MacTakeAwayData Rank 7 /10
Are you out and about with your camera, GoPro or drone?
Do you take tons of footage and need a place to offload your SD cards so you can go take some more.
Do you want a drive you can take with you because you don’t want the sweat of taking your MacBook or Windows PC with you?
Then the WD My Passport Wireless Pro external hard drive might just be what you’re looking for.
Vital Statistics Of The My Passport Wireless Pro
Wi-Fi Drive Sizes: 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB
Max Devices You Can Serve: 8
Drive Format: NTFS (Since Firmware 1.04)
Drive Type: USB 3.0
Overall Size: 5 x 5 x 0.94 in
Weight: 1lb
Why You’d Want A WD My Passport Wireless Pro
Why You’d Pass By The WD My Passport Wireless Pro
Summing It up
When you’re looking for a portable hard drive to take with you. A drive that also supports Wi-Fi this is exactly what the My Passport Wireless Pro is.
You get a drive where you can store the footage you’ve taken and free up your SD card to go take some more.
And you won’t need your MacBook along to do it.
And if it’s a mobile drive to take along with you to hold your music. Or some video to entertain yourself or the kids this does that job too.
And if your iPhone runs out of charge and your desperate for power. You can plug in to your My Passport drive and charge up. Assuming it has some charge in it of course.
YouTube Video: WD My Passport Wireless Pro
Curious about how the WD My Passport arrives and what is in the box?
Take a close up of this 1 minute 17 second YouTube video.
WD My Passport Wireless Pro Hard Drive Unboxing
Video Credit: Officeworks
WD My Passport Wireless Pro Review On a Mac
WD Wireless Pro Photo Down Load and Off Load
When you’re out in the wilds and you want a mobile hard drive to off load your SD card onto, then the Wireless Pro is for you.
Put your SD card into the card reader slot.
Press and hold the button on the top for two seconds. And you’ll start the transfer of your photos and videos from your SD card to your WD My Passport Wireless Pro.
You’ve support for SD 2.0 with speeds of up to 25 MB/s and SD 3.0 for speeds of up to 65 MB/s.
You’ve the choice by changing your options to just copy from your SD card to your My Passport Wireless Pro. Or to transfer your files to your Wireless Pro.
And without needing your laptop with you out in the field.
If you want to check that all your files have transferred ok. Then you’ll need an iPhone or iPad with the WD My Cloud App installed.
You’ll then be able to connect over Wi-Fi and take a look at the folders and files on your drive.
Wi-Fi On your WD My Passport Wireless Pro
You have dual band Wi-Fi support. With a 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands that you can stream and attach to at the same time. You get support for 802.11g/n, 802.11ac and 802.11 a/n.
But beware that using the 5 Ghz, the fastest Wi-Fi band will run you through your WD My Passport battery. And unless you need faster Wi-Fi performance switch off to save your battery. And use the 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi band.
Or another option is to switch off the 2.4 Ghz band if you’re not using it to save battery. You can do this via the WD My Cloud App dashboard.
You’ll need to keep your My Passport Wireless drive within 6 meters of your iPhone, IPad or MacBook. To get yourself the best Wi-Fi results when streaming HD.
Your My Passport switches off its Wi-Fi when no devices are using it.
You’ll need to press the battery button to re start its Wi-Fi and connect.
Your My Passport Wireless Pro lets you charge from a power outlet. And stream video or transfer your photos or videos over Wi-Fi at the same time.
A nice feature when you’re near a power outlet and your running out of charge. And you don’t want to interrupt viewing of a video while waiting to power up.
Most of its competitors don’t allow you to do that.
Streaming over Wi-Fi With Your Wireless Pro
You can create a hotspot for your gadgets within 150 feet of your WD My Passport Wireless Pro. So your Mac, iPhone or iPad can directly connect where there’s no existing Internet access. You create your own discrete network with your Wireless Pro.
Or if you’ve access to existing Wi-Fi you can give many devices access to the Internet via your WD My Wireless Pro.
Perfect if you’re on holiday and want to entertain the kids from your My Passport Wireless Pro.
But if you’re connecting to a public Wi-Fi. Say in a coffee shop then be sure to uncheck the option in the settings to share and allow public access to your files.
Who wants anyone on the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi to go in and mess with your files on the Wireless Pro.
Unfortunately, there is no separate user name and password login that you can set up to protect your files.
There’s only the share check box on your My Passport Wireless Pro.
You can wirelessly stream 4k videos. But you’ll need your iPhone or iPad to support 4K videos. Your older Apple mobile devices without 4k support will get an error message.
You can serve up to 8 devices from your Wireless Pro and stream up to 8 HD videos. But that will take a toll on your My Passport Wireless Pro’s battery life.
WD My Passport Wireless Pro Battery Life
You’ll get 10 hours based on streaming HD 720p video, across 2.4 Ghz on a single device.
You’ll get much less than 10 hours when you stream video across mare gadgets at the same time.
Plus when your using the 5 Ghz Wi-Fi band you’ll find it’ll use up your battery life further.
First Time Set Up Your WD My Passport Wireless Pro
You’ll need to fully charge your My Passport Wireless before you use for the first time.
Your user manual is on the hard drive.
So you’ll find it’s best to download a pdf copy direct from the WD online learning center. That way you’ve a copy to read to get you up and running with your new wireless drive.
To set up your My Passport Wireless Pro drive for the first time. You will either need to configure the device from a browser on your Mac.
Or download and use the WD My Cloud mobile App on your iPad or iPhone.
Direct Plugin of Your Wireless Pro On Your Mac
You do have a USB micro B port to USB 3.0 so you can directly connect to your Mac.
You use direct plug in to upload a large number of videos. When they would take too long to transfer from your Mac over Wi-Fi.
You’ll find your Wireless Pro is formatted as NTFS (this is from firmware release 1.04). Your Mac can read NTFS but can’t write to it. So you’ll need to use the provided Paragon driver to write your files directly onto your drive.
The Wireless Pro was previously shipped formatted as ExFAT (firmware 1.03). Which your Mac could read and write to without driver software.
Using Your My Passport Wireless Pro as a Power Bank
You’ll find it a handy feature when you’re stuck out and about and could do with a quick charge to your iPhone or iPad.
You’ll find a USB 2.0 type A port.
And as long as you have a type A to lightning or USC C cable with you.
And charge in your Wireless Pro, you can use it as charging port.
It’ll help you out in an emergency but it’ll be a slow charge. About the speed of a normal charger, you’ll get no rapid charge.
Battery capacity is 6400 mAh.
In the WD My Passport Wireless Pro Box
WD My Passport Wireless Pro drive
USB cable
USB power adaptor
Quick Install Guide – A link for you to the Quick install Guide
WD My Passport Wireless Pro Warranty
You get 2 years limited Warranty on your Wireless Pro. Which is pretty good.
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