Corsair's Voyager Air, Kingston's MobileLite Wireless, PQI's Air Bank, PQI's Air Drive, SanDisk's Connect Wireless Flash Drive, and Seagate's Wireless Plus all look a little bit like external hard drives or oversized USB sticks. But they do so much more than simply store information in a portable form factor, pushing it across a cable whenever you need. Each also comes equipped with wireless networking capabilities, allowing them to create their own Wi-Fi hotspots. You won't even need a power outlet, since they include built-in rechargeable batteries, too.
Some of the devices have their own unique differentiators. For example, the Voyager Air doubles as network-attached storage, while Kingston's MobileLite Wireless can charge other mobile devices. If you're looking for something similar to compare, check out Adata DashDrive Air AE400 Review: Wi-Fi, Charger, And Card Reader.
These drives let you carry videos, photos, music, and documents on the road, where you can then share all of that information with others. Each one has its own Web-based interface, along with an app for smartphones and tablets.
Let's start our journey with Corsair's Voyager Air.
Corsair Voyager Air
Corsair's Voyager Air is a USB 3.0-based drive that can also be accessed wirelessly or as network-attached storage. The 2.5” drive is available in four variants: with 500 or 1000 GB, and in a red or black chassis. We're testing the red 1 TB model, which you'll find on Newegg for about $200.
Plug the Voyager Air in using its bundled USB 3.0 cable and you can use the device as a conventional external disk drive. Like Seagate's Wireless Plus and PQI's Air Bank, Corsair achieves high transfer rates. Though, when you're using the Voyager Air as a USB-attached repository, the other features (like NAS and Wi-Fi) are not available.
If you'd rather switch to network-attached functionality, you'll need to plug into the wall and connect the drive's gigabit Ethernet port to a PC, switch, or router. In that mode, the Voyager Air hits read speeds as high as 31 MB/s and writes up to 23 MB/s. Just be aware that you miss out on some of the more advanced security features you'd typically expect from a networked device. There is no access control, for example; anyone can get into saved files.
The third way to use the Voyager Air is through its 802.11b/g/n wireless controller, which turns the drive into a Wi-Fi hotspot for smartphones, notebooks, and tablets. Corsair includes its own app for mobile platforms, facilitating searches through stored content. The company says it's supposed to run on iOS- and Android-based products, though we couldn't get it working on a Nexus 4. A more recent firmware update (1.2.8) or Android app (1.2.9) might fix this issue.
By default, the wireless network is open to everyone, though you can set up WPA2 through Corsair's app or a Web browser. Unfortunately, you can't also access content through a browser.
Corsair's Voyager Air is a USB 3.0-based drive that can also be accessed wirelessly or as network-attached storage. The 2.5” drive is available in four variants: with 500 or 1000 GB, and in a red or black chassis. In NAS mode, the Voyager Air hits read speeds as high as 31 MB/s and writes up to 23 MB/s. The Voyager Air's 802.11b/g/n wireless controller turns the drive into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Corsair Voyager Air
Lastly, the Voyager Air can be used as a streaming server. Since firmware version 1.2.7, it offers DLNA and AirPlay support, allowing you to play multimedia files on compatible TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and media clients. You can even view PDF files. While the Voyager Air's wireless transfer rate of 4.1 MB/s doesn’t set any records, we didn’t encounter stuttering during our HD video tests. Expect up to seven or so hours of streaming playback from the drive's 6400 mAh battery. The battery can't be charged through USB, though. You'll need to plug into the wall or use the bundled car adapter.
Weighing in at a mere 3 ½ ounces and measuring 4.9” x 2.4” x 0.7”, Kingston's MobileLite Wireless truly deserves its name. Together with PQI's Air Drive and SanDisk's Connect Wireless Flash Drive, it is one of the lightest and smallest devices in our round-up. Not surprisingly, none of those three products sport storage inside. Instead, they're all mobile card readers.
The MobileLite Wireless offers a USB 2.0 port and an SD card slot that also accommodates SDHC, SDXC, and microSD media. You don't get wired Ethernet, but there is an 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi controller built-in.
Unlike the Voyager Air, Kingston's MobileLite Wireless is not meant to be a general sharing device for any sort of client. Rather, it primarily targets smartphones and tablets. The $50 piece of hardware can also use its 6500 mAh battery to charge mobile components, which comes in handy when you're running low on juice and it's not possible to plug in to a wall outlet. Operating on battery power, expect it to last about five hours.
