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Asus Launching a Wi-Fi Hard Drive
TheFoot writes "The Register reports that Asus is promising to 'change your perception on data storage'. They're talking up a hard drive enclosure capable of taking any 2.5in ATA-100 hard disk. It also contains an 802.11g adaptor and antenna, plus a pair of wired 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports. US $150 + the price of the hard drive. They've changed my perception--why did data storage just get more expensive?" Now now, this could actually be useful. tempest2i notes that there's a Macworld story as well.
It supports NFS and CIFS (which is basically the latest iteration of SMB) so it should so you can network with NFS or Samba, Windows/Linux.
But when you add home use people might want to store movies and music and ehehm nature programs on their laptop but not actually have it present on the laptop. Sure you could then at your desk at home have a usb/firewire external drive but that means you loose the mobility of a laptop. It can be fun working on the floor or sofa. Some laptops have tv outs so put the laptop on the tv and watch your downloads on the big screen.
This wifi drive would then allow you to access your own files at home without any need for plugging in cables. Just put the thing somewhere central and your laptop is hooked up just like you use a wifi network station to allow you to use the laptop without cat5 cables.
Frankly this is the only real use I can see. The WIFI-HD needs to be powered by a powercord and that means it ain't all that mobile. So it can't be used to give you PDA a storage boost. Using it in the office is pretty lame as it ads another security risk, an other piece of software to admin and its function can be easily duplicated with the existing file server.
But for people with only laptops at home it could make sense.
Only other possible use might be people with a PDA who are not close to a PC like setup but who are closed to something like a car. But it would have to be small operations as something like the Police Ambulance would have access to far better solutions. Maybe something for a mechanic? Store all the schematics and data on the WIFI-HD. Give him a pda and as long as he is within range of his car he got all the data in the world. Cheaper then pulling data over mobile phone lines.
Mmmm, might not be such a bad gadget after all.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Or, if you've already got an access point, the USR 8200 firewall/vpn/router has firewire and USB 2.0 ports for network storage use.
This device is quite cool.. it's based on an Intel Network Processor with crypto acceleration. So, it can support line speed routing on the 100Mbps interfaces, and also high speec IPSec.