Considering to get one for my trip.
No worries, glad it helped you.
I am tempted to get one of these at some point. Would prefer the SSD version but the costs are very high for those. Just not sure how much I would use it. I was thinking of using it as a wifi server of sorts but now I have a NAS that I am very happy with I do not have that need.
if you don't need it don't get it, no need to waste your money.
Does anyone know how to reset or format a WD passport wireless drive to the original settings using Mac utility.
Hi Jonathan, thank you for this video. All the reviews that I have seen talk about this external drive to backup SD cards, but I would like to use it literally as an external memory for my daily work as a graphic designer. Do you see that it is a viable use? There are two reasons why I am interested in this model: to free up space on my laptop, and to have a drive that does not generate one more cable. My only worry is it will not load files fast if used for my work as a graphic designer. Thank you!
Be much cheaper to buy a standalone external drive that uses usb. For the sake of one cable you'll be spending a lot of extra money. If you only have limited usb ports buy a usb hub. Hope that helps
@@JonathanJScottFilms It sure does. Thank you.
Awesome review! I'm getting my 4TB soon and was wondering... once I transfer all files from an sd card, can I reformat the card, reuse it and transfer the new content?
Dennis Reyes yes you can.
Thank you!
I'm climbing Kilimanjaro in a couple of weeks and want to get this. I'm just wondering if I store all of my 4K footage on it and then clear my SD card to continue filming. When I re-upload will it wipe the previous clips on it as it will be filed under the same name MOV1.mp4 and so forth?
Leighton Milton no, it won't wipe footage, each time you put an SD card in it saves to a new folder. Try it out before you go though. Also I'd highly highly recommend a second drive, as if your wiping your cards and the drive fails/gets lost etc. All your footage is gone.
Hi Jonathan, do you have to connect the cable to the computer when you're editing? Or can it be done wirelessly too?
Mae Ess need to connect it really, WiFi connection is too slow to edit over.
Jonathan J Scott Films Thank you
unrelated question, but i noticed you've been using the GH5 for professional work. What other lens do you recommend reside the standard Leica 12-35mm f2.5? william
William Collins I use mostly Canon L glass with a metabones speed booster.
Hi Johnathan. Thank you for your informative review. I want to buy one of these drives but I have been scared by some negative reviews which describe these drives as a "lemon". I live in Australia and there have been a few stories of people buying one of these drives and on getting it home, find it to be "DOA". But it gets worse, the aggrieved person takes the drive back to the shop; they can't get it to work so they give him a replacement. Guess what... the guy gets the replacement home and it too is DOA! Can I ask if you have heard of any other such bad experiences?
Can't say I have, never had any problems with mine but the saying with hard drives is that they have either failed or about to fail...
It looks good, nice review. You didn't mention how much it can store or how much it costs. ....?
Jenny Gavin-Wear it comes in multiple versions from 1TB-4TB, WD sent me the 4TB version. Links in the description to prices for US and UK. Hope that helps.
Jonathan J Scott Films apologies, i should have seen the link.
Far less expensive than I thought.
Thank you
Jenny Gavin-Wear no problem at all 👍
Jonathan, thank you for the great review! One question, can you connect to this drive via wifi AND use ethernet for internet?
I am wondering if I can access this drive this on my desktop which is wireless enabled, without disrupting my internet access through ethernet.
Hmmm it's a good question, I'm not actually sure I'm afraid.
@@JonathanJScottFilms Well thanks anyway. In my case, the drive would be of limited usefulness without that option.
Does it offer the ability to take the photos and videos from an iOS device, and put them on this drive? I have been having trouble finding a device that does this well, transferring from the photos app on my iPhone, to a storage device. Thanks in advance! Great vid!
Yep works with iOS devices
Nice review. I got mine a year ago. Viewing of the data on phone is slow and the app doesn’t support raw files. The sd transfer stop working after 3months of use. It keeps on failing during transfer. I contacted the support but no response from them. This is the Worst gear i bought. I still use it as a normal external drive though.
Christian Borlongan that's disappointing, mine still works fine after 5 months of hard usage.