The MobileLite Wireless can become a WPA2-protected Wi-Fi hotspot. Plug in a thumb drive or SD card in networked mode and that storage becomes accessible wirelessly. This lets you transfer pictures you just took on your smartphone, for example, onto flash media, freeing space up for other purposes. Or, you can access the flash media from your phone and, say, upload a saved image to Facebook. It's even possible to copy data between an SD card and USB stick.
Kingston's submission to our round-up can simultaneously stream photos, music files, or movies to up to three users. You don't have to navigate directories to find the file you're looking for, either. Rather, the MobileLite Wireless scans them for you and offers all audio, video, and image data in a corresponding menu. Measured wireless performance of 5.1 MB/s isn't particularly impressive, though it's faster than Corsair's Voyager Air. What matters most is that all of the video content we played was smooth, without stuttering.
Kingston's MobileLite Wireless truly deserves it's name, weighing in at a mere 3 ½ ounces and measuring 4.9” x 2.4” x 0.7”. It is a mobile card reader, with no internal storage. It offers a USB 2.0 port and an SD card slot that also accommodates SDHC, SDXC, and microSD media. You don't get wired Ethernet, but there is an 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi controller built-in. The product primarily targets smartphones and tablets. Its 6500 mAh battery can charge mobile components, and the device can become a WPA2-protected Wi-Fi hotspot.
Kingston MobileLite Wireless
Getting the most out of Kingston's reader necessitates installing the MobileLite Wireless app from either Google's Play Store or Apple's App Store. Using the software, you can upload to and download from storage attached to the MobileLite Wireless, or change its configuration settings (network parameters, for example).
Alternatively, you can use the MobileLite Wireless as a conventional USB drive. Just be sure to power it down first. We observed transfer rates as fast as 21 MB/s over a USB 2.0 cable, which is pretty typical for the second-gen interface.
At first glance, the Air Bank looks inconspicuously like an external 2.5” drive, similar to Corsair's Voyager Air and Seagate's Wireless Plus. That is indeed part of the story; you can buy PQI's Air Bank in two versions: with a 500 GB or 1 TB disk drive built-in. PQI sent us the 500 GB model, which isn't widely available online. However, the 1 TB model goes for around $190 on Amazon.
You can buy PQI's Air Bank in two versions: with a 500 GB or 1 TB disk drive built-in. It can also be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot, or as portable storage space for smartphones and tablets. That functionality is enabled through an 802.11b/g/n controller and 10/100 Mb/s Ethernet port. You can use the latter to connect the Air Bank to a switch or router. In hotspot mode, PQI supports up to five simultaneous users.
PQI Air Bank
Connect the drive to your PC the old-fashioned way, through a USB 3.0 cable, and you'll enjoy transfer rates similar to what Corsair and Seagate offer. But the Air Bank is, as its name implies, more than just an external USB 3.0-attached drive. It can also be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot, or as portable storage space for smartphones and tablets. That functionality is enabled through an 802.11b/g/n controller and 10/100 Mb/s Ethernet port. You can use the latter to connect the Air Bank to a switch or router. In hotspot mode, PQI supports up to five simultaneous users.
If you're accessing the Air Bank through a mobile device, you'll want PQI's free app for iOS, Android, and Kindle. On a PC, you can use the Web-based front-end to access your data, though not through the SMB protocol; the Air Bank does not function as a network-attached storage device. This prevented us from benchmarking it with CrystalDiskMark. When we used other metrics to measure download performance, we came up with about 4 MB/s. That's good enough for video streaming, but not enough to service several folks at the same time.
Our hands-on time with PQI's Air Bank+ software wasn't particularly compelling either. Aside from a rushed-looking UI, it seemed unnecessarily complicated to use. Take music streaming, for example. All audio files are shown in one list. Meta data support is absent, and the sorting is automatically alphabetical. Try finding a song if you have more than a few albums stored. In comparison, Corsair's Voyager Air shows the directory structure, avoiding the same issue. But we like the Seagate Wireless Plus' GUI best. It lets you sort music by album title, artist, or genre, similar to iTunes.
