Imation was
set to announce its first-ever
Wireless USB hard drive a year ago, but it lost
a dear friend shortly before it materialized and we'd heard nothing since then. Today Imation has returned -- holding hands with its new partner,
Staccato -- to release the Pro WX 1.5 terabyte Wireless USB hard drive for both Windows and Mac. At $449.99, though, we thought to ourselves: does the Pro WX offer something extraordinary for the premium price? Or are you better off with a
NAS device like Apple's
infamous Time Capsule? We ran some quick tests to find out -- do read on for some juicy results.
First impression
From the outside, the Pro WX shares the same utilitarian and frankly unattractive case design as Imation's Apollo drives -- we can't say we're big fans, but it's what's inside that counts. The only noticeable changes are the now chromium-plated feet, an extra wireless LED indicator, and the addition of an antenna. Like the Apollo series, the Pro WX has spring-loaded feet, which always cause us concern -- it can't do much good to the drive's longevity each time the feet bang the body. On a positive note we do like the power button's pulsating standby light, as well as the load indicator that spins soothingly on the sync button -- it's less intrusive than traditional blinking LED mess. Inside, our particular unit houses a
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 terabyte drive pre-formatted in NTFS, but it can obviously be reformatted for your shiny Mac.
Wireless vs. wired
Here's the deal: USB 2.0 and WUSB have the same maximum theoretical speeds of 60MB/s, but Imation only promises a wee 15MB/s for the WUSB on the Pro WX – half the 30MB/s that USB 2.0 gets in the real world, and far less than the the speeds of FireWire 800 (400MB/s) and eSATA (750MB/s). Sure, the Pro WX did achieve 15MB/s in our tests, but only at close range -- we couldn't get radio reception beyond the wall of our small room, so you might as well use a cable which gets you twice the speed anyway. On the other hand, our
802.11n Time Capsule also achieves 15MB/s at the same close wireless range, but it can also transmit from any room in the flat, albeit at reduced speeds. A WiFI NAS isn't necessarily the perfect solution, however -- the Pro WX's one-to-one connection works better for dedicated backups while avoiding WiFi snooping and accidental data overwrites from competing machines.
Backup tool
The Pro WX comes with preloaded Memeo backup tool, which does incremental backups, just as you'd expect. We quickly got the hang of its interface and like its many levels of customization (target files, destination and schedule), but it refused to back up the entire drive and warned us that it's "not designed to perform system backup." Ah well, at least both Mac OS X and Windows 7 have backup tools built in -- both worked fine over our wired and wireless tests. Memeo has also thrown in 1GB of online storage, which can be handy for those who aren't already using services like Dropbox and Windows Live Mesh.
Wrap-up
The Imation Pro WX is definitely a fun toy, but at the age of terabytes it should be aiming for much higher WUSB speeds, although we have yet to spot a WUSB device that can transfer quicker than 15MB/s. Nevertheless, for the money, the Pro WX just doesn't do it for us: we've seen other wireless storage devices of better value and better range, so we shall wait -- WUSB is promising, just needs a speed boost to match its premium price tag.
posted Nov 11th 2009 11:51AM
I completely agree - the speed is just too slow to justify the price tag.
why there's no wifi drive?
never mind, there're such product, which require no adapter on computers with wifi support. I dont see the point having wireless usb when most machines dont support it without ugly adapter.
Yes. They're called NAS drives.
802.11 is generally not speedy enough for that application. Even N with a max throughput of 300 Mb/s is only 37.5 MB/s. You'll never see that quality of speed on N either, expect half that. (They do note that in the above article...)
@htd
Just follow this link :)
http://www.planet-wifi.com/?p=6302
Like the crysis reference.
And warhead rules.
eww
Is the time capsule the only NAS you guys have ever heard of ?
Of course not, but the Time Capsule is the only one we have in our UK offices. There's also the LG N2R1 if you're interested: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/10/lg-debuts-n2r1-nas-with-built-in-dvd-burner-up-to-2tb-of-storag/
I know its expensive and I probably won't have one (at this price anyway) - but if I had a bunch of adapters this could be handy. I have 4 computers in my house. 2 are personal (a desktop and a notebook) - and iMac for my home based business and my regular 'day job' notebook. Everything, except my personal desktop, is connected to the internet via wi-fi. I have thought about getting a NAS and attaching it to the router and backing up that way - but that'd be another set of cables and cords - and I don't necessarily want it to be where I have my router.
This sounds like a nice, creative solution to issues I have tried to solve myself - however, given the price and the speed of it - I really can't find myself justifying the purchase. Again, because I could just get a NAS with faster speeds, more storage and cheaper price.
But I think its a step in the right direction.
Better check your bits and Bytes...
actually, even ignoring the bit vs Byte, I think the eSATA and FW800 numbers are just wrong.
Why is Time Capsule "infamous" - curious choice of word. Please explain, Mr Lai
Why? You have a better word for that?
It's infamous because of sites like this: http://timecapsuledead.org/
Mine has lasted well and I have no complaints, but I am apparently in a minority.
Good point, Dale. Will add link to that post.
Personally, I'd never recommend a wireless backup solution, especially if you have more than 1 or two machines in your home. Better go whole hog and pick up a WHS, like the cheap Acer Easystore H340 which starts at $400 with 1TB, but you can expand to 7TB of internal storage by adding adding drives and works in a mixed environment (though it doesn't support Time Machine out of the box, just Backup).
http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=1190
or spend a bit more and get one of the HP MediaSmarts which are also expandable, and include HPs custom Time Machine software for Mac support.
http://www.hp.com/canada/products/landing/mediasmart/ex.html
Adding wireless support is easy enough with a dongle or adapter card for ~$40ish. Of course, you can roll your own Linux/BSD solution, though that's a bit more time consuming.
very cool but slow at this time
whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Doesn't the airport extreme do this for about $99? I'm fairly sure I can get a 1TB usb drive and the airport for less than this thing.
UWB! You're still alive!
Ridiculous, considering NASA can develop satellites that transfer at 17 megabytes/second from hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth...*
I'm not sure wireless-USB or wireless-Anything will matter until the speeds are at least ~70% of what you'd get when plugged in...
*http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/avalanche.html
that laptop is running windows 7 but the tabs show names? ! ? ! how the ??? I would love to do that, how do you turn that on? i've looked and searched and looked and searched somemore
I don't think I would purchase an external hard drive that wasn't in a RAID1. Especially for that kind of money.
Imation needs a new logo.