The Tech Review: Wireless Hard Drives

With the explosion of digital media now available, most people find themselves in need of additional storage. External hard drives have become a standard in the average home computer system. The runaway popularity of WiFi or wireless connections has taken the concept one step further. Now wireless hard drives are available for purchase. So, why go wireless? Wireless hard drives are ideal for those who need a big amount of storage space, store media from various devices (laptops, smartphones, etc.) and are an intermediate to advanced user. That is mostly because it is intended to be another variation of a network drive or network storage device. Think of it as being like a wireless router. Instead of helping everyone in the home connect to the Internet, it allows everyone to store data and media wirelessly to the same device. The advantage is convenience. You can connect it directly to your router without having it assigned to a main or central computer. The disadvantages are lack of security (just like wireless Internet) and price, at least for now. The average wireless hard drive retails for $400 to $500.
Keep in mind, there are a few items that seem to be a wireless hard drive, but are not; such as wireless media players for example. They are basically just an enclosure without an actual drive installed.
A step down in price, speed and storage capacity is a device called a wireless storage router. It is basically a wireless router with a built in hard drive for storage. If you are thinking of going the wireless hard drive route, this may be a good way to start. The price point usually begins below $100.
Either type of device shares the same limitations. Just like basic routers when they were first introduced, a wireless hard drive has a distance limit or range of about 30 feet. The closer you position yourself and your device to the drive, the faster your connection and download speeds are. Because these devices connect exactly like a wireless USB adapter, they are essentially high speed USB devices. When you decide to purchase one, be sure that you are getting a device with a high data transfer rate which is equivalent to Mbps connection speed.