Laptop-DRV » Hard Drives

Seagate FreeAgent Dockstar Survey

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:17:32 +0000

Every holiday families get together, picture are taken, video interviews are precariously recorded and yet no one ever views them. So how is a family to share all this media? Sure, you could spend countless hours uploading the contents of your hard drive to s ome file sharing service, but that’s just too many steps for all that its worth.

Enter the Seagate FreeAgent Dockstar. It’s a dock that enables you put your FreeAgent Go hard drive and up to 3 USB storage devices online and accessible any where there is an Internet connection…without any uploading.

While owning a FreeAgent Go portable hard drive isn’t mandatory, the draw here is that it is clearly designed for folks that have already made an investment in the FreeAgent Go hard drives, t hough it’s never too late to start.

Setting up the device requires little to no Networking knowledge. Just plug in its power, an Ethernet plug (connected to the Internet) and your choice of storage. After that you’ll just need to navigate to http://dockstar.pogop lug.com where the d ock needs to be authorized. There& #8217;s no charge for the first year of service ($30/year after that), and if you haven’t already s ussed it out, Seagate has chosen to use Cloud Engine’s popular Pogoplug technology to deal with all the online file sharing.

If you’re not familiar with Pogoplug, no worries, but its essentially a very clean and simple way to share files online. The interface was originally built for Cloud Engine’s Pogoplug device that turns any hard drive into a Network Attached Storage device. I guess Seagate l iked it so m uch that they’ve decided to license the technology.

Once the Dockstar has been activated you’ll be redirected to a page where you can view you r drive’s contents. Alternatively, those running the Pogoplug application on their PC will be able to access the drive as if it were a locally connected hard drive on their computer. In other words, files can be dragged and dropped to the Seagate Free Agent Dockstar as if it were any other USB attached hard drive with no additional uploading.

Unlike DropBox (a free online storage service that also mounts like a local drive on yo ur computer’s desktop) you can’t right click and create a public link to the file or folder in question. Instead, you’ll need to navigate back to the Dockstar website and create a public link.

And this is where the UI goes a bit sour. If you want to share a folder, of say pi cs, you can publish it to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, rss feed or simply create a public URL for viewing. Since I didn’t wan t to share my personal pics with any of the aforementioned services I figured the public link was best, right? Wrong. The public link doesn’t allow your friends to easily download all the pics. Instead they’re required to wait for each one to loa d and then, and only then can they download one pic at a time. The only way to get around this is to share the drive’s entire contents (or cr eate a c ompressed file), which then enables them to download the entire folder. Hopefully Pogoplug will fix this issue in the next software/website iteration, but it is very surprising to see this UI lacking since DropBox offers a simpler sharing soluti on out the gate and their service free.

Update: It looks like you can ‘invite people’ to share a folder. Once this is completed you can allow them to either have ‘full access’ or just ‘view/download’.

Also of note, the option to select/deselect the social services for sharing often resulted in the service hanging and required me to close out the page.

For those of you sporting an iPhone, you’ll be glad to here that there is an accompanying application. It enables you to access your drive’s contents from any wher e you might roam. This is nice if you’d like to view a large numb er of pics on your iPhone and lack the local storage. In the event that you’d like quick access to any of the pictures, Pogoplug allows you to download the image to your iPhone. Unfortunately, though, the same does not apply to music or movies. You can only stream stor ed movies or music, which is frustrating since these types of media tend to be larger and a greater tax on bandwidth, especially if you don’t have a 3G or WiFi connecti on. But media problems aside the UI of the iPhone app is easy to use and clean.

Seagate FreeAgent Dockstar costs $100, which is $29 cheaper than Pogoplug’s cur rent offering. There is also the option to add a FreeAgent Go hard drive, which can provide storage up to 1TB. The ability to add other USB stor age devices to the setup certainly add some bang for buck and any of you that struggle with up loading pictures this might be the best resolve. The price of the dock includes 1 year of service, after that you’ll need top drop $30/year to keep on NASing, a price that will certainly dissuade a many a user, especially seeing as that Pogoplug, the maker of the NAS technology offers its service for f ree. Nonetheless, Seagate FreeAgent Dockstar is super simple to use, setup and should prove useful to even the mos t tech lame.

You can buy the Seagate FreeAgent Doc kstar from Amazon for $79.

Pros:

Easy and simple setupWorks w/ up to 3 USB storage devicesSmall footprintClean iPhone app

Cons:

Costs $30/year after 1st yearPublic link not easy to createMusic/movies can’t be downloaded to iPhone locally

Western Digital WD5000BEVT Scorpio Depressed 500GB Rigid Push – $70 Shipped

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:26:42 +0000

Amazon has the Western Digital WD5000BEVT Scorpi o Blue 500GB Hard Drive for $95.99 – $26 instant savings + free shipping = $69.99 shipped! It has 500GB hard drive, 2.5-inch form factor, 8mb cache and 5400 rpm speed.

Clound Engines Intros Subsequent Gen. Pogo Stopper, At present With More USB Ports

admin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:58:30 +0000

Today, Cloud Engines announced an updated version of their popular NAS networking device, the Pogoplug. This version adds 4 USB ports to the mix, which means you can now share the content of even more hard drives or USB sticks over the Internet.

