[SOLVED] (NAS or CLOUD )+ USBor BLUETOOTH, what can do this?

[valbe]

Hello. I am looking for an external physical hard drive that I can access through 3 devices, capacity 1TB, max 2TB. I will keep it at the office and access it at home and at the office, so wireless through different networks. I want to use it as my primary hard drive, so it shall synchronize nicely and fast. I saw that there are a couple of well-evaluated options, like WD cloud. However, sometimes I travel to places where wifi is not reliable and I would like to plug in a USB or access Bluetooth. I thought that the WD My Passport WIFI can do this, but I understood (maybe I am totally wrong) that is good at storage but not at synchronizing files. So, what shall I buy? Thank you!

 

[Alabalcho]

A storage device does not know "Synchonization" or "Storage". You can rule out BlueTooth - it's too slow for file access, and is not designed for that.

As for WiFi: You can use it only in your home, where there's central WiFi router. In you go out in the desert, your laptop should be configured to act as a WiFi access point so that the drive can connect somewhere, and this is cumbersome. So, either use it over USB as well, or look for a drive which can be hardwired with Ethernet cable.

And last but not least: You don't want this to be your primary drive, unless you have solid backup plan.

 

[USAFRet]

Hello. I am looking for an external physical hard drive that I can access through 3 devices, capacity 1TB, max 2TB. I will keep it at the office and access it at home and at the office, so wireless through different networks. I want to use it as my primary hard drive, so it shall synchronize nicely and fast. I saw that there are a couple of well-evaluated options, like WD cloud. However, sometimes I travel to places where wifi is not reliable and I would like to plug in a USB or access Bluetooth. I thought that the WD My Passport WIFI can do this, but I understood (maybe I am totally wrong) that is good at storage but not at synchronizing files. So, what shall I buy? Thank you!

"primary hard drive"?
I hope you're not meaning the OS drive. Because that will NOT work.

 

[valbe]

No ) I am a desperate ignorant, but I mean the primary STORAGE driver, to complement the hard drive with the OS and software.

 

[USAFRet]

No ) I am a desperate ignorant, but I mean the primary STORAGE driver, to complement the hard drive with the OS and software.

Any of the current small NAS boxes can do this, mostly.
NOT the WD cloud thing.

Couple of misconception:
You don't connect to this via WiFi. It is connected to the router via ethernet cable, and you access the router from your devices.

It can stay in one place, home or office, and you can access it from anywhere (sort of). But outside the home LAN, it WILL be slow. No real way around that.


I have a QNAP NAS, and internally here in the house it is fine. Connecting over the internet from 'outside'....it is there, but I would not want to try to use that as my primary drive.

And once you open things up for outside access, you have to be really really careful on your security.

 

[valbe]

I thought that avoiding a public cloud service was safer, but I clearly did not consider that I still access my data through the internet!
I checked the NAS options. they look great and clearly more reliable /expandable. Yet they cost more. I would buy one of them if starting from zero, or with a larger budget, but I have a disconnected hard drive for long-term storage and a couple of small HD from my computers that I probably cannot use to fill them. I will look at the reviews concerning synchronization and fast access. Thank you!!!