10. Wrap Up

Although the WL-HDD isn't the fastest NAS around, it's one of the more unique products to appear in this fast-growing category. It's also priced aggressively, especially considering that you get an 802.11g access point as part of the deal. Its main drawback is that it limits you to using 2.5 inch hard drives, which are more expensive (for a given capacity) and slower than their 3.5 inch bretheren.

One other issue that may give you pause is the relatively unsophisticated user interface, especially for the NAS features. But don't be afraid of having to buy and install the 2.5 inch drive yourself. It's really a no-brainer that pretty much anyone who knows what a NAS device is should be able to do.

To put pricing in perspective, I hit the shopping search engines (on Dec 10, 2004) to build NAS devices based on the WL-HDD and Linksys NSLU2. I used the Linksys because it's also a B.Y.O. drive NAS device and is in a similar pricing ballpark. I could have used the Buffalo Technology Kuro Box, but it's not really intended for the same buyers as the WL-HDD and NSLU2. Plus, at $150, I knew it would price out uncompetitively with the WL-HDD. I used an 80 GB configuration vs. the 120 GB that's more prevalent in current consumer NAS devices because I wasn't able to find any 2.5 inch 120 GB drives.

The WL-HDD has the disadvantage of being carried by far fewer retailers than the NSLU2 (but ASUS' U.S. distribution appears to be improving), so there's not a wide pricing range (lowest price was $85). But 80 GB 2.5 inch drives abound and I was able to put together a WL-HDD-based configuration using a $129 Toshiba MK8025GAS 80 GB drive for $214.

But, as expected, the NSLU2 ($73) configuration using a LaCie USB 2.0 80 GB drive ($89) priced out significantly lower (25%) at $162. Even adding in a low-priced NETGEAR WG602 AP at $36 still maintained a price advantage at a total of $198.

One other price comparison is to Tritton's TRI-WHD1120 Wireless NAS - the only other wireless NAS box that I'm aware of as I write this review. (Contrary to what Tritton's advertising asserts, the TRI-WHD1120 is neither the first nor is the only wireless NAS.) At 120 GB the TRI-WHD1120 is larger than our example configurations, but at typical $360 street pricing, it's also significantly more expensive than both.

But sometimes things aren't all about price and you'll have to admit that one self-contained VHS cassette-sized device is much easier to deal with than three separate boxes and all their attendant cables. ASUS has once again taken a commodity networking product and given it a twist to put it in a category of its own. If you're looking for compact, portable and flexible networked storage, you owe it to yourself to give the WL-HDD 2.5 a shot.