I just got the drive on Tuesday, couldn’t do anything til Wednesday. First hour I skimmed through the manual and configured the drive how I wanted. Renamed, setup wifi, changed passwords, installed PMS. Spent another half hour or so just playing around and poking in all the different menus.
Next I started optimizing my library using it as my storage location. I first created a Plex folder on the WD and then added to my TV Shows and Movies library on my local Plex server. Next was telling the local server to “Optimize” both libraries. I have 2.5 TB total and over night it was able to optimize roughly 33 movies. Quite a few to go, but seems to be moving along nicely.
I had a little spare time today, so I “paused” optimization, unplugged from my PC and let it join my home WiFI. I think tried to play some content. It was really slow at first as this was it’s first time connnecting to the internet since adding all the content, so it was trying to DL metadata. Cover art started to populate in the library and the responsiveness got much better. Picked a movie to play and it did, however about 2 minutes in buffered some and complained my network was to slow. I disconnected from home wifi and connected directly from my phone. Played 20 minute clips from 3 different movies without issue then.
I plugged back in to PC which automatically shuts wifi off and I hit “resume” once my PC detected the drive and it was mounted. Within seconds it continued the optimization process. So far very happy, yet I am cautiously optimistic. I haven’t used out in the wild just yet.
Couple questions
From what I read it’s best to not “claim” to avoid issues when no connected to internet…does that advice still stand? If so, what exactly are the ramifications?? It gives you grave warnings how it’s not secure, etc if you don’t claim it.
Since I am not “claiming” the server, when I am using the direct connect method and I am connected from my iPhone and then a friend who has own Plex account wants to connect…do I have to invite them first in order to share that content?? They already share my Home server, but not sure if needed if the server is “unclaimed”. If they connect to the WD Wireless Pro network, then their Plex app should see the server, but not sure that’s enough to actually connect and view content.
I love mine so far. I too encountered some confusing prompts about claiming the server. I largely ignored/declined them and was able to stream along with my son (managed user, Plex Home member on primary server). I plan to look more into this claiming prompt as I have free time.
First test was a couple 2hr plane rides followed by a week at a fishing lodge that had just enough wifi for Chromecast to load Plex via the internet but stream locally from the WD. Awesome. So many hotels have crappy wifi and this takes care of that!
I am with @BrianAz - I love this thing. I have taken it on 2 trips so far. I set it up in my hotel room, use a Roku stick to stream to the in room TV. After a little setup initially it is now just plug and play. I had an issue with the firmware upgrade this week (seemed to mess up my two WiFi passwords, a quick reset of the settings fixed it, I turned off automatic upgrades now) but other than that I have not had a single issue. I have used it to stream my music, movies, TV shows, etc.
I have 't used it on a plane yet, I usually just keep some Amazon Prime videos on my iPad for that but for hotels this thing has been great.
Is there a way “unclaim” the sever, I would like to test this also and try to allow others to stream from it.
Does the Roku stick require any internet @ all to work? The Chromecast is nice, but still requires at least a hotspot from my cellular or super basic internet to work. Sometimes there just isn’t a signal though, so it’s got me thinking of a good player to plug into the hotel TV.
Yeah, the CC nees the internet to load the player.
The Roku needs the internet to setup initially (download the channels, initial setup, etc.) but then you can disable pings and it won’t go out and check the internet.
I just tried it again, disabled the internet connection on the PWP and rebooted th Roku.
It took a little bit longer to boot than normal but Plex loaded and played fine.
I got the 3600X as that was a big improvement over the previous version. I highly recommend it.
rsava commented on My experience with WD Wireless Pro 3TB
@athflying@gmail.com - I set my “Secure connections” to “Preferred” and I never get told it is not secure. I also have not “claimed” it.
I am with @BrianAz - I love this thing. I have taken it on 2 trips so far. I set it up in my hotel room, use a Roku stick to stream to the in room TV. After a little setup initially it is now just plug and play. I had an issue with the firmware upgrade this week (seemed to mess up my two WiFi passwords, a quick reset of the settings fixed it, I turned off automatic upgrades now) but other than that I have not had a single issue. I have used it to stream my music, movies, TV shows, etc.
I have 't used it on a plane yet, I usually just keep some Amazon Prime videos on my iPad for that but for hotels this thing has been great.
Before getting the WD, I had bought a small travel router thinking I would need it with the non wireless external drive I was using, however since the Wireless Pro has wireless capabilities, I was hoping I didn’t need it.
I also plan on using a Chromecast traveling and had hoped it could connect directly to the WD network in direct access mode…but it sounds like that won’t work? I didn’t think the CC needed internet, just a network connection.
I guess something else I need to test before leaving just to confirm but sounds like you guys already have.
Yes, the CC needs the internet to load the player.
If you are in a hotel with free WiFi, you can connect the PWP to the hotel WiFi and then connect the CC to the PWP and the Passport should pass it through. At least that is my experience.
This trip I am on now, I connected the Passport to the hotel WiFi and then connected my iPad, Surface, and iPhone to the Passport and had internet on all three.
No issues streaming that way? I thought I read somewhere if you connect the Passport to wifi and then connect to the passport, that the source of the wifi can still be a bottleneck. I may have read it wrong and that would only be an issue if all devices are on the hotel wifi and not as you describe
@rsava said:
Yes, the CC needs the internet to load the player.
If you are in a hotel with free WiFi, you can connect the PWP to the hotel WiFi and then connect the CC to the PWP and the Passport should pass it through. At least that is my experience.
