Mainly a SD card transfer test and other thoughts

WD External and Portable SSD My Passport Wireless SSD
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First, in the manual it say that while in SD copy the power Led will blink white. Well during my tests the power LED shows battery status and the WiFi LED blinks white?

While the transfer is in progress you can’t attach to it via WiFi, neither from an iPhone etc or the computer. You need to be connected before inserting the card. 

If attached to a computer or device via WiFi there will be a progress bar showing the status of the download. WEB: Media section. App: Settings/SD Card (little confusing that the SD Card alter as a settings/show transfers progress).

While connected as a USB drive you can’t start the WEB app to change or check settings?

The WEB app will show the GB (including some WD hidden default files) or number of files (NOT including the hidden files and folders) in the Other directory.

The My Cloud app will show the GB in in the Others directory via settings/(click the name of your MBP) but not the same GB as the WEB app?, and will show all files in the Other (select the ”All” at the bottom of screen directory by navigating from the SD Cards Imports Map and from there to various Maps of imported Maps to a file list of the files but no number of how many files in that Map. 

As a photographer I really want to now if all my RAWs was indeed copied/transfered but with all other maps and non image files put there by the camera it’s hard to know the exact number.

WD state SD transfer speed up to 25MB/s so a fast full 64 GB card should take about 42 minutes but nope, see below.

Note: If drive been off and you power it up and after WiFi is ready but not connected to any device/computer via WiFi and you insert a SD card the transfer ”starts after about 20 sec, but after a few minutes the HDD stops, a quick press on the Power and the HDD spins up… and this repeats every few minutes AND the transfer (WiFi) LED blinks as if it is working (only way to tell is to put the hand on it to ”feel the buzz” inside)… after about 30 minutes I shut down the drive and checked if any transfer was done and yes there was files transfered but only 36 of 211 images (of a total of 627 (RAW 16GB)) was readable/viewable  so pretty useless if you ask me.

If the WiFi is connected there is no HDD spin-down/stop and transfer is actually happening BUT it might happen that the WiFi LED goes black and transfer is stopped for some WiFi timeout reason or whatever so the transfer must be restarted by a quick press on the Power button (WD are investigating all this so hopefully in the next firmware…)   

Now to the SD card tests:

2 TB version of the MPW.

SD card setting was Automatic Import On and Delete SD Card files after copy Off.

DLNA Off

Hardware Battery Optimization set to Battery Life (not sure if this will have an impact on SD transfer but my guess is not).

The MPW has before this test been used 3 times until the battery gets almost dead, then fully loaded until blue and +10h more.

Firmware 1.02.15 used (a new version 1.02.17 is released but not tested yet, will follow up in a later post).

Used images:

JPG: 15.61 GB 4791 jpg images of slightly different sizes from 2-4 MB.

RAW: 15.64 GB 627 RAW images of around 24 MB each

Cards:

Card 1: Sandisk 16 GB SDHC Cat 4 FAT 32

Card 2:  Sandisk Pro 64GB SDXC Cat 10 ExFAT 

Card 1.

JPG

Fill the card with JPGs, about 55 minutes, so it’s a slow card.

Copy to MPW 50s to get the MPW ready put in the card, another 50 sec until the transfer start then after 10 sec the HDD spins down but the ”transfer” light still blinks? 25 minutes later and the HDD is still not running,  85  minutes later takes out the card, connects the USB and check the drive and as expected no Transfer been made. Disconnect the USB and connects the computer to MPW via WiFi and goes to the Media screen. Put in the card nothing seems to happen, so after 10 minutes I press the Copy now button and 82 minutes later I took out the card, 68% battery left.

No photos but 16GB in Other ??? 14,53 GB and 3913 files transfered. After awhile the MPW started to show the images and at the same time the Other decreased its number.

Result:

Total copy time: almost 3 hours

Battery used: 32%

Copy result: 14,53 GB and 3913 files transfered. Missing 878 images. Files transfered readable.

Verdict: **bleep**

Retested with 1.71 GB & 1000 images

Started at 40% battery. Blinking and HDD spinning so waiting for result.

Result:

Total copy time: 11 minutes 

Battery used: 5%

Copy result: 1,71 GB and 1000 files transfered. Missing 0 images.

Verdict worked better and fast enough one can say.

Skipped RAW test on this card.

Card 2.

JPG.

Fill the card with JPGs, about 6 minutes. (back to the SSD less than 4 minutes)

Started at 67% battery. Blinking and HDD spinning so waiting for result.

Worked much better as the copy procedure started almost instantly.

