external wireless hard drive

[knrstz64]

Between my wife and I we have a macbook air, ipad 3rd gen, iPhone 4s, nexus 7 and Droid incredible 2. I need an external hard drive for m4v videos and documents. Does anyone know of an option that will work for all of them? I would prefer around 200gb minimum.

 

[bigtroutz]

You could take a look at this one. Kinda spendy tho. Most of them have lots of problems reported but this one seems to make many / most folks happy:

Amazon.com: Patriot Gauntlet 320GB Portable Wireless External Drive (PCGTW320S): Computers & Accessories
Newegg.com - Patriot Gauntlet 320 PCGTW320S 320GB USB 3.0 / WIFI Black Portable Wireless External Drive

I have no personal experience with this specific device since I always just plug my external hard drives in via cable. It is much cheaper and works faster, generally.

Take a look at this thread as well:
http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-7-tablet-accessories/230078-wireless-drives.html

 

[hoosiermama2799]

The Kingston Wi Drive works with all. I use it on my Fire and N7, but it is supposed to work with Apple products, too.

 

[bigtroutz]

The Kingston Wi Drive works with all. I use it on my Fire and N7, but it is supposed to work with Apple products, too.

For that amount of storage (32 - 64 GB) , you could just as well get a OTG cable, a USB PenDrive or microUSB-reader, and Nexus Media Importer //root w/stickmount for less than 20 bux per 32 GB

 

[knrstz64]

For that amount of storage (32 - 64 GB) , you could just as well get a OTG cable, a USB PenDrive or microUSB-reader, and Nexus Media Importer //root w/stickmount for less than 20 bux per 32 GB

Their website shows the wi drive has a 120gb version that I found for $180. That's a little less storage than I want and more pricey than other options but I'm leaning towards that one. Seagate has a 500gb drive for $99 on amazon now but the reviews are marginal. Plus the Android app for seagate on the play store is terrible. It appears seagate isn't a great option for Android. I would rather pay more for less storage and have it work than the alternative. The only thing I'm unsure about is how to stream video from the device back to me computer. IPad and nexus 7 do this via an app. I'm guessing it might have to be connected to the computer itself. Not a deal breaker but hope it can connect via WiFi.

 

[bigtroutz]

You do know that you can just add storage to your network and that is almost always the cheapest, best performing option ? Then all of your devices can use their existing wireless connection OR their wired alternative should they have one. For $180 you can add many TERABYTES of storage, and you are already connected to it via your WiFi or USB cable Alternatively, you can purchase Flash Drives for roughly 20 bux per 32 GB and carry the data around with you - and that works 100% of the time. Just plug it in. Works fine on my Nexus 7 - I carry one $20 32 GB microUSB with movies and a second $20 microUSB with 32GB of music and play both with NMI. Of course it does take a while to listen to 8 thousand MP3s or view 32+ movies ;D

I fail to see any effective difference between the wifi connection to your network and the wifi connection to a hard disk with a battery that will run down in a few hours other than the vastly superior price performance of using your existing infrastructure.

Good luck !

 

[iHelpYouShy]

Their website shows the wi drive has a 120gb version that I found for $180. That's a little less storage than I want and more pricey than other options but I'm leaning towards that one. Seagate has a 500gb drive for $99 on amazon now but the reviews are marginal. Plus the Android app for seagate on the play store is terrible. It appears seagate isn't a great option for Android. I would rather pay more for less storage and have it work than the alternative. The only thing I'm unsure about is how to stream video from the device back to me computer. IPad and nexus 7 do this via an app. I'm guessing it might have to be connected to the computer itself. Not a deal breaker but hope it can connect via WiFi.

You can get the 500gb Buffalo Ministation for about $60 on Amazon right now. I have one that I bought for $85 and it works great with the N7. Have stored countless movies and watched plenty and its still working like new. Its been about 2 months since I bought it and I use it often, about 3-4 days of the week.

Edit: Non wireless though.

 

[knrstz64]

Sorry to be ignorant but what do you mean by adding storage to your network? The reason I'm wanting this option is that my nexus 7 and wife's iPad are WiFi only. I need to be able to acess that storage from places where i do not have internet. Correct me if I'm wrong but I cant do that with any cloud storage and that's why I think i need a mobile wirelesshard drive.