This trip I am on now, I connected the Passport to the hotel WiFi and then connected my iPad, Surface, and iPhone to the Passport and had internet on all three.
This is exactly how I did it when I had crappy wifi at the fishing lodge during a recent trip.
I suppose it would also work if you have no wifi but do have cellular by using your cell phone as a hotspot:
iPad/CC/etc → PWP → iPhone Hotspot → Internet via ATT.
@athflying@gmail.com said:
No issues streaming that way? I thought I read somewhere if you connect the Passport to wifi and then connect to the passport, that the source of the wifi can still be a bottleneck. I may have read it wrong and that would only be an issue if all devices are on the hotel wifi and not as you describe
I had no issues whatsoever (well, except for the firmware upgrade but I got that straightened out) streaming to my Roku in the hotel, both with the PWP connected to the hotel WiFi and without the PWP connected to the hotel WiFi.
This little drive is more than an answer to most of my dreams for a portable Plex solution. Next trip I have, probably by the middle of August, I am going to use it while on the airplane. I am thinking I can tuck it in the seat pocket and stream from there. @BrianAz - where did you stick the drive when you used it on the plane?
I am flying 5 hours in about a week from FL to Vegas and then in a hotel for the whole week so it will get a workout.
Possible road trip in Nov about 20 hours each way with a 2 year old and 4 adults.
Has anyone had issues with multiple streams?
rsava commented on My experience with WD Wireless Pro 3TB
@athflying@gmail.com said:
No issues streaming that way? I thought I read somewhere if you connect the Passport to wifi and then connect to the passport, that the source of the wifi can still be a bottleneck. I may have read it wrong and that would only be an issue if all devices are on the hotel wifi and not as you describe
I had no issues whatsoever (well, except for the firmware upgrade but I got that straightened out) streaming to my Roku in the hotel, both with the PWP connected to the hotel WiFi and without the PWP connected to the hotel WiFi.
This little drive is more than an answer to most of my dreams for a portable Plex solution. Next trip I have, probably by the middle of August, I am going to use it while on the airplane. I am thinking I can tuck it in the seat pocket and stream from there.
@BrianAz - where did you stick the drive when you used it on the plane?
This little drive is more than an answer to most of my dreams for a portable Plex solution. Next trip I have, probably by the middle of August, I am going to use it while on the airplane. I am thinking I can tuck it in the seat pocket and stream from there.
@BrianAz - where did you stick the drive when you used it on the plane?
It just sat on the divider between two seats. I don’t see a reason it couldn’t tuck into the seat pocket though.
What kind of range are you guys getting wifi wise? In my house it drops off pretty quickly. Would be sufficient in a car or small hotel room but not much else it seems.
Upcoming trip flying with a co worker and hoping to be able to share library on the plane but if we are more than a few rows apart I have my doubts would work.
@athflying@gmail.com - I have found the range is not great also. The antennas are placed along the front of the device. This last trip, I used my Roku secret menu to access the WiFI signal meter to see if the placement helped. When I pointed the front of the device towards the Roku (it was a 3600 stick) the signal got stronger, though not great.
Remember, the 2.4GHz band is going to give you more range but slower throughput, 5GHz is going to be lower range but better throughput. I was using the 5GHz band for my Roku stick, but the 2.4GHz band for my Amazon Tap in the bedroom.
Hope this helps.
I guess you could get a travell router, but then just one more thing to carry and defeats the purpose of compact and simple.
So far my setup has been working well, it is just very slow getting all the metadata loaded and libraries populated with correct info now that it’s all there. While Plex is updating, it is REALLY sluggish and things timeout a lot. It gets pretty hot too…I am guessing the CPU is working hard, but definitely much warmer than all the reading and writing it’s been doing populating it with 2 TB of data. I am hoping after this initial huge dump, things speed up as it will just be updating an occasional title or two vs 100’s at one time.
Going to do a little more testing through the weekend and then it’s 5 hours in the plane on Monday.
I had some errands to run today, so I brought my laptop with me and the WD. Connected the laptop to WD network and started streaming. Played an entire movie and couple tv episodes with no issues as I drove around town for about 2 hours. Both were running on battery power the entire time.
I know others have had authentication issues, I currently do not have “Plex Home” setup, but I did claim the server as my own when the WD did have an internet connection. When I connected with the laptop, the WD had no internet connection, and Plex Web was not signed in and Plex never asked me to authenticate. I also have secure connections turned off if that matters.
I have found the WD is very sensitive to “disconnects” from the PC. I have had to run chkdsk 3 times now. Once because I inadvertantly disconnected it from my PC while it was connected via USB. The 2 other times I believe were caused by it being connected via WiFI and I had the WD mapped as a network drive, then me turning Wifi off causing an “unexpected disconnect”. Since having it “unmapped” I haven’t had any more issues, but I will keep an eye on it.
Lastly, when the drive is just idling…performance in Plex is pretty good, however if it’s downloading metadata or doing anything with the library, things come to a crawl. It gets pretty warm too, much hotter than when it’s just reading/writing data.
@athflying@gmail.com - Your experiences are very similar to mine. I have not tried the car one but may do that soon, hope to stream to two different iPads at once.
It makes sense that it is sluggish when downloading the metadata.
As far as the disconnects, you are doing that to optimize directly to the drive, correct?
I guess that is why I have not had that issue as I optimize then use FTP to move the files over.
Good to hear you are having success with it, have fun on your trip (if it is one you can have fun on) and safe travels.
