Air stash

[Tigerman82]

I like my Air Stash and will continue to use it. It is light and easy to charge. No special cabling is required. I went on travel this past weekend and forgot my little box that holds my SD cards....so when I got ready to watch something, I had the wrong card inside. Fortunately, I had managed to grab the portable hard drive so I was able to use my laptop to move files around. So, here is a case where all those SD cards can be a bit problematic. Also, the one SD card I did have with me is slow as molasses. I need to deal with that, too.

I'm about to pull the trigger on AirStash but wanted to ask about SD-cards (as I was trying to figure out which card I'm going to buy). How much does the (write) speed of the SD-card affect AirStash's performance? For example, people (Amazon) seem to be pairing the AirStash with a low-priced 64Gb SDXC card with read speed of about 23Mb/s. For that price, one could also get a 32Gb Sandisk Extreme SDHC card with read speed of 45Mb/s. Sandisk does have the Extreme Pro -line with read speeds of 95Mb/s but the price gets ridiculous.

So what type of difference in AirStash performance would I see when comparing a 23Mb/s SD-card to a 45Mb/s card? Where would this performance difference show? When the AirStash is streaming video? When I'm accessing its files from the iPad? Obviously I want the best performance possible (without going over the top) but I wouldn't want to buy an expensive SD-card for nothing when I could get twice the capacity for the price.

 

[epb]

The AirStash streams to your iPad via wi-fi, so the chief determining factor for performance is the speed of that connection, not the the read/write speed of the card itself. The only time you'll see the benefit of a faster card is when you have the SD card plugged into your pc or laptop.

 

[AQ_OC]

I'm about to pull the trigger on AirStash but wanted to ask about SD-cards (as I was trying to figure out which card I'm going to buy). How much does the (write) speed of the SD-card affect AirStash's performance? For example, people (Amazon) seem to be pairing the AirStash with a low-priced 64Gb SDXC card with read speed of about 23Mb/s. For that price, one could also get a 32Gb Sandisk Extreme SDHC card with read speed of 45Mb/s. Sandisk does have the Extreme Pro -line with read speeds of 95Mb/s but the price gets ridiculous.

So what type of difference in AirStash performance would I see when comparing a 23Mb/s SD-card to a 45Mb/s card? Where would this performance difference show? When the AirStash is streaming video? When I'm accessing its files from the iPad? Obviously I want the best performance possible (without going over the top) but I wouldn't want to buy an expensive SD-card for nothing when I could get twice the capacity for the price.

Like epb said, it mainly shows in the card reader. These speeds are more than enough to stream typical movie files, but if you have a slow card reader than the file transfers will be slower when using the reader. But streaming works fine, as does moving files. Wifi speeds are the holdups.

And we need to get our units correct...these cards are in MB/s not Mb/s. MB means megabytes, Mb means Megabits. 1 Byte = 8 bits. So, an SD card getting 25MB/s gets 200 Mb/s. Your wifi speeds are rated in Mb/s (or Mbps), so 54 Mbps = 6.75 MBps. So, these cards are quite fast, though the reader can be slow. In my story above, that card is fast...and it is very fast in my USB 3.0 card reader in my main PC...but for some reason, on my laptop, that card is super slow. But it streams just fine as does every card I have.

Still, I'd get a fairly fast card if I could...because you may want to use it in a camera or a PC or any numbers of places. that 64GB SDXC is about as fast as the usb 2.0 interface, which is plenty fast for streaming typical mp4 files that are have additional compression applied. If you get that 95 MB/s card, then you need to be using USB 3.0 and you need to make sure your readers are rated for that speed or you will never see it. If you read enough of those reviews you will see people showing speed results in the slower usb 2.0 readers...and the performance is way less than what the card is rated for.

This was a very good question! Just to be totally clear, I would not get that 95MB/s card for the airstash alone. I'd go for capacity! Mo stuff, mo better!

 

[n4uau]

Bought an air stash. So far I'm ready to return it. Worked fine as a USB on the PC but is constantly dropping wifi connx with I pad directly and can't get into my WPA router with pass word. Hopefully Cust Support will help. Or back it goes.

 

[giradman]

Bought an air stash. So far I'm ready to return it. Worked fine as a USB on the PC but is constantly dropping wifi connx with I pad directly and can't get into my WPA router with pass word. Hopefully Cust Support will help. Or back it goes.

Now, I'm sure that you are doing all correctly, but the AirStash establishes its own personal wireless network - you need to first open your iPad's Wi-Fi settings and connect to the AirStash and then use their app for file manipulation and/or viewing/hearing. Your WPA router is independent and should have nothing to do w/ connecting the device to your iPad. Let us know if this is how you are using the AirStash? Dave

 

[n4uau]

Now, I'm sure that you are doing all correctly, but the AirStash establishes its own personal wireless network - you need to first open your iPad's Wi-Fi settings and connect to the AirStash and then use their app for file manipulation and/or viewing/hearing. Your WPA router is independent and should have nothing to do w/ connecting the device to your iPad. Let us know if this is how you are using the AirStash? Dave

Thanks for your reply. Yes I have connected that way but sit Eemian to easily lose connection. Will keep trying, I did an airstash restore which seemed to help a bit.

Also the bottom of page 16 of the user guide I down loaded claims you ca also connect airstash to your home network and thus Ipad can access both Internet and airstash. Doesn't work as either airstash doesn't find the network, or security password not accepted.

 

[n4uau]

Patience Sam patience. I need to keep telling myself that!

Just tried AirStash again this AM and I had no problem sending photos directly and wonder of wonders, I am now connected to the stash via my home network. Moved photo to stash and am now writing this while still able to interact with stash. IT DOES WORK AS ADVERTISED,

 

[giradman]

Patience Sam patience. I need to keep telling myself that!

Just tried AirStash again this AM and I had no problem sending photos directly and wonder of wonders, I am now connected to the stash via my home network. Moved photo to stash and am now writing this while still able to interact with stash. IT DOES WORK AS ADVERTISED,

Congrats! Not sure what happened but hope that it continues for you -

BTW, I'm not sure if I've even tried to hook the AirStash into my home network, just have used as an independent wireless device w/ SD cards - Dave