Understanding Wireless Storage: Kingston Wi-Drive and Seagate GoFlex Satellite
by Vivek Gowri on November 21, 2011 2:30 PM ESTStorage and Wireless Performance
To test performance, I hooked both drives up to a PC and used HD Tune to get an idea of read performance and access time. The Kingston is USB 2.0 only and ends up performing roughly around the same level as the average USB flash drive. Access times are, as expected, significantly faster than the hard drive-based Seagate, but the NAND here is of the pretty low performance variety. Admittedly, this makes sense—cost and power consumption are far more important than outright speed in this type of application.
The Seagate has a SATA-to-USB 3.0 bridge, so it’s capable of significantly faster I/O speeds than the Wi-Drive. In the HD Tune graph over USB 2.0, we can see it’s basically pegged at the bandwidth limit of the interface (only around 25MB/s in this case, even though USB 2.0 can theoretically hit over 50MB/s). Switch to USB 3.0 and we get transfer rates typical of 5400RPM laptop drives.
GoFlex Satellite, USB 2.0
GoFlex Satellite, USB 3.0
Both drives are more than fast enough to stream high bitrate 720p video over 2.4GHz 802.11g/n, so long as you maintain a decent signal. I found that anything within 10 feet was good enough—I left both in a bag in the overhead bin on a 737 and connected just fine from my iPad at my seat. However, once you lose line of sight and start moving to distances of over 30 feet away from the streamer with a few walls and assorted furniture in between, you'll typically start to see some stuttering in the videos. That’s to be expected though, as it’s an extreme case for wireless range.
Battery Life
Battery life is an interesting topic. Kingston quotes a four hour battery runtime for the Wi-Drive while Seagate claims up to five hours on the Satellite's 10.36Wh battery, but it's not clear what kind of usage those figures represent. I fired up a trusty old loop of The Bourne Identity on each of the streamers playing through my iPad, placed the device two feet in front of the iPad, and unplugged it. I then time how long it is before the video dies, and that’s our winner.
Interestingly, the Kingston actually beat the claimed battery life spec, clocking in at 4:17, while the Seagate gave us pretty disappointing runtime at just under three and a quarter hours. It makes sense that the mechanical hard drive consumes more power, but it’s disappointing that our streaming HD video test undercut the claimed battery figures by that much.
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inplainview - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Good point but again, who is forcing you to by anything Apple? Don't like their products then don't buy them. The problem that you have is mistaking your desires and needs as that of others. Many, many people have shown that they are more than content with the current memory levels that come in iPhones. Second, not everyone that buys an iPhone or iProduct for that matter is at geek level 20. These are average people with average needs. If you haven't figured out Apple strategy by now, then there is really no hope for you in the future.medi01 - Friday, November 25, 2011 - link
"Others" are buying wireless media, to compansate for lack of normal slots on device.Want to talk about "the needs" again?
inplainview - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
@Impulses andJohnmci7,Are you still complaining about the lack of mini SD slots on an iPhone after all these years? Really? Have you been asleep or under a rock? Apple is NEVER, and don't like to use never, but I can with confidence here, gonna add an external slot to their devices. This is how it is and how it has been and will continue. Android is always there for your money if you're not happy.
Now in regards to these two products. I own them both and have to admit that the Kingston is the easier of the two to use. There is a Mac OS X problem that will eventually prevent the WD from mounting. Included in the WD box is Paragon's NTFS's software to help you mount the drive, but the driver and Mac OS X have issues. Eventually something gets hosed up and she's no work no more. For Mac users, if you format the drive to HFS+, you will more likely lose the wifi function of the drive as well. While this might be a great drive for Windows users, it is something in my opinion that Mac users should avoid.
Johnmcl7 - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
No, wasn't complaining - guess this is a sore point for you. My point was simply that these wifi products are clearly more useful for the Apple devices which lack expansion as opposed to the Android devices which do, both internally and externally - the article seems to miss this completely.John
inplainview - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
Not a sore spot just that I see the difference between this being a geek site, catering to uber-power users verses the normal users who could not care less. People want phones that work, not phones that are tweaked, fiddled with. Other than some of the super-uber-OTT-geeks here, who really has the time or desire to think about if their device has SD slots, or this or that processor or graphics unit. What I like about this site is that it does not appeal to the average user, meaning that when you come here, you know what you're getting. This is what makes this site better than Macrumors.hmurchison - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
These products exist to share content. A simple Camera Connection kit for $29 allows me to easily add up to 32GB of storage. These devices are more defined by the sharing software that lets them serve data to other devices.inplainview - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Great article by the way Vivek.This weekend I will try to do a TimeMachine rollback on my MBP to the point before the Paragon drive pooped the bed and see if I can get thing get things peachy again. The combination of having to use a 3rd party driver just to get the thing to show up is a deal breaker for me.
ojingoh - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC531ZM/A?fnode=...MadMan007 - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Something like the Kingston device but with an SDXC slot and no built-in memory, and that works with things other than iStuff.Cari - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
.. but can you even use a wireless device while in-flight? (not to troll or anything but just laying it out there)