Good design, easy to use, supports lots of devices, built-in battery is useful, can be used as a regular hard drive
Battery life not good enough for long journeys with multiple users, Wi-Fi speeds may be too restricted for professional users, price is a little higher than we'd like
WD's personal cloud product range -- MyCloud -- has grown since its initial debut, which WIRED.co.uk praised highly for its innovative approach to consumer data storage. The EX2 and EX4 extended capacity and data redundancy for professional users and now the travelling consumer has been targeted with the portable My Passport Wireless.
In some ways this is a glorified USB hard drive; in others, it takes the best elements of WD's MyCloud innovation and makes it nearly pocketable. Our review unit had a 2TB drive inside, with a retail price of £199. A 500GB (£110) and 1TB (£149) alternative is available.
Design and Features
In the hand the My Passport Wireless feels like many other USB hard drives. It's not the lightest, at 350g, but for a 2TB drive that's acceptable; and it's a ruggedly designed unit, with a smooth finish and slightly rounded edges.
On one side is an SD card for backing up data on the move; on the front are a couple of LED indicators for wireless and battery information; around the back is a slot for the USB cable.
So far, so standard. What's different here is with 2TB of data loaded up there's no need for the USB cable at all. WD's drive can broadcast its own Wi-Fi hotspot signal and any Wi-Fi-enabled device can connect to it.
This presents a blessing and a curse. The blessing: any media, such as video or images, can be wirelessly viewed on a PC, Mac, Android or iOS device as if it was any other networked storage disk. This extends to multiple simultaneous users, making it useful in a hotel where little Kate, eight-years-old and with dreams of being a princess, wants to watch
Frozen, while Nathan, a bratty boy of five, wants to watch
Spongebob. Better yet, Mum and Dad can stream Game of Thrones while they do so.
Performance
This blessing extends to said family in the car on the long drive to the hotel, as the built-in battery will last several hours. In our test it wildly varied depending on the number of users, how much data was being streamed and so forth. Realistically you'll easily all be able to watch a movie but it's best to consider the battery a handy backup rather than a primary function.
WD quotes 20 hours of standby (switched on and accessible but not reading or writing data), or six hours of continuous streaming. Our testing supports these quotes, but once you start adding additional devices or connecting the drive itself to the internet you can expect this figure to drop -- which brings us to the curse.
Like most drives in this category, connecting your laptop to the hard drive's Wi-Fi network means not connecting directly to the internet. The solution: the drive connects to the internet (and it's very easy to do so in our testing, using a well-designed browser-based interface) and your devices access the public web via the drive.
In our tests this certainly works as advertised, but it does not allow for as speedy a connection as would be achieved directly. The drive itself has a throughput (maximum speed for downloads or uploads) of around 70Mbps, and we confirmed these figures ourselves. However, using the device in "hotspot mode" as described above, the throughput should drop by half, to 35Mbps as the same 70Mbps capacity is being split between uplink to the internet and downlink to your computer or phone. Ours dropped by a lot more though on some occasions, even down to 7Mbps. The ping, or latency (for those concerned) is also affected by the hotspot mode. In our testing the latency dropped from around 7ms to nearly 60ms when connecting to the internet through the drive.
How important are these speeds? To us, not significantly enough when considering how most people will use the drive. The prime functionality is being able to store content on a drive and wirelessly transmit it to multiple devices simultaneously. For this, the internet is not required and so speeds are not an issue.
For emails, googling restaurants and directions, or using social media services like Facebook, even with the speed of hotel Wi-Fi being reduced it won't affect your usage too greatly. On the other hand, if you're a video editor backing up a 10GB video file from an SD card, the reduction of internet bandwidth available for uploading this to your production house's server is going to cause a frown until you disconnect from the drive and reconnect directly to the internet.
Conclusion
The My Passport Wireless is an intriguing device. Its smart design, simplicity of operation and flexibility make it an attractive option for families in particular, not least because of its agnostic approach to compatible devices from rival manufacturers. Its built-in battery also liberates entertainment from hotel rooms to the road.
However, it's not quite priced as we'd like to see (a 500GB USB hard drive without the wireless functions can be snagged online for about £35 now from WD) and the speed reductions we noticed when connecting to the internet through the drive make it appear as a consumer product rather than something a professional media producer would want to rely on. We hope WD continues to innovate in this space, as a drive with options such as faster Wi-Fi and a larger battery would be very welcome. As it stands, it's a product that does what it says on the tin with a minimum of fuss, but with room for improvement in performance and a little on price.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
