It is difficult to imagine where the Imation Pro WX Wireless USB Hard Drive fits into the competitive world of mass storage. Priced too high, with limited functionality and hardware that looks like it was designed in the '90's, it is a product that will be of value to an extremely small subset of users.
The idea behind the Imation Pro WX is commendable: Put your backup data somewhere other than on your already cluttered desktop and make that data accessible without rewiring the house. The problem, well one of them anyway, is that for most users this functionality is better achieved at a lower price and higher performance with NAS (network attached storage device) or home server.
The system has three major parts: a dongle that plugs into your computer's USB port, the external hard drive and the power brick. Everything about the design seems unintentionally retro. Take the dongle, for instance. If the mental picture you get of a dongle is anything like the micro-dongles Logitech uses for their mice, the ones that barely protrude from the computer, think again. Imation's version pairs an antenna dongle with a flexible jointed adapter that is larger and seems less sturdy than the largest wi-fi adapters I've tested. I'm not convinced that it significantly reduces clutter compared to an external USB powered hard drive.
In an era when drives are physically shrinking even as the grow more capacious, the size of the external drive may be a surprise; it is not small, roughly the size of the first generation of One-touch devices from Seagate, somewhat less thick than comparable devices from Western Digital. Of course, to that size you must add the additional bulk of the power brick.
Further hampering this gadget is the relative difficulty it had making a connection over the distances in my relatively small New York City apartment. The wireless USB just wasn't as reliable as my wi-fi connection.
The drive comes with Memeo backup software. Unfortunately, Memeo does not provide a full backup of your system; it only takes care of documents. So, in the event of a hard disk crash you're still going to need to reinstall the operating system, programs and all your settings. I consider this an incomplete emergency plan.
Another major limitation for many users of the drive is that it is a one-to-one link with the computer equipped with the dongle. Because it is not network aware, only you have direct access to the drive, unless you set it up as a share. At that point, you would already have a network in the house, so why would you resort to wireless USB.
Given the cost (more than $400), build quality, and software and hardware limitations a better, more flexible option would be to purchase a Network Attached Storage device or a Home Server if you're looking to share media and do backups of huge amounts of data. For simple backup of documents for a single user with less than 1TB of storage needs, I'd go with a small USB powered drive for less than half the cost and less aggravation.
