Seagate doesn't launch Wireless USB drives
By Ryan Block 
posted Mar 8th 2006 11:07AM
posted Mar 8th 2006 11:07AM
Everybody remember
those Wireless USB Seagate
hard drives we saw at CES? C'mon, you've got to, they were the first proper WUSB devices we've seen in the wild.
Well, ready or not, they've gone from prototype to [via MobileMag]
Update: Seagate phoned in to let us know that no, they're not in fact launching products, they just decided to issue a press release today outlining the many devices they've got on demo -- but are not launching -- at IDF. Ok, got it, thanks guys.
Great! A hard drive with no way to interface with it!
it would be even nicer if it were totally wireless.. like using lithium batteries?? *naaah*
when it comes to WUSB drives... i can't help but wonder how it handles unmounting the drives.
Windows generally doesn't really care if you eject/insert/eject/insert media. but OSX tends to get all pissy if you unplug an external drive without first ejecting it from the Finder. like the kind of pissy that leads to potential data loss.
so on OSX if i walked out of range of the drive... would it cry in the Finder? would i loose data from not properly unmounting?
what happens if you start a copying job... then walk out of range? these seem like things that would need to be sorted at an OS level... have they been?
I'd imagine that the same rules would apply as if you were reading/writing to the good ole A:/B:/ drives.
First the drive goes haywire, then the error message pops up and you have to Abort/Fail/Retry the process.
Doesn't seem that complicated as most drives don't really -erase- anything off of themselves nowadays anyway.
OMG, that is awesome.
But 1.8 inch? I need a 500 gigger!
Am I the only one that thinks this is stupid? because you still have to plug it into the wall. I would rather have a drive bus powered by the computer and doesn't plug into the wall, than a drive that plugs into the wall but not the computer
according to the link they provided the wusb drive will be 2.5in...anyway
i want to see it in action
If it were bigger, this would be perfect for storing all of your movies (legally of course....) and streaming them to your new Mac Mini in your home theater.
Seriously, #2 has to be right. Can anybody tell me what the point is to having a "wireless" hard drive that has to be plugged into power?
To all those people complaining about still having to plug these into the wall, quit yer bitchin! Have you considered the fact that you can now put all those hard drives out of the way, on a shelf, in a closet, whatever, and not have them cluttering up your desk? Sure, you still have to plug them in, but come on, this is a great step.
"Great! A hard drive with no way to interface with it!"
Yaaay technology!
Well for one... just about any device that needs to be plugged into a computer these days uses USB. Which means, more available USB ports for other devices.
Second, it obviously needs power. However, if it is USB wireless, you can store it somewhere out of the way, away from the computer, across the room, wherever.
Last, it may not be true wireless, but it is still one less cable. If you have many of these, thats a lot of cables.
Plus, it's just cool.
"has to be right. Can anybody tell me what the point is to having a "wireless" hard drive that has to be plugged into power?"
Placement.
You can leave stationary and access it anywhere.
Things are looking good for the WiMedia Alliance, seeing how the Belkin CableFreeUSB hub is gonna be delayed till June.
Great I can hook it up to my portable diesel generator and have wireless hard drive access anywhere. Whoopeee!
One great thing about this product is that you can take your loud hard drive and put it someplace where you don't have to hear it. Right now my hard drive is the loudest component on my computer.
Also, it would be cool to buy a fireproof safe that has outlets built into it. You could stick your drive in there and make nightly back-ups and your data would be protected in case of a fire. (That's assuming the signal is strong enough to pierce the safe...)
Ryan
first off, i love seagate's form factor for these portable 2.5 drives. i just bought the 100gb version (for $1.50/GB) and it's great. i bought for portability and to use with my laptop. i use the usb cable which moves data and power, so no need for an ac adapter. however, will wait and see on this WUSB implementation, and what the cost is. i like the small & light usb cable over carrying the bulkier ac cord. seems to me WUSB drives would be a great solution for the static drives at home that never move and can be easily plugged in to the wall, but for those i'd suggest applying this technology to the 3.5 drives which are about 1/3 the price at $.50/GB. just my $.02
I *have* the ability to put my drives wherever I want. It's called Ethernet. It works with all my systems, it's cheap, and it's not dependent on wireless conditions. Oh, and it doesn't transmit my data to the neighbors.
Wonder what happens when windows tries to auto-connect this thing to my desktop and laptop at the same time?
you should just be able to use this on more than one computer...that would be cool, think about it. for a family with like 3 computers, you just need 100 gig drive and you have all the space you need, lol
I'm pretty sure you would need a dongle or something plugged directly into the computer to receive the signal. More than likely, you would only have that plugged into either your laptop or desktop... not both.
And I'm guessing there is some sort of encryption or ID that only works between the drive and its receiver. So if your neighbor has a receiver, it would probably only work with his drive.
Martian had this several years ago. A version of Linux ran on the drives, they were zero config, open the box, plug it in (yeah, put it in a closet) and your machines just saw it. So what's the holdup? In fact, the guys at Martian told me they had sold their stuff to some "big" consumer hardware company. I pretty much figured it was Samsung... Glad to see they really fast-tracked that product. Martian now makes OS X software, go figure.