Please help me here...
I really, really don't see the point.
Anyone?
Imation has announced its external hard drive that connects by wireless USB to PCs and Macs is now shipping. The Pro WX Wireless USB hard drive comes in a 3.5in form-factor and holds up to 1.5TB of data. It is based on Imation's Apollo external hard drive platform fitted with a USB wireless facility that talks on a one-to-one …
Wot? No Wireless Power? Count me out then! I long to have 10's of watts of microwave energy beaming around my house.
On a more serious note, is the actual PSU external to the device or an internal, self-frying one as oft quoted* in the demise of many an Apple Time Capsule?
*In the reviews on the Apple (UK) Store.
Evil Gates to balance the anti-Apple comment.
quote
The Windows need to logically disconnect USB-connected external drives before physically disconnecting them is avoided because the Pro WX receiver is plugged into the host's USB socket and the Pro WX drive itself.
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Windows only needs you to logically disconnect mass storage USB devices to make sure it's cover up of real transfer times does not result in data-loss.
Example:
You copy some G of data to your USB 2.0 external drive (the usual crapware you attach to your Winedows PeeCee)
Windows reports it needs n seconds/minutes/hours(/days/weeks/months since Vista) to copy a bunch of files. You wait patiently till the process indicator shows completed, the copy window vanishes and you "assume" the copy has been completed ... well, not so ... data is still shipped to the external hard drive. You will get a message in Windows when you try to disconnect the drive logically - the device is in use.
Now, how is that gonna work with this babe? If windows says backup complete, I take the babe out of the 30ft range and re-ghost I can certainly get dataloss when I restore later from backup ...
PS: Who wants this shit? At that price? Come on, even Apple is cheaper and offers <miracle>more features</miracle>!!!!!
Corporate users: well, not many would want to have that much data floating about that's isolated from the backup strategy. No dice.
Home users: Great! I can turn off that wireless thing on my laptop and backup my machine to this! Providing I don't mind connecting it to the mains first of course. Oh - and staying within 30 feet of it (assuming the odd wall and so on: 15 feet - or roughly the same distance a decent USB2 / Firewire cable can manage).
Until they can squirt the power to it the same way as they do the data, this device remains rather pointless. When they do get the power to it wirelessly and they start selling like hot cakes, I'll be in line for my very own metal-lined hat.