My Passport Wireless SSD Review Title Image

MacTakeAwayData Rank 6.5 /10

6 And A Half Out Of 10 Stars

The My Passport Wireless SSD is a fast portable drive. And a great choice for in the field saves of your camera, GoPro or drone footage.

Create your Wi-Fi hotspot anywhere you are and save your footage on the go. Use its SD card reader and move your files at up to 65 MB/s using SD 3.0 to your My Passport Wireless SSD.

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Check Today’s Price of the WD My Passport Wireless SSD on Amazon

Why You’d Buy A WD My Passport Wireless SSD

  • Ideal for those of you that need a portable mobile drive when you’re out in the wilds. You want the lightening speed of SSD but you don’t want to take your MacBook with you
  • You’ve an optional rubber ‘bumper’ you can put on Your My Passport Wireless SSD and get up to 1 meter drop protection
  • You get dual band Wi-Fi. Use 5 Ghz Wi-Fi when you need thrillingly fast. And 2.4 GHz for your gadgets that use this slower Wi-Fi
  • On the drive you’ve a SD Card Reader that supports SD 2.0 and SD 3.0. You can use it to copy your footage off the drive with one touch. Or off load your SD card. And free it up for you to go take some more scenes

Why You’d Pass On The WD My Passport Wireless SSD

  • When you get this much in the package plus SSD drives, there’s a price tag. If it’s too rich for your pocket you might want to look at the WD My Passport Wireless Pro
  • No Time machine backup of your Macs over Wi-Fi
  • No streaming of DRM protected iTunes bought movies

Verdict On The WD My Passport Wireless SSD

Why not take a Wi-Fi enabled SSD drive with you when your taking pictures on the go?

An SSD drive is more robust than a mechanical drive and oh so much faster.

Ok so the Passport Wireless SSD isn’t rugged or weather resistant but it will survive a short drop. And the rubber bumpers help you keep a good grip on it. And stops it from slipping off surfaces.

Plus when it’s entertainment you’re after. You can use your WD My Passport Wireless SSD to stream the videos you’ve loaded up to your connected gadgets.

There’s a lot to like about the My Passport Wireless SSD when a Wi-Fi enabled drive is just what you need.

YouTube Video: WD My Passport Wireless SSD

Here’s a mouth watering video for you. A video to seduce you on the benefits of downloading and editing your shots while you’re in the thick of it.

My Passport Wireless SSD | Editing in the Field

Video Credit: WD

My Passport Wireless SSD Review For A Mac

Loading Up Your Content On The My Passport Wireless SSD

Simply slip your camera, or drone’s SD card into your My Passport Wireless SSD. And with one click of a button, copy your content off onto the drive.

You’ve support for SD 2.0 cards and speeds up to 25 MB/s. And SD 3.0 cards with transfer speeds of 65 MB/s.

And if you’d prefer to move your files rather than copy them and free up space. Then you can choose that option on your wireless SSD’s dashboard.

And when you’ve downloaded your images and want to check they’re fine on the drive before you go take some more. You don’t need your laptop with you to do it.

As long as you’ve your iPhone or your iPad then just check the folder on your SSD using the WD My Cloud App.

Connect an External Drive Over Wifi

My Passport Wireless SSD Wi-Fi

You’ve support for 802.11g/n, 802.11ac and 802.11 a/n Wi-Fi.

What does that mean?

Dual band Wi-Fi support.

You get to use your drive on a gadget with 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi. Great for your older gadgets. And you’ve 5 Ghz for your newer 5 Ghz supporting devices. And both can connect to the My Passport Wireless SSD and view its files at the same time.

Boom.  

Streaming From Your WD My Passport SSD

You’ve an integral Plex media server. Or you can set up a Twonky server and manage your media streaming.

Create your own hotspot with your WD My Passport Wireless SSD.

And connect over Wi-Fi with your Mac, iPad or iPhone.

And if you’re near existing Wi-Fi, let your other gadgets use the Internet through your WD My Passport Wireless SSD.

Wirelessly stream 4k videos.

Just understand that your iPad or iPhone needs to be of a generation that can play 4K videos.

There is very limited encoding. And this means that your gadgets need to have the software on them to view. And understand the images and videos you want to watch on them.

When streaming you can support up to 8 of your gadgets each streaming a HD video.

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Your WD My Passport Wireless SSD Battery

You’ve an attention grabbing 10 hours battery life. And claims of all day use.

And you could based on streaming a HD 720p, 3 Mbps video over its Wi-Fi.

But beware that using its 5 Ghz, Wi-Fi band will take a toll on your WD My Passport SSD’s battery.

If using the 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi band meets your need use that and conserve your battery.

Or when you’re not supporting other slower Wi-Fi gadgets on your wireless SSD turn off the 2.4 Ghz band. You’ll get longer battery life.

You’ve a 6700mAh battery capacity on the Passport Wireless SSD. More than the 6400mAh on the Wireless Pro.

When you’re not actively using your Passport Wireless SSD drive it’s Wi-Fi switches off. It comes back on again as soon as you go to use it. This saves its battery life.

WD My Passport SSD Ports
WD My Passport SSD Ports

You’ve A Use On The Go Power Bank

Need an emergency charge of your iPhone, IPad or action camera?

As long as you’ve the right cable with you, you can charge up from the battery power in your My Passport Wireless SSD.

It’s a slow charge but it will have you back up and running.

First Time Using Your My Passport Wireless SSD

The first thing to do when you get your My Passport Wireless SSD out of the box and before you use it is to fully charge.

And while you’re waiting for it to charge it’s a good idea to download the manual.

You’ll find a pdf copy of the manual here.

Setting up your My Passport Wireless SSD takes attention and you’ll need a copy of the manual to hand.

Your copy is on your charging Wireless SSD.

You’ll need a device with a browser on it like your Mac. Or you can set up using your iPhone or iPad.

Download the WD My Cloud mobile App on your iPhone or IPad and your good to start setting up.

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Plugging In Your Passport Wireless SSD Into Your Mac

Plugging in is the best way of getting your content from your Mac onto your wireless SSD.

Unless you’ve only got a few small files to upload. Direct USB connection is the fastest way to load up your photos and videos.

You’ve a Micro B USB port on your Wireless SSD drive and a USB 3.0 type A port at the other end of your cable.

If you’ve a Mac with USB C ports on it you’ll need a cable adaptor.

Easy enough to buy. You want one with type A on one end and USB C on the other.

Understand that from firmware level 1.04, new drives ship to you NTFS formatted. Macs can read NTFS but not write to an NTFS drive.

You’ll need to download and install the Paragon driver (provided to you). So that you can transfer your files to your Passport wireless SSD.

In Your WD My Passport Wireless SSD Box

WD My Passport Wireless SSD Warranty

You get 2 years limited Warranty on your Wireless SSD.

Which is awesome for a consumer drive.

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