Western Digital Wireless HD (new model)?

Hello all,

Sometime ago I came here looking for a photo backup solution for while in the field. I was corrently pointed to the Hyperdrive, but ended up canceling the trip and not purchasing one. Now I have a new trip coming up soon and the problem rears its head again. However, in the meantime this has been released:

http://www.wdc.com …cts/products.as​px?id=1330

I have the older model and have used it for on-the-go wifi accessible storage. However, this one has a built in SD card reader. Seems like a great option for in-field backup while still remaining usable for other hard drive purposes once I return home. Anyone using one? Anyone tried one? Thoughts?

-jon

It was just released a couple months ago (November I beleive) so I don't think you'll find many actual users just yet.

I've been looking into that drive for backups while away from the computer as well. Simply plugging in the sd card and letting it download makes it seem like a great option. But like you I cant find a lot, or really any, real world user experiences.

Here is one video I found that was fairly useful. https://m.youtube.com/​watch?v=_N-JgCbroAM

Hopefully someone will have some useful insight on it

Having a hard drive like that would be handy, but hard drives fail. I'd want everything to stay on SD cards even if it means buying more.

On a trip to Thailand last year I got my raw files onto my phone via an adapter I bought from Amazon then uploaded all the files up to dropbox using the app dropsync. Hotel WiFi in Thailand is pretty fast, at least in the nice hotels we stayed in.

tim wrote in post #17371126
Having a hard drive like that would be handy, but hard drives fail. I'd want everything to stay on SD cards even if it means buying more.

The drive comes with the option to copy or move the files from the card. That's why I'm looking at picking it up. Cards fail as well so copy the card to the drive that way incase a card fails I still have the files on the drive.

Now if the card and drive both fail......well I'll just take that as the universe not wanting me to have those files!

I'm just saying have enough cards to have the images on the cards and the hard drive. Even if you just keep the best images on the card and keep them all on the hard drive that'd be good enough.

I'm big on data safety though. Currently getting myself a mirrored 4TB disk array with a fault checking file system (Storage Spaces on ReFS).

tim wrote in post #17373477
I'm just saying have enough cards to have the images on the cards and the hard drive.

That's what I'm saying too. Copy the cards to the drive, without deleting the images from the cards. Now you have the images on the cards and HD.

I just bought this hard drive not even 1 hour ago. I wanted to use it for backup/redundancy in the field. Shoot on small cards, take out, dump on HDD, and rinse and repeat. It works well and very easy to setup. The only issue, it takes a LONG time to transfer/move/copy files. Took close to 50 mins for 11GB of data off my 95mb/s Sandisk Extreme Pro card. I kind of want to return it, but I feel its a useful took that has its place in my bag. When you need quick backups, a laptop will always be best bet. Thats my hands on experience.

Here's how I see using this device for best effect, even with dead slow transfer speed.

Shoot something, fill 8GB card. Remove card, pop into HDD it does its thing. Cycle to next SD card and repeat. Once cards are full, dump and store away so you have 2 different copies.

Just found this not so glowing review that mentioned the horribly slow sd card transfer speeds as well.

http://www.gizmodo.com​.au …ter-photographers-hearts/

That's a major let down!

Hmmmm, that was my big worry - speed.

The latest Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA2 can do 27 MB/s - so 11GB should take under 7 min. Even my old MkI would do it in around 15 min. It's not just time that is a factor here - if it takes 7 times longer to do the backup then it's going to use 7 times the battery power. Don't get too far from a charging port.

hollis_f wrote in post #17375141
Hmmmm, that was my big worry - speed.

The latest Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA2 can do 27 MB/s - so 11GB should take under 7 min. Even my old MkI would do it in around 15 min. It's not just time that is a factor here - if it takes 7 times longer to do the backup then it's going to use 7 times the battery power. Don't get too far from a charging port.

That's precisely true. My charge level went down like 30-40% just from this 1 transfer! Poor battery life is certainly biggest detriment I feel. The price to pay to be early adopter. Im sure next model or one after that will fix a bunch of these issues.

What about using a SSD in a Colorspace? No moving parts = less energy being used.

flowrider wrote in post #17376649
What about using a SSD in a Colorspace? No moving parts = less energy being used.

I tried an SSD once, but I didn't test battery life. There was no speed improvement. I suppose it would be less power-hungry and definitely more resistant to mechanical damage.

I've been using the Airstash A02 as a wireless SSD, and interoperable USB drive, for about 2 years. It accepts SD media for storage, forms a WEBDAV compatible-wireless hub for numerous types of devices.

Very reliable device. I use this in the field for backup from iPad, or to host to-edit post-work -- as I no longer do creative work on desktop or laptop computers. Handy when I do not otherwise have (or upload time for) cloud access via wireless. It also works very conveniently for data exchange between desktop computers and the iPad.

The huge difference with this device over many wireless devices is that it really works for artists who themselves produce content -- hence you can WRITE to the device from iPad. Not merely read, or streaming read from it (though the A02 can do that as well, serve movies to your tablet, workstation, etc).

Other thing is I do not trust rotating magnetic media in the field any longer. Just too risky for mechanical damage scrubbing your whole backup/field backup/foto shoots/trip fotos, etc. On this basis, I generally prefer (1) use of cloud storage, or next (2) SSD media.

If all you somebody is interested in is the backup capability, while the Hyperdrive is faster, it is also considerably more expensive. Not that I would really want to carry the extra weight, but you could probably get a high capacity external battery to charge the WD and still be lower in price than the Hyperdrive option. In my case, I already have a couple of external batteries to top off my cell phone/my tablet/wife's phone/wife's tablet/kid's phone/etc. so it isn't really wouldn't be much of an inconvenience for me to toss the extra battery into my camera bag when I think I will need it.

11 GB in 50 minutes is still way to slow for me to consider purchasing this device, but if they could optimize the transfer down to 20-30 minutes via a firmware update, or maybe in the next release of the hardware, it would be a device I would consider. If only so I can back things up when I am out shooting for an entire day, or even a weekend trip when I don't foresee having the time to edit anything so therefore I would not need to bring my laptop with me.