Result:

Total copy time: 1 hour 6 minutes (should have taken about just under 11 minutes so no 25MB/s there for sure)

Battery used: 27%

Copy result: 15.61 GB and 4791 files transfered. Missing 0 images. All readable.

Verdict: Worked but way to slow if out in the field and eats to much energy. Will not take a full 64 GB on one charge.

RAW

Card filled with RAW to 15.64 GB,  627 images.

Started at 70%battery and connected to iPhone via WiFi.

Worked, and progress shown in % in the My Cloud app on the iPhone. Only glitch is the reported data to read from the card was 29.08 GB instead of the 15.64 of actually space used. (some hidden files are there as well when formated but no way those take 13 GB)

Result:

Total copy time: 1 hour 5 minutes (should have taken about just under 11 minutes so no 25MB/s there for sure)

Battery used: 25%

Copy result: 15.64 GB and 627 files transfered. Missing 0 images. All readable.

Verdict: Worked but way to slow if out in the field and eats to much energy. Will perhaps take a full 64 GB on one charge, seems it worked a tad better with larger and fewer files than with the many JPGs.

Total verdict:

Doesn’t matter if you use a Hi-Speed SD card or not, seems that the transfer rate is the same and way to low from the stated 25MB/s.

Pros:

Great size and look.

Quiet

Don’t get hot during extended use.

Quite good battery life.

WiFi works great in all the ways you can use it (range not tested as I use it as a close to me device)

Good transfer speeds for a ”n” connection (2x2  not tested in lack of device to test it with)

USB 3 as fast as expected.

HDD Write and Read about normal for this kind of device.

Apps and usability is quite easy after some use to get to know it and find your way around.

SD transfer will probably work for small cards and few files for average person/family events.

Cons: 

Not an out in the field device as stated as it’s all plastic non rugged casing and, no shock prevention for the HDD, so not recommended to walk around with while using (no info about the HDD itself about this either that I could find).

SD transfers is a disaster for photographers in terms of speed and therefore battery life and just now also reliability if not connected to a WiFi device before inserting the SD card.

In short: A great little device with a big HDD if 2TB chosen and truly portable and usable but NOT an out in field SD card copier for serious work.

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New SD test:

New Firmware 1.02.17

Card 3:  Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB SDHC Cat 10 FAT32

3,84 GB 150 RAW images.

All looked good until about 50% transfered then the HHD stopped spinning just after I disconnected the iPhone from it. and after a short press on power and connecting the iPhone the transfer resumed but not as long there was no WiFi connection… sigh.

4-5 m break when transfer stopped at 50% to check if it would resume again, but nope.

With the new firmware after the disk had started again I was able to connect to the MPW via WiFi, an improvement against previous tests/firmware.

After the transfers had reach 135% and 4.83 GB out of 3.5 GB7?!? I stopped the transfer by switching the drive off.

150 images of 150 had been transfered but only the 85 first was readable the rest was just garbage, so something happened  when the drive stopped in about the middle.

All tis time the transfer LED was blinking so not a good indicator what’s going on.

No timing or battery usage report as the transfer behavior didn’t make any sense to continue to track thiose. 

Did run a new test with the same card and files after a WiFi connection was made and kept it on and after about 20 minutes it all was good… except the remarkable slow transfer but at least all images was readable.

So, to sum up: Always connect the MPW to an WiFi device and start the My Cloud app (to track the transfer) before inserting the SD card and never disconnect until the transfer is finished (the transfer LED stops blinking).

Bring a BIG power-bank with you. (I have three 20,000 mAh in my backpack).

Still NOT something I would rely on out on the field without keeping a close eye on it all until you are sure the transfers worked out ok.

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Hi Cekari, thanks for sharing your results.

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Your’e welcome :slight_smile:

Just hopes some from the develop team reads as well so they can figure out what/how to fix things like this if possible or at least for the next version of the MPW.

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This a fantastic thread Cekari. Thanks for taking the time to document what you found.

I’m on firmware 1.02.17. My experience so far:

177 Nikon NEF raw files, each about 20MB in size. Attempted to transfer using the web interface. The drive kept stopping, while still indicating the transfer was happening via the flashing white (WiFi) LED. After three restarts 89 files had been transfered. I didn’t measure the long time it took. I gave up at that point.

100 Nikon NEF raw files, each about 7.8MB in size. All 100 files transfered as I was actively using the web interface while the transfer happened. Only the first 11 files were readable, the rest being corrupt. I copied all files back off to my PC to check. Confirmed 89 of the files were corrupt.