 

[bigtroutz]

Sorry to be ignorant but what do you mean by adding storage to your network? The reason I'm wanting this option is that my nexus 7 and wife's iPad are WiFi only. I need to be able to acess that storage from places where i do not have internet. Correct me if I'm wrong but I cant do that with any cloud storage and that's why I think i need a mobile wirelesshard drive.

Add Storage to network by
1) adding another / bigger internal hard drive into your desktop / laptop and setting shared storage folders - you can get step by step instructions for how to do this on youtube or a help site.
2) adding a Media Server (NAS) box to your home network - this can also have wireless access by itself and can hold anywhere from 1 to >10 hard drives inside. These are self contained special use network "appliances" that you just plug in - some with almost no setup needed.

Amazon.com: nas storage: Electronics

Add local Storage via USB by purchasing a USB Flash Drive 4 GB to 128 GB (32 GB costs 20 dollars) + a OTG adapter + Nexus Media Importer app - (will allow READ ONLY storage on unmodified N7) Your other devices shouuld read a Flash drive just by plugging it it

Amazon.com: 32 gb flash drive: Electronics
Amazon.com: OTG adapter: Electronics

microUSB reader --> Amazon.com: elago Mobile Nano II USB 2.0 microSDHC Flash Memory Card Reader (Black): Electronics
carrying case ---> Amazon.com: DiMeCard micro8 microSD Memory Card Holder (Ultra thin credit card size holder, writable label): Computers & Accessories

Or you can 'root' your N7 and get normal storage on the N7.

3) cloud storage eg DropBox if you have WiFi or a hotspot device is available as well

Yes, you would not be able to use the home network on the road, but you can have virtually unlimited storage with microSDHC flash memory + a reader + a credit card size case for 10 pieces --- here is a picture of mine

 

[YAYTech]

I fail to see any effective difference between the wifi connection to your network and the wifi connection to a hard disk with a battery that will run down in a few hours other than the vastly superior price performance of using your existing infrastructure.

Portability. For example, if I wanted my entire music collection while driving down the road, I could have it on a wifi drive (or usb drive via OTG), but having it on my home or work network doesn't help me any.

 

[bigtroutz]

Portability. For example, if I wanted my entire music collection while driving down the road, I could have it on a wifi drive (or usb drive via OTG), but having it on my home or work network doesn't help me any.

You won't get any argument about that from me, YayTech. But most of the time most of us DO have that internet connection. In my case, unless I am literally traveling, I always have that connection. As I said, yes, if you need the data when you have no connection to the web or just want the convenience, the USB flash drive is much cheaper and likely more versatile than the small capacity WiFi HD option, imo.

You can see that in the last pic I attached - one 32GB microSD drive has ALL of my usually played music (8,000 songs). The second has movies I may want to see. The third has local biz data & book files. Total cost for that 96MB is ~ $70.

 

[YAYTech]

You won't get any argument about that from me, YayTech. But most of the time most of us DO have that internet connection. In my case, unless I am literally traveling, I always have that connection. As I said, yes, if you need the data when you have no connection to the web or just want the convenience, the USB flash drive is much cheaper and likely more versatile than the small capacity WiFi HD option, imo.

You can see that in the last pic I attached - one 32GB microSD drive has ALL of my usually played music (8,000 songs). The second has movies I may want to see. The third has local biz data & book files. Total cost for that 96MB is ~ $70.

Can't argue with the value, though some may prefer to pay a premium for no wires. Different solutions for different preferences & budgets.

 

[Jadien]

Seagate Wireless Plus 1TB Mobile Device Storage Gray STCK1000100 - Best Buy

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I was wondering about this 1TB wifi drive... Could we connect to it with the N7?

EDIT:

After doing some research it seems that this device would be perfect for the N7 with just a few drawbacks... There is an app for it in the play store, and the few reviews that mention an android device say it is passible. I would not use it for anything other than movies as the files on it seem to be only discoverable from within the app; the files play on the native players, but you cannot see them from within the native players. All of which seems a bit too annoying for the relatively small file sizes of music when compared to videos. So I'd keep my music files on the internal storage. Also, you could use this as a storage device for your laptop/desktop, but it seems to make more sense to just connect via the usb 3.0/2.0 than to use the wi-fi aspect.

All in all, I would think this is a relatively good first step into an all-in-one back-up/external HDD for multiple devices, including the N7, with the convenience of not having to got the OTG route.

 

[sapp51]

I use a wireless Seagate drive I got at Best Buy a month ago. 500gb, streams to 3 different devices at once, even different movies. Works great so far
Was $99 on sale. Great for travel.

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