THE NEW WD PASSPORT

To my surprise, besides food and travel, gadget review is something that's sort of highly anticipated here in my blog, and everytime, I repeat EVERYTIME I post something that has to do with my photography gear or external storage, along comes the requests for a short review, just like this one when I uploaded this on my Instagram Stories and Snapchat around a week ago.

I don't really do camera reviews because apparently buying camera is not as cheap as buying KFC meals and you buy one good camera to be with you for a long time, call it a long term relationship (hoping it won't broke or yu'll pay the extra cost), but this time I'll be talking about the new WD Passport which I just got around two weeks ago.

First of all, say hello to the sleek-chic design and hot red color. This has a different appearance compared to the regular WD passport, still as handy only a better plastic built, the previous WD Passport was layered with this matte finish which to me still had its own poshness.

UNBOXING

Ok let's unbox the new WD Passport together!

Packaging design, simple with yellow and white color blocking background. 4 TB storage size, should be perfect for regular matters. They did put more effort to the packaging compared to the previous WD Passport Ultra where you can directly see the product through the transparent plastic packaging shield.

Backside packaging

After unboxing the outer packaging, you should see another carton box where they kept the WD Passport, cables, and booklets.

This pretty little stuff! It's slightly thicker than the previous WD Passport Ultra (almost Lego like chunks), but weight wise it's barely noticeable as both are pretty light and compact (probably just 100-200 grams difference, don't tell me that cost you a lot of plain please).

Besides oxygen, money, mobile phone, internet & faith, external storage has always been an ESSENTIAL part of my life, one that I literally can't live without! My everyday life revolves around a lot of picture and video taking, especially since I just started to do vlogs and video files can cost double to triple data size! I literally just backed up my whole computer and my camera SD cards yesterday, in total that's almost 300 GB alone!

I have this habit (re: lazy) where I don't regularly back up or transfer datas from works and travel months ago, keep them packing and at certain travel occasions, I was barely left with enough data to take pictures and record videos, exactly what happened to me on this trip! I am currently in Malaysia and on my first day I only had 70 frames left on my camera and 8 mins video capacity, what the hell can you do with that?!

SO WHAT IS THAT MAKES THIS PRODUCT VERY SPECIAL TO ME?

First, SPEED OF DATA TRANSFER!
I am not just assuming as I literally notice the difference. To me, the previous WD Passport Ultra already did a pretty good job at transferring my files fast enough, and this was on a different level, I can say it's 1,2-1,5 times faster, backing up 300 GB worth of data cost me less than 40 minutes! I noticed from the bar that it can transfer my data to 120 mbps, not to mention the USB port is 3.0

Password Protection
Let's just admit it, bad day happens and you can lose your external storage almost anytime, so far I haven't really used the password feature as I honestly have nothing to hide from anyone or something that's really THAT private, but if you do, this could totally be a plus advantage.

Size matters (I mean the storage size)
The new WD Passport is available in four storage capacities (1-4 TB), I got the 4 TB and sometimes to me, it exceeds beyond all the design matters and stuff. This should be the point of external storage, 4 TB can save me for a couple of months, in two weeks I have transferred 300 GB worth of files, I haven't transferred all the pictures and videos from this trip.

Short to say, a relatively small Lego brick like external storage with BIG performance and that's all that matters. Definitely a GO.

PS: the new WD Passport now comes in six different colors, mainly pastel colors: BLACK, BLUE, YELLOW, WHITE, RED and ORANGE with color coordinated USB cable.

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WD MYCLOUD MIRROR REVIEW

It's my second entry reviewing another great product by the master of compact storage: Western Digital, if on my previous post I reviewed their MyCloud EX2 Ultra, this time I am reviewing their MyCloud Mirror a Network Attached Storage or NAS that's affordable and specially designed for home usage.

So what's the main difference to MyCloud EX2 Ultra? Keep reading.