PQI's Air Drive is basically a less feature-rich version of the Air Bank. For starters, its USB interface is limited to second-gen signaling rates. That's reflected in its lower transfer speeds (21 MB/s). There is no internal hard drive either, but rather the Air Bank sports a slot for SD and SDHC cards up to 32 GB in size. Even its battery is smaller. PQI claims you'll get up to five hours of operation, compared to the Air Bank's eight hours. If you have a tendency of forgetting your USB cable, at least you'll appreciate the Air Drive's non-removable USB connector.
The Air Bank and Air Drive do share support for Wi-Fi connectivity through an 802.11b/g/n controller though, accommodating up five simultaneous connections. Again, SMB isn't an option, so we had to determine performance manually. The Air Drive clocked in at 3.8 MB/s for reads and 3.3 MB/s for writes, similar to the Air Bank. The two products also utilize the same app, which we don't consider very user-friendly.
PQI's Air Drive is a less feature-rich version of the Air Bank. There is no internal hard drive, but there is a slot for SD and SDHC cards up to 32 GB in size. Even its battery is smaller. PQI claims you'll get up to five hours of operation. It includes support for Wi-Fi connectivity through an 802.11b/g/n controller though, accommodating up five simultaneous connections.
PQI Air Drive
The Air Drive does not offer an Internet pass-through mode. While your client device is connected to it, you forgo online access.
The SanDisk Connect Wireless Flash looks like a USB stick that needs to go on a diet. But like the other five devices in our round-up, it's more utilitarian, doubling as portable wireless storage and a Wi-Fi hotspot for smartphones, tablets, and computers. It can simultaneously connect to as many as eight clients, and its internal battery is claimed to last up to four hours streaming video.
You don't get built-in storage from the Connect Wireless Flash. However, the drive comes bundled with either a 16 or 32 GB SanDisk Ultra microSDHC card (64 GB support was recently added, too). Its USB interface is only second-gen-compliant, but even taking those slower transfer rates into account, its performance is still considered sub-par, presumably due to the slow SDHC card. We measured 18 MB/s reads and a meager 6 MB/s during writes.
SanDisk's Wi-Fi implementation facilitates 802.11b/g/n, and offers access to the SD card via a Web interface and free app. The downloadable software supports Apple's iOS-based devices, Android-based smartphones and tablets, and Amazon's Kindle Fire. Because access via SMB is not possible, we used a stop watch to measure wireless transfer speed. But we could have used an hourglass; the reads trickle in at 1.5 MB/s, making this the slowest device in today's story.
This oversized USB stick doubles as portable wireless storage and a Wi-Fi hotspot. It can simultaneously connect to as many as eight clients, and its internal battery lasts up to four hours streaming video. You don't get built-in storage, but the drive comes bundled with either a 16 or 32 GB SanDisk Ultra microSDHC card (64 GB support was recently added, too). SanDisk's Wi-Fi implementation facilitates 802.11b/g/n, and offers access to the SD card via a Web interface and free app.
SanDisk Connect Wireless Flash Drive
The accompanying app displays data on the plugged-in SD card without a directory structure, but it's at least better-organized than PQI's software. We like the way audio files are presented. In addition to the song title, meta data like the album cover is displayed as well.
Seagate’s Wireless Plus is a portable storage device that, according to the company's website, allows you to access all of your content on-the-go without wires, Internet hotspots, or reliance on your phone's data plan. You might think the Wireless Plus doesn't include wireless connectivity, then. But Seagate is specifically referring to third-party hotspots. The drive does, in fact, include 802.11b/g/n connectivity, able to facilitate your own private wireless network.
Once your own Wi-Fi hotspot is active, you can stream up to three movies to a trio of clients at the same time. Or, send photos, songs, and documents to as many as eight devices. Seagate's Wireless Plus is DLNA-compatible too, so those clients can be DLNA-compatible game consoles, Blu-ray players, or TVs as well.
According to Seagate, the integrated battery should be good for up to 10 hours.
Like Corsair's Voyager Air, the Wireless Plus sports a 1 TB 2.5” hard disk, a USB 3.0 interface, and a price tag in the neighborhood of $200. And like the other two products we're testing based on mechanical storage, sequential performance is in the 110 MB/s range.
Seagate utilizes its own GoFlex system for enabling USB 3.0, which means FireWire and eSATA can be supported as well (there's even a docking station available). However, only the USB 3.0 adapter comes bundled.
