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This is a review of this Western Digital 4tb Product. At the time of my purchase, it was $199.99 and had 3 stars (on Amazon).
Overall: I would NOT recommend this product.
Background/Use:
I am a college student who does a decent amount of photography. I bought this specific hard drive for its wireless capabilities and the SD Card slot was an exciting feature. I very much dislike connecting a hard drive directly to my computer (this makes laptop use on a bed difficult). Currently, I do not use the wireless capabilities of this product (see my Anker 7 Port Hub review).
Wired Performance:
Wired, this hard drive performs as any USB 3.0 Hard Drive would function. No problems here.
Wireless Performance:
This area is where the hard drive really faltered. This hard drive has both a 2.4GHz and a 5GHz frequency, with the 5GHz frequency theoretically bringing higher transfer speeds. Another feature of this hard drive is the ability to have a "wifi passthrough," meaning that your hard drive connects to your wifi, your computer connects to the hard drive, and the wifi "passes through" your hard drive to your computer. While this feature worked, it wasn't the most reliable and the setup was clunky.
Once I was connected to my hard drive (wirelessly on the 5GHz frequency, right next to my laptop, not in another room), I tested the speeds of transfers. And oh my, they were atrocious. I don't recall what exactly those speeds were and I refuse to put myself through that pain again to figure it out. For one, accessing files was horrible. Once I connected to my hard drive, it took approximately 10 minutes to be able to access my photos. Albeit, I do have about 250gb in photos that are completely organized (read: nested deeply). Nonetheless, accessing my files wirelessly (not transferring files, simply accessing) took too long for it to be functional. And file transfers were even worse. All in all, I would not use this hard drive wirelessly ever again.
Temperature Issues:
I had continuous temperature issues with this hard drive on its wireless use. Despite being in a very well ventilated, open area, the hard drive (after about 20 minutes of connected use) would heat up to the point where it would automatically shut down disregarding any transfers that were underway. These temperature issues would require me to let the device cool down, then restart it and reconnect it (which again came the slow file loading speeds). At first, I thought it to be a device-specific issue so I contacted Western Digital. Unfortunately, they were of no help. Thankfully however, I bought the device through Amazon and was able to complete a return and replacement with them. Once I got my replacement, however, the problems came back. It was then that I concluded it was not a device-specific problem but rather a flaw in the wireless functions of this model.
Note: none of this issues happen with the device connected with a cable.
SD Card Functionality:
This device has a feature that allows you to plug in an SD card directly into the device and it will automatically backup the device to a pre-designated folder. While this function worked, I found that its use was no better or easier than using my laptop's port. Especially with my workflow with Lightroom, it would make more sense for me to plug my SD card directly into my laptop.
Pros:
*crickets*
Cons:
Wireless functionality is unusable
Mac Device Interface is clunky and slow
File loading speeds are extremely slow
Device overheats frequently