2.

Basic Features & Internal Exam

Figure 2 (stolen from the WL-HDD User Manual) shows the connector complement, which includes a power connector, USB 1.1 and Ethernet 10/100 ports and activity indicators. Note that there's also a shutdown / reset-to-factory defaults button, that I'll get to shortly. Note also that the power adapter is 100-240V, but could use a more snugly-fitting power connector.

Figure 2: Ports and indicators
(click image to enlarge)

The WL-HDD supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS (read-only), EXT2, and EXT3 formatted drives. So if for some reason you need (perhaps for file recovery) or want to move a naked 2.5 inch drive between the WL-HDD and another system, you can. As a matter of fact, the Hitachi drive that ASUS sent with the WL-HDD looked like it was set up for a Windows notebook, but I could read and write files just fine. Note however that the built-in partitioning and disk check utilities support only the EXT2 format.

It's also important to understand that the USB connector doesn't allow the WL-HDD to function as an external USB drive. Instead, it provides a handy way to automatically copy the contents of a USB Flash memory key to the drive by simply plugging in the key. ASUS' User Manual says the Auto-Copy function will also work for other types of Flash cards (CF, SD, MMC) by connecting an appropriate Flash card reader into the USB port.

Figure 3 shows a view of the bottom of the WL-HDD's circuit board, where most of the components are. Unlike ASUS' pocket-sized WL-330 [reviewed here] and WL-330g [reviewed here] APs, which are based on Marvell Libertas chipsets, the WL-HDD is more like the WL-300g full-sized AP [reviewed here].

It's based on Promise PDC20265R ATA controller handles the hard drive control duties,
Figure 3: Board bottom view
(click image to enlarge)