The Wireless Plus can be configured through a user-friendly Web-based interface or a free app requiring iOS 4.3 and up, Android 2.3 and up, or a Kindle Fire. It's an easy-to-use piece of software, and we like the way it displays media content. With one tap, audio files can be sorted by album, artist, genre, or play list. Finding a specific song takes no time at all.
Seagate’s Wireless Plus is a portable storage device that includes 802.11b/g/n connectivity, letting you facilitate your own private wireless network. Once your own Wi-Fi hotspot is active, you can stream up to three movies to a trio of clients at the same time. Or, send photos, songs, and documents to as many as eight devices. Seagate's Wireless Plus is DLNA-compatible too, so those clients can be DLNA-compatible game consoles, Blu-ray players, or TVs as well. According to Seagate, the integrated battery should be good for up to 10 hours
Seagate Wireless Plus
Copying data from and to the drive is also speedy, so long as you're using wired Ethernet. CrystalDiskMark reports a read rate of 31 MB/s and writes as fast as 23.3 MB/s. That's an order of magnitude faster than the wireless performance of SanDisk's Connect Wireless Flash Drive.
Specifications
| Make | Corsair | Kingston |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Voyager Air | MobileLite Wireless |
| Model Designation | CMFAIR-RED-1000-NA | MLW221 |
| Internal Storage Capacity | 1 TB | - |
| Storage Type | 2.5" hard disk | - |
| Connectors | USB 3.0 | Card reader (SD), USB 2.0 |
| Ethernet | 1000 Mb | No |
| Wireless | 802.11b/g/n | 802.11b/g/n |
| Internet Pass-Through | Yes | Yes |
| Battery Capacity | 6200 mAh | 1800 mAh; 6500 mWh |
| Battery Charging | USB, Car adapter | USB |
| Included Accessories | microUSB cable, USB-to-DC cable, modular power supply, carrying bag, car adapter (2 A), quick start guide | microUSB cable, quick start guide, microSD adapter |
| Firmware Version | 1.27 | 1.1.2.1 |
| Warranty | Three years | One year |
| Make | PQI | PQI |
| Model | Air Bank | Air Drive |
| Model Designation | 6W31-500GR2001 | 6W11-0000R2002 |
| Internal Storage Capacity | 500 GB | - |
| Storage Type | 2.5" hard disk | - |
| Connectors | USB 3.0 | Card reader (SD) |
| Ethernet | 100 Mb | No |
| Wireless | 802.11b/g/n | 802.11b/g/n |
| Internet Pass-Through | Yes | No |
| Battery Charging | USB | USB |
| Battery Capacity | Not specified | Not specified |
| Included Accessories | Integrated USB cable | microUSB cable, carrying bag |
| Firmware Version | 1.03 | Not specified |
| Warranty | One year | One year |
| Make | SanDisk | Seagate |
| Model | Connect Wireless Flash Drive | Wireless Plus |
| Model Designation | SDWS2-032G-E57 | STCK1000200 |
| Internal Storage Capacity | 32 GB (microSD) | 1 TB |
| Storage Type | Flash | 2.5" hard disk |
| Connectors | Card reader (microSD) | USB 3.0 adapter (GoFlex) |
| Ethernet | No | No |
| Wireless | 802.11b/g/n | 802.11b/g/n |
| Internet Pass-Through | No | Yes |
| Battery Charging | USB | USB |
| Battery Capacity | Not specified | Not specified |
| Included Accessories | Integrated USB cable | microUSB cable, USB-to-DC cable |
| Firmware Version | Not specified | Not specified |
| Warranty | One year | Three years |
Test Configuration
| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Details |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2400 (32 nm, Sandy Bridge, D2), 4C/4T, 3.2 GHz, 4 x 256 KB L2 Cache, 6 MB L3 Cache, w/ HD Graphics 3000, 95 W TDP, 3.6 GHz max. Turbo |
| Motherboard (LGA 1155) | Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3, Revision: 1.0, Chipset: Intel Z77 Express, BIOS: F10c |
| RAM | 4 x 2 GB DDR3-1333, OCZ OCZ3G2000LV4GK |
| SSD | Samsung 470 64 GB, Firmware 0901, SATA 3Gb/s |
| Controller | Intel PCH Z68 SATA 6Gb/s |
| Power Supply | Seasonic X-760 760 W, SS-760KM Active PFC F3 |
| Benchmarks | |
| Performance Measurements | CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 AS SSD 1.7.4739.38088 Xcopy Benchmarks |
| System Software & Drivers | |
| Drivers | Details |
| Operating System | Windows 8 x64 Pro |
Network Performance
When the Voyager Air plugs into an Ethernet network, it wins sequential read and write benchmark hands-down. At 31 MB/s, it even serves as a respectable NAS appliance.
