For creative professionals working in the field, it can be difficult to maintain a neat workflow from camera to hard drive, not to mention all the other devices in between. WD's new My Passport Wireless Pro is designed to make it easier to back up and edit work when you're on the job, by wirelessly sharing images between Wi-Fi-compatible cameras, connected tablets and laptops, and the hard drive itself.
Aimed directly at photographers and other creative professionals, the Passport Wireless Pro improves on the first My Passport Wireless in a few key areas. Just like before, the hard drive includes an SD card reader and Wi-Fi, but the dual band Wi-Fi is now 802.11ac compatible, and capable of 20 MB/s transfer speeds. That's more than twice as fast as the old model.
The SD 3.0 card reader has also been upgraded and is capable of 75 MB/s transfer rather than the sluggish 10 MB/s WD's old wireless drive managed. But not everyone uses SD cards, so WD has fitted the hard drive with a USB 2.0 port on the side to talk to generic card readers, allowing the transfer of data from the CF cards favored by modern high-end DSLRs or the Micro SD cards demanded by action cameras.
More and more, we're managing our data through third party services like Adobe Creative Cloud. To make sure CC users are looked after as well, the system will upload directly to users' accounts through the My Cloud smartphone application. It'll also act as a media server for smart TVs, using Plex software to neatly arrange your content and supplement it with descriptions, cover art and even plot synopses.
It should be able to provide some quality viewing time, too, with a new 10-hour battery. If it's your phone or tablet that's more likely to go flat, you can use the integrated 6,400 mAh power bank to charge up other devices on the go.
The unit is compatible with PC and Mac devices straight out of the box, with pricing starting at US$230 for the 2 TB version. You'll also need to download the refreshed WD My Cloud iOS/Android app, which is free, to unlock the full gamut of wireless sharing options.
Source: Western Digital