Jonathan J Scott Films maybe they fixed this issue when they release the newer models. All 4 leds was blinking after a few minutes i inserted the sd card. At First i thought the fault was on my sd card but it did the samething with my other sd cards. I have read in a forum that many had the same issue with this product.
Christian Borlongan yeah, I've seen a video on UA-cam showing that exact issue.
I had the same issue. I got a response from support, they suggested I had a corrupted card -apparently it struggles with micro SD cards. So I reformatted it, reinstalled the most recent firmware. It worked a few more times to the point I thought it was fixed, then started acting up again. I decided to not rely on it as a computer-less backup. Like Christian’s drive, mine works fine as a normal backup drive and as a battery backup. I never lost data - but the data transfer from SD to the WD is unreliable. Maybe there are lemons out there, but it makes me reluctant to buy another one.
Awesome review! Thank you Jonathan!
You're most welcome
Mr.Jonathan, Does it support plug & play? And also what's its R/W(Download/Upload) speed?
What do you mean by plug and play? If using the cable connection the yes of course, it's just usb3. If you want to use the wireless connection on your phone/tablet you have to install the app
@@JonathanJScottFilms Yeah but can we plug it to power adapter and then use it wireless at the same time? By the way, can you tell about its Down/Up speed over wireless connection?
@@KakiChaitanyaDeep yes you can. Can't remember exactly R/w speeds, have a quick Google.
@@JonathanJScottFilms Thank you Mr.Jonathan
@@KakiChaitanyaDeep no worries 👍
How long this wireless range?
You said you can view RAW files that are stored on the portable drive. What software on your phone allows you to view the RAW pictures? Thank you for the review - very imformative and well presented.
Bill Dillon I didn't need any software, the my cloud app that you use to view files on the drive has support for raw files, at least canon cr2s anywyay.
Thanks Jonathan, I have a couple GoPro cameras and they produce RAW files with an extension of .gpr. I'd like to be able to view those but that isn't a game changer if I cannot. Thanks again for the review and also the fast reply to my question. Cheers.
Bill Dillon no problem at all, glad you found it useful. Cheers 👍
Thanks for the clear review. What is the My Cloud App like to use? The reviews in the IOS App Store are not very good.
Big Bike Adventures thanks for the kind comments. It's ok, had a few crashes but works pretty well most the time
Jonathan J Scott Films I was watching another review where a guy was having trouble with his Pro WirelessHDD and in his update WD said the Pro Wireless does not support Mirco SD cards. As all my cameras and drones use MicroSD cards it defeats my purpose. If possible could you please confirm if a Micro SD will work or not? (Only if you have some) Thank you so much. 🙏🙏
Big Bike Adventures worked fine for me, either with an adapter or a card reader
Jonathan J Scott Films Thanks Jonathan. Very much appreciated. Yours is one of the better reviews of this product. Thanks for taking the time to create this content. 👍
Big Bike Adventures no problem, thanks for the feedback. Cheers
About 4K footage when copied into the hdd it lag right? Then if you copy them on pc or upload them for example on UA-cam will then fix? Thanks great video
Charlie Farrugia yes that's correct. Only lag when playing wirelessly in the app
Ok good it's normally I think but have you tested using a micro sd with the adapter? Seems not working well when using the adapter
ua-cam.com/video/kCcsQb9C3fo/v-deo.html
Charlie Farrugia yeah like I say, it won't stream 4k footage from the drive to the app smoothly. Play back on a pc with the drive connected is fine.
Jonathan J Scott Films Does it work using the adapter for micro sd?
It work back then when it was released but now, the App never update and it struggle to access files even through Wifiband 5.0g as well as 2.5g. Anyone has the same issue?
Any alternatives?
I wasn’t clear, if I transfer my videos from a GoPro, can I connect and get them from the HD with my iPad for editing with Luma Fusion?
I Am Smallfry don't actually know I'm afraid. I'd guess no but try having a Google
Yes you can
Thanks. I've been wondering about this item.
Sheila House no problems, glad you found it useful
I am thinking about buying this or SSD version
Can I watch videos directly of the drive
Yes, although performance over wi-fi depends on video codec.