I’m about to write a review on the Seagate NAS that uses the Pogoplug software, and while it’s not bad it’s not stellar. But f rom the sounds of it, Pogoplug might have updated some of the so ftware, such as the ability to automatically sync your photos and other media wit h the NAS device.

The 2nd Pogoplug will ship sometime soon for $129.

Second G eneration Pogoplug™ Unveiled Today
Next-generation Hardware Design and Software Provide Enhanced Storage, Multimedia and Social Media Capabilities

San Francisco, Calif. – November 20, 2009 – Cloud En gines, Inc. unveiled the second generat ion of the award winning Pogop lug multimedia sharing device today giving consumers more flexibility to store personal content safely in the home and access, manage, and share it from anywhere on the Internet. The new Pogoplug hardware sports a new design boasting multiple USB ports supporting up to 4 external drives for expanded data capacity. The new Pogoplug also gives users improved sharing cap abilities, an easy drag-and-drop interface to create engaging multi-media slide shows, seamless media playback, and enhanced sharing with friends on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Pogoplug acts like a gateway from your home or office through the Internet. It allows you to access, share and even stream your personal digital m edia directly to anybody, anywhe re in the world. Your content always remains physically in your home or office, making it secure, convenient and available on your terms. Pogoplug is perfect for those individuals with increasingly mobile lifestyles and small businesses in need of simple, inexpensive mobile data access solutions.

“The reaction to the Pogoplug has been incredible. By listening to user feedback and following our own product roadmap, we are bringing a great second-generation product that gives our customers access to a host of new features that both improve the function of the Pogoplug, and add to the fun of using it as well.” said Daniel Putterman, CEO of Cloud Engines, Inc. “We are commi tted to giving our customers the best way to access their data from anywhere in the world, p ushing the envelope with both product quality and design aesthetic. The result is what you see here today.”

NEW HARDWARE
The new Pogoplug design retains the simplicity and eas e of use of the original while listening to consumer feedback and adding the ability to directly connect up to 4 external hard drives at once. The resulting product boasts an improved design with greatly improved functionality for users with multiple drives and an increasing need for easy synching and sharing of their digital libraries. This upgrade t urns the Pogoplug into an even more prominent feature in the modern digital home or small business.

NEW FEATURES

Automatically Synchronize Photos, Videos, Music and Other Selected Content
Users can synchr onize their Pogoplug with their PC or Mac to automatically import new content from popular applications such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, and iPhoto. This feature allows Pogoplug owners to “s et it and forget it” and always have access to new photos, videos and music from anywhere on the Internet.

Drag-and-Drop Music and Pho to Slideshows
Users can easily create and share fun and engaging slideshows using their sto red photos, videos and music. Creating a slideshow w ith Pogoplug is as simple as drag and drop, and sharing these slideshows is just as easy as ev er. Once a user’s link is shared and viewed, their slideshow will immediately begin with the photos, videos and music they selected, playing seamlessly in the viewer’s browser.

Easie r Sharing with Pogoplug Address Book
Pogoplug Address Book greatly improves the speed and ease of use of sharing wit h a user’s friends and family. Pogoplug aut omatically remembers all email addresses entered in a user’s previous shares – even if that share no longer exists – and makes them available in an easy to use address bo ok to make shari ng truly one click away.

Global Search Across Multiple Drives and Pogoplugs
With support for multiple drives on a single Pogoplug (and multiple Pogoplugs on the same account) Pogoplug has added “global” search support across all of a user’s Pogoplugs and drives. Search filters are now a distinct feature, allowing users to view all of their photos, videos and music in a single organized view, or to search for a specific file acro ss all Pogoplugs and drives.

Organize Your Mus ic, Photos and Videos
Pogoplug automatically displays music by Album, Artist and Genre, and shows cover art for quick access to a user’s favorite music. Photos are now displayed by photo timeline and videos are only a click away, including the ability to watch a preview in the thumbnail itself.

Play movies directly from my.pogoplug.com, or even to the iPhone
Pogoplug now supports the playback of videos di rectly from a Pogoplug, with support for the most popular cameras, video cameras and mobile phones. Movies can be shared and viewed directly from the Pogoplug website – or even from an iPhone!

Pricing and Availability
We are currently taking Pre-Orders for Pogoplug at Units will ship before the end of the year – just in time for the Holid ay Season. The Pogoplug has a suggested retail price of $12 9, with no additional service fees.

ABOUT THE POGOPLUG
The Pogoplug is a device that connects up to 4 external hard drives to the Internet. It is designed for consumers who have an external hard drive and have high speed Internet. Consumers can securely access and share all of their content [Files, Photos, and Video] from any Web browser or enabled mobile device with no additional monthly fee s. Fr ee your inner drive.

ABOUT CLOUD ENGINES, INC.
Founded in 2007 by experienced entrepreneurs from the digital media and security industries, Cloud Engines is located in San Francisco, California. The company was formed with a mission to change the way personal content is stored and distributed over the Internet. The Cloud Engines philosophy is that by making a produc t simple, open and affordable, the community will participate in making it better. For more information, please visit our Web site,