100 JPEG files, all less than 2MB in size. All 100 files transfered, and all were readable.

At this stage I consider this drive “unfit for purpose”, and hence it will be returned unless a fix for these problems is provided soon. Specifically:

  1. The drive should never power down until the current transfer from an SD is complete.

  2. All files should transfer correctly, and not be corrupted. This is supposed to be a backup drive while mobile.

While not quite “unfit for purpose” issues:

a. The speed of transfer should be much better. The ONLY reason this drive was purchased was because it had an SD card reader built in. If the transfer takes so long the battery runs flat, then this is sufficient reason to return it for full refund.

b. While doing transfers and generally getting to know the device, the battery ran down to 16% in three hours.This is nowhere near the claimed six hours of continuous media streaming that was advertised.

Come on Western Digital. You have a potentially great little product here, and one that fills a gap in the market. Please make some effort and fix these problems. Even if the real SD card transfer rate was just 10MB/s, which should be achieveable with an SD 2.00 card reader, a full 32GB card could be transfered in just under an hour. That would, at a pinch, be acceptable.

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I did some more testing, this time with the drive always plugged into the power pack, and at 100% full battery.

I copied 15 to 20MB NEF (Nikon RAW) files using the web interface, the WiFi button, and the My Cloud App, multiple times.

The last test used 12.38GiB of NEF files in three folders, 703 files in total. The transfer took 30 minutes, at an average of just over 7MiB/s. All the files copied over as the drive never spun down while powered and transfering data. All the files were readable from the MPW. No corruption.

So it looks like the problems I reported above are all directly related to the hard drive spinning down when a transfer is done using battery power alone. That should be fixable in firmware, even if it means a little less battery life. Reliable copying of data from the SD Card to the hard drive is more importation than battery life, as long as there is enough to complete the transfer. Using the speed I measured above, and a real world battery life of five hours, it should be possible to transfer approximately 120GiB of photos. That is probably enough between recharges of the MPW.

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RoderickGI wrote:

b. While doing transfers and generally getting to know the device, the battery ran down to 16% in three hours.This is nowhere near the claimed six hours of continuous media streaming that was advertised.

Isn’t that a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison?

Yeah, I agree that it could stand to be faster, but c’mon.   Don’t compare the advertised use case with another and say it falls short.

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TonyPh12345 wrote:>    Don’t compare the advertised use case with another and say it falls short.

 

The primary differentiator for this drive for me, and probably for many if not most buyers, is that it has a built in SD card reader. Kudos to WD for doing that. Given that differentiator, I think it would be reasonable to make some evaluation of fitness for the purpose of backing up an SD card.

 

As WD do not provide performance information on copying data from the SD card to the hard drive, I am forced to make the best comparison I can.

 

Do you really believe that the use case of “Get up to 6 hours of continuous video streaming” and “Stream up to 4 HD videos at once to multiple devices” would be more demanding than copying from an SD card to the hard drive? Both appear to use the cache and spin down the drive when required. (Although this seems to break the transfer.)

 

I think you are being disingenuous if you believe that.

 

I was doing a transfer of a limited amount of data, and browsing the web interface. I do not believe that this would be more demanding than continuous video streaming, or streaming up to 4 HD vidoes. So yes I will compare the advertised use case with another, and I believe I am perfectly justified in doing so.

 

So what do you think about the statement “Instantly transfer or back up photos and videos from your SD card in the field so that you can keep on shooting.”  Yep, that is on the Data Sheet. Let’s look at the definition of “instantly”, according to WD.

 

My best case transfer speed, while on external power all the time, is 7 MB/s over 30 minutes, for 12.38GiB. I think the MPW was in a steady state with respect to the speed of transfer for most of that time. In the field, the transfer time would be:

32GB = 1 hours 16 minutes

64GB = 2 hours 32 minutes

So yes, I could transfer one 64GB card in the field. But just one, and only just. If the transfer works at all and works at the same speed on battery as it does on external power.

 

I like this device. It has great potential and I hope WD sort out the issues and improve it. At the moment it looks like I could use it overnight back at my hotel, but not in the field. I just think that WD need to do more with their firmware with respect to power management, speed of transfer, and ensuring transfers complete successfully. But I think they know that already, and so do you.

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RoderickGI wrote:> Do you really believe that the use case of “Get up to 6 hours of continuous video streaming” and “Stream up to 4 HD videos at once to multiple devices” would be more demanding than copying from an SD card to the hard drive? … I think you are being disingenuous if you believe that.

Of course not.  In fact, it’s the opposite.  Streaming 6 hours of video is quite a bit less demanding than copying files from the SD card to the drive.  

Why?   Because when you’re streaming, the box spins up the drive for brief intervals to fill the video player’s buffer – then stops the drive.  Then restarts when the buffer is close to exhaustion, sends a big burst of data, then stops, etc.