Connected wirelessly, Corsair's drive is still second-fastest in our write test, though it falls to third place in reads. Kingston's MobileLite snags the second-place spot by achieving 5.1 MB/s. Seagate finishes last at 2.5 MB/s (for reads) and 2.6 MB/s (for writes).
The PQI drives and SanDisk's Connect Wireless Flash Drive do not support the SMB protocol, so CrystalDiskMark is unable to generate results for them.

USB Performance
When you pit USB 2.0- and USB 3.0-based drives against each other, the outcome is pretty obvious. The three devices equipped with USB 3.0 connectivity, Seagate's Wireless Plus, PQI's Air Bank, and Corsair's Voyager Air, achieve almost identical results. Kingston's MobileLite Wireless and PQI's Air Drive offer typical USB 2.0-limited performance. Only the Wireless Flash Drive seems stuck somewhere under the interface's practical ceiling, particularly in our write benchmark.

All of these devices look like familiar USB-attached storage devices, and they can, in fact, be used like that. But they're all more functional. Their prices are a good indication of this; each product is notably more expensive than simple external storage.
Fortunately, USB connectivity isn't just a bullet point on the feature list of Seagate's Wireless Plus, Corsair's Voyager Air, and PQI's Air Bank. Thanks to compatibility with USB 3.0, they all achieve as much as 110 MB/s in reads and writes. Perhaps owing to its form factor and memory type, SanDisk's Connect Wireless Flash Drive is interesting-looking, but posts USB dismal performance as low as 18 MB/s.
The most interesting features we saw were probably integrated Wi-Fi and built-in batteries. Both features, taken together, let you create a mobile hotspot with wireless storage available to client systems. Put a drive in your backpack, and you're able to access a complete media library for any mobile device, wherever you are.
Corsair's Voyager Air and Seagate's Wireless Plus will even stream content to the friends around you, along with DLNA-compliant devices like smart TVs, Blu-ray player, and game consoles. The two PQI devices aren't as compelling. They don't offer Internet pass-through, so you're stuck facing a choice between online access and access to your stored data. You can't do both at the same time.
Enabling an easy setup and smooth user experience requires good Wi-Fi performance and a well thought-out interface. Each of these vendors provides an app able to run on modern mobile devices. But none of them achieve what we'd consider to be stellar wireless speed (the top option topping out at around 5 MB/s). That might be sufficient for streaming music or video, but you'll find yourself waiting on larger data transfers, to be sure. The exception is Corsair's Voyager Air, which you can plug directly into an Ethernet network and use as a NAS to achieve transfer rates as high as 30 MB/s.
Most of the app do what they need to do, but none of them have us particularly impressed with their creators. Two stand out in our minds: one for good reasons, and one for bad. PQI's uninspired implementation of the Air Bank+ software left us disappointed, particularly when it came to the app's multimedia functionality. It lists all songs alphabetically in a single folder, disregarding meta data. Once you have more than a handful of albums that employ similar naming conventions (for instance, a track number and song title), you're going to start losing track of albums in your head. Seagate, on the other hand, gives us something to praise. Its app lets you quickly sort multimedia files according to several defined categories, such as song title, genre, or artist, somewhat similar to iTunes.
The Voyager Air, Air Bank, and Seagate Wireless Plus each include an internal hard disk with 500 or 1000 GB of storage capacity, and hence are best suited to large data collections. Kingston's MobileLite Wireless, PQI's Air Drive, and SanDisk's Connect Wireless Flash Drive are smaller, lighter, and less expensive, but offer less storage flexibility; they rely on SD or microSD cards for holding your information.













































