When compared to its predecessors and as the name suggests, the WD My Passport Wireless SSD is the first of its kind to feature SSD drives instead of conventional spinning hard drives, which makes it not only significantly faster (up to 390 MB/sec read speed), but also much more reliable in the long term for backup needs. The Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD is the latest iteration of a portable back up hard drive that WD started with the Ultra a few years ago, and for me is an absolutely essential piece of kit for any travelling photographer. Above: Connecting the WD My Passport Wireless SSD over USB 3 allows you to unlock its full potential speed.

For a laptop user, having a built-in SSD with an SD card slot would be sufficient, since power could be provided through the USB port. Previously I owned a ColorSpace portable backup drive which did a similar job, albeit much slower due to its spinning HDD.Aside from its large and bulky size, my biggest gripe is with the I/O ports that Western Digital incorporated into the unit.

Before I go I’ll copy a couple of movies and documentaries onto the drive, and then while I’m sitting waiting in an airport or hanging around in my room I can connect my iPad to the drive and stream something to watch. Since I have no plans on streaming content from mine and I only want to use it to backup my memory cards in the field, I skipped through this process. Lastly, you will find the model of your device, along with the firmware on the bottom of this screen.and WD claim up to 65MB/s, and I found when I copied 100GB of data from a 128GB card and it too around 30 minutes. If you’re connecting directly to the drive, say in the field, then you’ll need to browse the available Wifi networks with your device and choose the drive’s 2.

I wish WD came up with a way to split My Passport Wireless SSD into two separate units: one that has the SD card port, SSD drive and other input/output ports, and the other one only sporting the power bank, with one input and one output ports.If Western Digital found a way to incorporate more memory card readers (XQD, CFast, SD and microSD) without adding to the size of the device, or provided a much faster USB 3. These portable solutions have to have power banks inside, because they are designed to be used without a laptop or a computer in the field, so that you can autonomously transfer / backup files. And while it seems a little traditional, they can also be connected directly to a computer over USB for the fastest data transfer. And finally on the right side is another button used to initiate SD card backups or to briefly check the battery life, indicated by four blue LEDs on the upper surface of the drive. While I was pretty unhappy about how slow Gnarbox backs up images from SD cards, I wondered how WD My Passport Wireless SSD would do in comparison.

In theory these should be able to FTP direct to the My Passport Wireless SSD and transfer images without cables or computers inbetween. I am not sure if it was done due to specific chipset limitations, but come on – who on earth is using USB 2. WD offers a wealth of portable drives, ideal for backing up your photos, videos and other precious data, but most are simple devices which require a host computer or laptop to provide power and data transfer over a cable. While it is possible to view the contents of the drive with a phone, I’d only recommend it for very casual browsing or if you only have a handful of images to go through.You can also use the rubber casing to sandwich your phone whilst it’s charging – I’m assuming that’s what it’s there for!