Can you transfer photos and video from it to the internal memory on an iPad? (Probably a dumb question, but I just wanna make sure)
not 100% sure to be honest
Yes - you need to do via the My Cloud app which lets you access the hard drive, SD card and any attached USB storage. You can move Video, photos and other docs both ways (onto and off the ipad) but you can't move music across because Apple has locked out access to that because of DRMs - you have to use iTunes for that.
Jasons Jungle there is a way to move music to and from it to the iPad/ iPhone. You need the Documents app to save the mp3 file on your iPad/iPhone for playback but Apple Music wont let you save them anyway and you still will need iTunes. I save mp3’s on the WD My passport wireless SSD for music video projects that I edit on LumaFusion.
K Jones yes I can move the files by usb and wd drive for use in LumaFusion, but to have it added to the music it needs to be done via iTunes
and if the internal battery on the drive were to fail, would you loose all data?
Bruce no, the drive can still be powered by USB.
Have you tried to import not stream the 4K video to iOS?
Very helpful, thanks.
Liz W no worries, glad it was helpful.
Can I use the hard drive wirelessly to transfer files even without WiFi connection? I mean, like in remote areas
Transfer between what?
I haven't checked you out before but that's ok, brilliant commentary and you gave me all the info I need, the 4k streaming worries me but good to know, I have a Samsung 7edge, I guess it's not overly important but thanks, good job.
Anthony Smith thanks Anthony
very good
CO.AG Music thanks
Very nice drive, but I cannot find it anywhere
This video is very old, I'm pretty sure they don't make it anymore
@@JonathanJScottFilms yes they still make it, but 1 TO is around 700$ if you can find it. Price is crazy
I bought one, worked fine once, 3 months later i took it on location again and wouldnt work - non stop flashing lights. Loads of people with the same problem and no solution anywhere to be found - never again
I bought this WD Drive for use while traveling to manage and edit my 4K video’s. The offload from SD cards works fine BUT streaming the video to my iPad to Luma Fusion is terrible. The videos constantly lag making it unusable in this regard. There is even lag within the WD app when viewing on the iPad. It just does not do the job it advertises. I regret buying this. Be warned.
Thanks for sharing your experience. What camera were the 4k files from?
GoPro Hero 7 Black
It's amazing how much cheaper this is than the Gnarbox, which is just an over glorified version of this.
To be fair, the point of the Gnarbox is to have the computing power to edit 4k video be in the box, with your phone as the controller. This is just storage plain and simple. They're similar feeling products, but the intended uses are fairly different.
offload?
This device is 1st class of crap. It's completely useless. Extremely slow and unresponsive. It's waste of money and by far the worst device WD ever released
Why WD wouldn't design a USB 3.0 instead of 2.0 for faster transfer rate.
It is usb3.0
Not effective if you only use compact flash cards
JonMonFish Imagery you just need to connect a card reader to it, like at 3:06. Use it with CF cards all the time.
Skri.
i buy one and heard before buy it it wasn't a good product.
i just lost all my photos because for no reason the wifi connection and link doesn't work
lost 245€
Hopeless product. I bought two of these and both suffer from a defect harddrive (click sound) and all lamps blinking just after a few days. These drives should be recalled to WD.
It's a terrible product. It's slow. And very sensitive to unexpected shutdowns, including just holding the power button down on a mac to force quit. This leads to the drive not being able to mount. The data is still there and you can you can find it when you use activity monitor to stop the fsck-exfat task (something like that). However you need to reformat it if you want it to mount automatically. I am now thinking I should just shuck the drive out and stick it in my drobo. Waste of money.
This thing is 100% trash! It failed me in less that a week & their support said, “we are not responsible.” Absolutely terrible product. Absolutely terrible customer service.
Don't get one, you will regret it.
This is the worst WD product. All my drives are WD however if I knew the amount of time that I would spend trying to fix the issues straight out of the box I would not have bought the product. The first one failed and I exchanged it then the replacement one suffered the same issues. If you are looking for something reliable do not but this product. It appears to be luck of the draw who gets one that works and who doesn't. WD appear to know that this is an issue and offer no real solutions except to replace it until I guess you get one that actually works like it should. None of their trouble shooting solutions work. PC/Apple cannot see the drive, wireless function is dead, and all the WD support pages do not help any of these issues. It is unfortunate as this would be a good product to have in your bag. Sorry to say the product is a dud.