Vantec NexStar WiFi Hard Drive Dock Review

Not Your Average Drive Dock

Many of us have extra bare hard drive or two laying around and buying an external drive enclosure only really serves to make one useful as an external drive, leaving you with the mundane task of swapping them out. This is where docking stations come in handy, offering the ease of swapping drives on the fly. Still, most rely on a wired connection which effectively eliminates the use of the storage for smartphones and tablets without some creative solutions. Vantec has released a new NexStar drive dock that not only connects via USB 3.0, but also via wireless. Pretty slick! The USB 3.0 only version of this dock runs $29.39 shipped, so the addition of wireless adds about $60 to the cost of this product as the MSRP on the NexStart WiFi Hard Drive Dock is $89.99.

Compatible with both iOS and Android operating devices through apps you can download on the respective platform, the NexStar wireless hard drive dock makes it easy to expand the storage of these mobile devices. In addition, it supports the UPnP protocol so household devices that can leverage it can also benefit from the wireless storage. All of this can be done securely via an encrypted signal through WEP/WPA/WPA2.

Vantec has a nice video that outlines the use of the dock and the many features.

Vantec NexStar WiFi Hard Drive Dock (NST-D300WS3) Features:

Model:	NST-D300WS3
Device Support:	SATA I/II/III Hard Drive
Hard Drive Size:	2.5″ & 3.5″ Hard Drive
External Interface:	USB 3.0 (Backwards compatible w/ USB 2.0 & 1.1)
Supported File System:	NTFS, FAT32
System OS Support:	Windows XP, Vista, 7 & 8 Mac OS X 10.6 or higher
Mobile Device OS Support:	iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch iOS 4.0 & higher Android Phone Ver. 2.1 & higher Android Pad Ver. 3.0 & higher UPnP Compatible Devices
Wi-Fi Interface:	802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi AP Tethering Supported Wi-Fi Encryption: WEP/WPA/WPA2 Support WPS Up to 150Mbit Transfer Rate
iOS App Supported Media Format:	Video: h.264, .mov, .mp4, .mpv, .3gp, .m4v Photo: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .tif, .bmp, .tiff Audio: AAC, .mp3, .m4a, .aif, .wav Document: MS Office 97 or higher, .pdf, .rtf Supports “Open-In” Function
Android App Supported Media Format:	Video: h.264, .mp4,.3gp, .MPEG-TS, .mkv Photo: .jpg, .png, .gif, .bmp, .webp Audio: AAC, .mp3, .ota, .imy, .ogg, .rttl, .rtx, .wav
Material:	Plastic
Dimensions:	136 x 83 x 87 mm

System Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7/8
• Mac OS X v10.6 and Up
• USB 3.0, 2.0 or 1.1 Equipped System
• For USB 3.0 Speeds, System Must Support USB 3.0 Specifications
• iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch iOS 4.0 & higher
• Android Phone Ver. 2,1 & higher
• UPnP Compatible Devices

Package Contents:

• NexStar WiFi Hard Drive Dock
• USB 3.0 Cable
• Power Adapter
• User’s Manual

In the box is a multilingual manual, a USB 3.0 cable and the AC power adapter. Let’s have a closer look!