When copying from SD to the HD, the drive must spin continuously for the entire copy duration (at least it did in my tests).   So, yes, the battery is going to be exhausted much quicker than streaming.

RoderickGI wrote:> So what do you think about the statement “Instantly transfer or back up photos and videos from your SD card in the field so that you can keep on shooting.”  Yep, that is on the Data Sheet.

Sloppy marketing words, to be sure – but it’s not far off the mark.   To me, that is referring not to data transfer speeds, but the time it takes you to start the task.  You can set up the MPW to IMMEDIATELY start copying (or moving) the contents of the SD card as soon as it’s inserted – with no user intervention or interaction required.

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@ RoderickGI: Thanks for liking my efforts and thanks for giving your inputs/tests as well.

I know WD are looking in to the SD card transfers issues but haven’t got any feedback from them yet.

Hopefully they will find and provide a solution so at least one can rely on the transfers and also at least come close to the stated 25MB/s.

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Cekari wrote:

@ RoderickGI: Thanks for liking my efforts and thanks for giving your inputs/tests as well.

 

I know WD are looking in to the SD card transfers issues but haven’t got any feedback from them yet.

Hopefully they will find and provide a solution so at least one can rely on the transfers and also at least come close to the stated 25MB/s.

You are welcome. You put some effort into it.

I’m sure WD are aware of the issue, and hopefully can provide a solution in firmware that doesn’t involve unacceptable compromise, like risking the reliability of the transfer process. I hope it won’t require an upgrade to hardware, and hence buying version 2 of the product.

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TonyPh12345 wrote:

RoderickGI wrote:> Do you really believe that the use case of “Get up to 6 hours of continuous video streaming” and “Stream up to 4 HD videos at once to multiple devices” would be more demanding than copying from an SD card to the hard drive? … I think you are being disingenuous if you believe that.

Doh! There was supposed to be a “not” or “wouldn’t” or “less” instead of “more” in there. How about I go again on that sentence:

“Do you really believe that the use case of “Get up to 6 hours of continuous video streaming” and “Stream up to 4 HD videos at once to multiple devices” would be less demanding than copying from an SD card to the hard drive?”

But you have answered the question anyway. :slight_smile:

I would hope that the transfer process also uses the cache/buffer, and spins down the disc between writes. I don’t know how big the buffer is, but if it was just 512MB it should be able to store a whole minute of data at my observed 7MB/s transfer rate, before it needed to spin up the drive and write that data.

Just looking at the bitrate of media that I might stream though;

Poor quality video from various unnamed sources: 2 to 4 Mbps

Standard definition PAL TV recordings: 4 to 6.5 Mbps

720p TV recordings: ?? Could find a sample…

1440x1080 “HD” PAL TV recordings: 10Mbps

1920x1080 Blu-ray movie: 32 to 48Mbps

So streaming one Blu-ray would require a throughput of up to 6MB/s, vs my tested transfer speed of 7MB/s. Same ballpark.

If four people were streaming a HD TV recording at 10Mbps, for a total of 5MB/s, we aren’t far off the same rate. I didn’t check my DVDs to see the overall bitrate, but they are usually in the 3 to 9.5Mbps range. So four streams would also be close to 5MB/s.

Add into that throughput requirement the need to stream the video via wireless, to four different devices, at varying distances and locations. There is no requirement to use wireless power when transferring SD files, and even if a device is connected to use the My Cloud App or web interface, it is going to use a lot less power than streaming video to four devices.

Hence my conclusion that streaming four HD videos would place a greater demand on the MPW than transferring files from an SD card would. Perhaps it would just place a very similar demand on the MPW.

TonyPh12345 wrote:

Sloppy marketing words, to be sure – but it’s not far off the mark.   To me, that is referring not to data transfer speeds, but the time it takes you to start the task.  You can set up the MPW to IMMEDIATELY start copying (or moving) the contents of the SD card as soon as it’s inserted – with no user intervention or interaction required.

Very sloppy indeed. But more than that. Misleading.

You can’t “keep on shooting” unless you have another SD card (or set of cards in a dual card camera) to put into the camera. It would be completely unreasonable of WD to assume that a photographer has another card available, and hence can keep on shooting. Particularly as the MPW is priced and aimed at the average consumer, or perhaps the prosumer photographer, rather than professional photographers.

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@ RoderickGI: “I’m sure WD are aware of the issue, and hopefully can provide a solution in firmware that doesn’t involve unacceptable compromise, like risking the reliability of the transfer process. I hope it won’t require an upgrade to hardware, and hence buying version 2 of the product.”

