Wi Drive?

Wi Drive?

Evidently — much to my chagrin — this trend of creating technology devices with finite storage capabilities is here to stay. My Kindle Fire has 8 GB of memory and not a smidgen more. Because there is no external card slot, there's virtually no way to expand its memory. Same with the iPad; same with the new Google Nexus 7 I just ordered. Perhaps it's true that "enough is as good as a feast," but it seems to me the short history of digital technologies teaches that there is almost never enough storage. Tomorrow's needs will be surely be greater than today's. I know that no matter how much storage is included in the device I purchased today, if it does not include expandable storage through external card slots I will eventually run out of room. Come to think of it, perhaps that's precisely why the manufacturers who understand this principle have decided to eliminate all possibilities of expandable storage.

But then again, if technology is about anything it is about innovation. The memory company Kingston has a clever little device I just learned about called a Wi Drive — I assume pronounced like WHY DRIVE, but I'm not too sure about it. A Wi Drive is an expandable storage space that communicates with your tablet or phone device via Wi-Fi connection — no cumbersome cable connections, no spotty Bluetooth. I love the concept, and the prices appear to be right, too. Amazon has the 32 GB version for less than $90. The 64 GB version is $180 — which for some reason seams excessive to me, but I'm sure would not be for some. There is also a 16GB version for under $50.

Wi Drives are powered devices, so if there's a limitation it might be that they run for only about four hours on a charge. I suppose that's a limitation if you're trying to watch a number of movies on a long flight, but that wouldn't be my use for it. I'm thinking it might be a way to store lots of documents and images that exceed the capacity of my mobile device. I'd then transfer to the mobile device any documents archived on the Wi Drive, but only as I need them. If the Wi Drive can be strategically used to swap in and out whatever content might be needed at the moment, essentially it gives me a way to take lots of content with me even if it's not instantly accessible on my mobile device. For this kind of use, I suspect the 4-hour battery would not be much of a limitation.

What use would this be? Well, I'd love to take my entire LensWork and LensWork Extended library with me wherever I go — but I don't always need every issue available instantaneously. I'd love to be able to take all kinds of images from my personal work and have them at my disposal to show at the drop of a hat. Someone I run into wants to see a portfolio of mine from 10 years ago? No problem, I'd simply transfer it to my tablet and voilá.

As I discussed in this post, I generally only need 10 to 20 GB available instantaneously at any given time — but the ability to carry with me another 32 GB that might be needed only sporadically could be quite handy. I also like the fact that it would be accessible to any of my portable devices, Android or iPad. It's at least worth thinking about and if I take the plunge, I'll keep you posted.

Do any of you have any experience with one? Care to share any hands-on experience?

Comments

[Andy Garcia]

Brooks,
I don't own one, but it peaked my interest. Not sure if you noticed the fine print. In the specs, it indicates that it is compatible with iOS - no mention of other devices or formats. I also looked through some of the reviews. Although they are mostly positive, one of them had the following comment....

"I downgraded it to 4 stars after 2 days of use. File transfers are problem-free and easy to do remmebering that you can only use media files recognized by iOS (eg. mp4, m4v). Programs like Air Video Server are better for local networks allowing live conversion of all other media file types like avi and flv."

So, just a heads up - may only be useful if you own iOS devices.

Andy

[Godfrey DiGiorgi]

Brooks,

I think the biggest reasons for your disappointment with the iPad is that you bought a small memory model in the first generation of the device. Experience told me when I was looking at them to wait for the second gen unit and go for at least 32 G ... I went for 64G. I have no issues with space, and the gen 2 performance is just that much better. (Gen 3 is better still, and has the nicer screen.)

I just downloaded all 100 issues of LensWork to the iPad. It is so great to be able to browse them on demand. :-)

I don't trust these external read-write devices, frankly.

BTW, you can use the Camera Connection Kit to carry videos on an SD card that otherwise take up memory space. Just leave enough free space to shunt them to the iPad for viewing. A 32G SDHC card is now about $20 so I carry a lot of my videos when I'm traveling on cards, which serve double duty when I need more shooting space for my camera.

My on the road workflow now goes: I use my cameras and iPhone 4S to make exposures and use the Connection Kit to move the ones I'm interested in working on while I travel to the iPad. I delete the ones on the iPhone as I upload them so that the iPhone is always ready to more picture taking. I use PhotoSmith on the iPad to organize and set up metadata for Lightroom, then when I arrive back at my desktop I move all the metadata and files to my desktop system (a laptop now). It's slick and works well for me. I've got the Kindle, Zinio and iBooks readers for PDF, epub, and kindle format reading material, and about 5000 photos on the iPad. At the moment, there is over 30G of free space ... that's enough for 1200-1300 raw+JPEG exposures with my cameras.

Works well. I'll likely pick up the gen 3 model iPad towards the end of the year (again a 64G) to get the benefit of the improved screen, more RAM and higher performance processor. It makes a big difference when processing raw files!