One Piece Of Kit I Always Take When I Travel

The Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro

There are a few pieces of photographic related gear that I always take along when I go out photograph for more than a day. One piece of kit that always goes with me is my Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro portable hard drive. I find this one piece of gear very valuable and I really don’t understand why it, as well as most other devices like it, are no longer made—or at least hard to find.

The Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro, for those of you who may not be familiar with the device, is a portable, battery or bus powered hard drive that is self-contained. It can connect to a computer via wi-fi or with a USB cable.  It has an SD card slot into which I can insert an SD card with my day’s images.   It also has a USB 3.0 port into which I can attach a memory card reader if I am using a camera that takes alternative cards, such as my Nikon Z8.  Once the memory card is plugged in and a button pushed, the image files automatically download onto the hard drive.  As it downloads the files, the device also creates a folder with the date of download.  Perfect!  In effect, the device provides me with an instant additional backup in the field.  In fact, I’ve backed up images while sitting in my vehicle.

My model is the older W-D in that mine has an old style spinning hard drive but later models had SSD drives inside. They also came in a variety of memory capacities.  Mine is a 1TB model but they were made with 500gb as well as up to 4TB capacities.   If you search the internet you can still find one here or there that can be purchased, usually for more than the original retail price.  Additionally, there is a current Kickstarter campaign (it may be over as I haven’t recently checked) for a similar device called UnifyDrive UT2.  This device has many more capabilities, such as acting as a network-attached-storage (NAS) but you have to supply your own NVME M.2 memory sticks as they don't come built-in as does the W-D's memory.  If you are interested in this device, yo may want to check it out, here.

Before I leave on a ‘more than a day’ trip, even if photography is not the main objective, I charge the W-D drive’s battery.  I also connect it to my computer by USB cable and examine the drive's contents for any files that may remain from a previous trip.   If there are image files remaining, I delete those and their associated folders.  When packing, I make sure I have the hard drive, its USB 3.0 cord and its little wall charger.

Here is how I use it.  For example, if I am on a three-day photography road trip, I’ll keep the W-D hard drive in my vehicle’s center console.  This allows me to access it during the day and I can, at any time, turn it on, plug in a memory card and incrementally download my images onto the hard drive.  That instantly gives me another copy of my images other than what is on the card itself.  I’ll do that at the end of the day as well.  For unique or important images, this extra sense of security is nice.  At night, if I have time, I also follow my usual routine (if I have brought along my laptop) of uploading my images to my Lightroom Classic catalog and copied the day's image files to another external hard drive. If I have only brought my iPad Pro, I'll upload the files to Lightroom Mobile, then copy them to at least one small SSD external drive.  Like most of you, I like to look at my day’s images each night to review what I may have captured, assess my technique to improve my results and just relive the day’s experiences.

There was another company who made similar devices but they no longer make them and I believe the company may have gone out of business.  The device was called a Gnarbox.  Again, a product that was very useful but, I’ll guess, didn’t sell enough to sustain a positive return on investment. 

If you are interested in a device such as this, if you search the internet, you can find a few for sale.  Some are priced reasonably and others not.  It depends upon the retailer.  But, as a convenience and a bit of extra image insurance, the Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro is worth its weight to me.

DISLCAIMER:  I have no affiliation with Western Digital, UnifyDrive or any other company.  I have no advertisements, no click-through links and I pay for my gear at the same prices you pay for yours.  I don't receive anything in the way of monetary or any other type of compensation.  It is just me trying to be  helpful and passing on information that may allow you to enjoy your photography as much as I have enjoyed mine over the past 5+ decades.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!

Dennis A. Mook

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