Yes they are as I have a support “ticket” about this. 

Exactly my thoughts that a firmware would fix this if possible.

BTW: Friends please, if you want to discuss things in depth please start a new thread of the matter and just post a link to it in here. Easier for others to follow the mian questions. Thanks.

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New firmware 1.03.13released 11/17/2014

Resolved issue of entering standby mode during SD card transfer

Revised SD card transfer algorithm for faster transfer speed

Update & try again.

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Saw that last night but was unable to download and test it, hopfully I can after work today.

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This is so strange, since my ISP is still down I downloaded the updated firmare at work to my Mac laptop, but when I unzip it don’t get a bin file but a map/folder named fwpg images???

So when I got home I downloaded it again via my iPhone as “ISP” via 3G and same thing, can’t get the bin file but ends up as a folder. 

Did it a few more times and looked closely and this is what happens, the zip file unzips to another zip-file named the same but without the .zip at the end as it actually says .bin and  that in turn unzips to a folder… go figure???

Tried to “re-zip” the folder and rename it to the right name, but it givs an error code when installing.

Then I tried to cancel the 2:nd unzip but failed time after time, the downside of having to fast computers lol.

So how in h3ll do one do this as the 3G internet-connection isn’t a internet connection according the My Cloud Dashboard UI? 

Well, after getting my museum-old Win98SE laptop from the storage space I’m renting, unpacking it and running the unzip from that I finally got the .bin file so now after like 2 -3 hours it’s installad finaly. I hate when thing gets like this, wasting time on things that should work as stated :-/

Ok enough whining, some SD transfer testings to do now :slight_smile:

Results should be ready within an hour or so… if the site lets me in which it doesn’t always do???

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A few test result with the 1.03.13 firmware version.

Both transfer tests without connecting via WiFi and no big JPG tests, only RAW.

Card used: Sandisk Pro 64GB SDXC Cat 10 ExFAT capable of up to 95 MB/s read speeds.

Test 1 about 16 GB:

637 images: 15.99 GB RAW files, total on card 16.04 GB. About 87% battery

Time just around 18 minutes, battery down to 76% = 11% used.

Big improvement from the 1 hour and 5 minutes of my previous tests.

No spinning down during this transfer…

All files readable… well not via the MY Cloud app as they are RAW,  but via USB on my computer.

Test 2 about 64 GB:

This time I tried with putting the card in, then startup the MPW but it didn’t work, so after about 2 minutes out with the card, wait 5 sec and in with it again and now the transfer started.

2543 RAW images, 11 JPG I’mages to fill it up as much as possible: 63.63 GB files, total on card 63.83 GB. About 80% battery.

Time just around  72 minutes, battery down to 32% = 48% used.

Big improvement from the ”as many hours there was battery in the MPW and not all images transfered”. 

No spinning down during this transfer…

All files readable… well not via the MY Cloud app as they are RAW,  but via USB on my computer.

Verdict:

Much faster, about 3+ times faster, and this time reliable as all files were readable with no WiFi connection made as it had to be in previous tests, but still only around 14,7 MB/s of 25 stated so hopefully they can improve it further. A big step forward I must say as now it’s useable in the field.

Will probably do 2 fully loaded 64 GB cards on one charge, and with a power pack this is looking really good. 

To be true, not many photographers do fill up a card to 100% before changing / doing a backup. I usually only go to max 2/3 of the capacity before doing a backup. People with much larger image files might do it but probably not.

Another test I been doing during the wait for this new firmware:

I have walked around with the MPW on my belt in a mesh bag (at about my hip) doing both long and short transfers while moving around fairly normal (haven’t dared to jump around with it thou :slight_smile: )

Checking the drive’s condition after each day used and so far I haven’t seen any problems.

But to be fair, not even my older drives in my Nexto portables have suffer from any problems at much harder use than this so I guess this one will do as good. 

Good job developing team and others involved :slight_smile:

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Thanks for doing the tests and sharing your results once again.

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I agree. Thank you very much.

I haven’t even gotten the drive yet and almost didn’t.

These new results are acceptable and now will purchase one.

I’m going to use it to dump goPro video to on a ski trip to Europe.

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Thanks Cekari. I will do some tests soon and post results.

Those numbers look better, and the reliability improvement is greatly appreciated.

BTW, I updated using the web interface on my PC, and the MPW connected to my Wi-Fi network. It ran the update without issue, although it took a while for the refresh of the web interface after the MPW rebooted. This method has worked for me without trouble twice now, so I don’t think I’ll worry about the download a firmware file method, which is what I usually use for firmware updates.