If this is the first time you've ever heard about NAS, then keep reading. If this isn't your first, scroll down. Network Attached Storage or NAS is simply described as a compact storage that you can access anytime and anywhere as long as there's a reliable internet connection and network (and make sure the NAS is connected to a router), so it's very different to the small personal harddisk such as WD MyPassport where you need to connect the USB to the laptop to store everything, with NAS, internet connection is the key to store, delete, and to back up datas.

I honestly think NAS is not that much of an importance when a single computer is using it, but different story if it's being accessed by some computers and even a smartphone, that's why I think NAS is perfect for family usage or small office who needs to be mobile in sharing a retrieving datas. Handy much.

BUILD

The physical appearance is not much different to MyCloud EX2 Ultra but I did feel it's slightly lighter and smaller, but just a tiny bit and almost unnoticeable on a short glance, and the cover's available in plain white color, but I love the build & color on the EX2 Ultra better, it appears more expensive to me. Inside you'll find two RED hard disks (each 2TB) compiling a total of 4TB storage (available up to 12 TB).

The RED hard disks are sold for almost IDR 2 million/each for 2TB storage, so here you're basically having a cool hardware consisting of 4TB of storage, fast performance, a working machine and features and many more. To open the casing to access the The RED memory is easily set and open using the little knob located in the center.

You'll find three light indicators located on the face of the hard drive to indicate the power, the connection and the installed harddrive. 2 USB 3.0 ports and an Ethernet jack are available on the power supply area, also if you need a Kensington lock and a reset button, it can totally be sorted. You can also attach external drives to the device and access them over your network through the NAS using the USB port.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

- Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 or Windows Vista

- Mac OS El Captain, Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion

- DLNA/UpnP devices for streaming

- Router with Internet connection

SUPPORTED BROWSERS:

- Microsoft Edge

- Internet Explorer 10 or higher

- Safari 6 or higher

- Firefox 30 or higher

- Google Chrome 31.0 or higher on supoorted Windows and Mac OS platforms

SYSTEM AND TECH SPECS
Besides a reliable internet connection, another thing that's also important is the Western Digital software and app that's being used for set ups, further adjustments, privacy settings and many more, or short to say, you can control anything you want from this app. I notice the file distribution setting to not much different (almost identical actually) comparing to MyCloud EX2.

USAGE
If you're using MAC computers, on the "Shared" sub menu there will be the "WD MyCloud Mirror" tab, and of course, to manage everything, they also have their web-based control panel on this address: wdmycloudmirror.local. The interface of the web-based control panel is pretty much the same as the EX2, there are just a few new things such as "Network Activity". "CPU" and "RAM" on the homepage. Like the EX2, you have more options for backing up the device, including sendcing the contents of the drive to the cloud via Elephant Drive and Amazon S3.

I did try to transfer my picture files from my latest trip to Raja Ampat + Hong Kong (in total 26 GB) using the MyCloud Mirror and comparing it to the EX2 Ultra. The file transfer runs just as fast as EX2 Ultra, it was easy and took me just around 10 minutes to transfer the whole picture, also because I just convert to a newer computer with better spec (that should be too), the good thing about this is that I would totally function this lovely gadget right after I am running out of space from WD MyCloud EX2, I hardly use 60 GB of the 4 TB available (not to mention I also have four WD passports, WD passport wireless) my life is safe!

CONCLUSION

So MyCloud Mirror or EX2 Ultra? MIRROR ALL THE WAY and especially if you have less budget, Cheaper price tag (around $40 less) and all that's lacking is just some unnecessary stuff, but overall was pretty much identical down to the hard drive, processor and memory. I notice that main difference of EX2 Ultra and the Mirror is the protocol that allows you to connect to the drive like its an internal local disk, but honestly it's not necessary for me.

I also notice that Mirror makes more noise than EX2 Ultra, but that shouldn't be a problem if you place this product at an individual room.

Disclaimer: here's the thing, I love technology, but I am not an expert of it, I am briefly sharing you guys how this thing works based on my experience, so if you expect me to mention all the most high tech words to describe the feature, I can't. I am a newbie in tech review, and I am trying to share my thoughts of this cool gadget qualitatively.

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