Consumer Storage and Networking

Storage and Networking

We take the Kingston Wi-Drive out Camping - The Kingston Wi-Drive

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Sean Kalinich
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wd04Apple is famous for many things. They are famous for making the iPhone and iPad, they are famous for their never ending stream of patents for things that already exist and last but not least they are famous for making sure that you cannot use their mobile products without their approval. You see if you buy an iDevice your core file system is pretty much locked down. Now there are ways to get into the file system and move things around, but it can get messy and things do not always make the transition intact. The other side of this is that there is no way to add more storage to any of their products. It is not like an Android or Windows based tablet with an SD card slot or USB ports. So what can you do if you bought one of the 16GB non-3G iPads or if you only own the iPad touch? Kingston has an answer for you. Kingston has put their expertise in making flash drives to good use and attached a flash drive to a wireless controller that can also act as a wireless bridge. They are calling it the Wi-Drive and when you pair this up with the WiDrive app from the AppStore you might just have a relatively low cost answer to a lot of people’s needs. So follow along as we take a look at the $180 32GB Wi-Drive on a first generation iPad.

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The Wi-Drive -
When I first pulled the Wi-Drive out it reminded me of one of the countless external batteries on the market.  After all it is small, flat, has a single USB connection and is roughly the size of a phone. However, we all know that the Wi-Drive is much more than a portable battery (although it does have its own rechargeable battery).  We have not taken this one apart (yet) but do know that it contains 32GB of Flash memory. The most likely configuration for this is 4 8GB chips as this would give the best density while keeping the cots down and performance up.

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The Wi-Drive has a built in battery (as we said) according to Kingston literature it will give you four hours of life under ideal conditions. Along with its own power source it also has a wireless access point that can act as a router. This means that you can connect it wirelessly to another access point to allow access to the internet through the Wi-Drive. (We will talk more about that in a minute).
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The controls on the Wi-Drive are simple; there is one button. Yup that is it, one button to turn the Wi-Drive on or off.  If you do ever need to reset your Wi-Drive the reset pin-hole is right next to the on/off button.  For activity LEDs Kingston throws in three; one is in center of the drive under the Kingston Logo. It is green and is there to indicate drive activity. The other two are blue LEDs and are there to indicate a connection to the Internet and for an indication of the Wi-Drive being ready to accept wireless connections.
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