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

Data Robotics’ R AID solutions have always been a cut above the rest — and a little more expensive, and better looking, for that matter. As one clearly ecstatic reviewer at PC Perspective w ill attest, the DroboPro even does you one better, sporting eight bays of storage, extremely effective cooling, and support for FireWire, USB and Gigabit Ethernet connections. Of course, no product is perfect — and here the lack of eSATA and nearly $1,500 price tag leave s omething to be desired. Your inner gadget hound (sadist) will surely delight in the insane amount of torture testing this device endured for this appraisal, and you’ll be pleased to know that the array came out on top. Hit the r ead link to get started — but not before you check out the video after the break.

See more video at our hub!

USB 3.0 is starting to gain some marketplace traction, and you can now buy Buffalo’s new line of Super Speed external USB 3.0 hard drives.  Available in 1TB($200), 1.5TB ($250), and 2TB ($400) variations, the hard drives also come with Memeo AutoBackup software and a one year warranty.  Be the first to own the world’s fastest new hard drives!

Buff alo Ships First SuperSpeed USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

The DriveStation(TM) HD-HXU3 Offers Lightning Fast Transfer Speeds in a Robust, Stylish Design

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 23 /PRNewswire/ — Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wir ed and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions t oday announced the first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 external storage solution. The DriveStation HD-HXU3 is ideal for creative professionals, computer powe r users and digi tal content creators, delivering transfer rates up to 625 MB per second (or five Gbits per second) for the quick transfer and storage of high-resolution graphics, digital audio/video, large multimedia files, photos and more.

“Innovation has always been Buffalo Technology’s core value and the new DriveStation HD-HXU3 combi nes both USB 3.0 performanc e, and the late st hard disk technology to give consumers the fastest, and most reliable solution on the market,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. “The DriveS tation HD-HXU3 delivers on Buffalo’s ongoing commitment in delivering high quality, robust storage solutions to meet the high demands of today’s consumers.”

The DriveStation USB 3.0 storage solutio n is backward-compatible and works with all USB 2.0 enabled computers and notebooks, as well as forthcoming USB 3.0 models. Available in 1.0TB, 1.5TB and 2.0TB capacities, the DriveStation(TM) HD-HXU3 with SuperSpeed USB gives users the ability to quickly back-up and store important data and other digital assets.

In conjunction with the new SuperSpeed USB DriveStation, Buffalo has released a two-port USB 3.0 PCI Express Interface Card IFC-PCIE2U3. The USB 3.0 PCI Express Interface Card allows users to upgrade their PC or Mac to utilize SuperSpeed USB for faster data transfer speeds than ever before. The DriveStation HD-HXU3 gives users the ability to quickly back up important data and store of fice work, digital photos, music and movies in one central location.

Included with each DriveStation USB 3.0 HD-HXU3 storage solution is Memeo’s award-winning backup packag e. Memeo AutoBackup software gives you the power to securely and automatically manage and backup your files in real-time. No need for manual or sc heduled backups, Memeo AutoBackup will find any new or updated file instantly and automatically, copying them to the drive so that you have a safe copy. After the initial setup, you never have to look at it again.

Pricing and Availability

The DriveStation USB 3.0 HD-HXU3 is backed by a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/ 7 technical support and is available now at estimated street prices of $199.99 for 1TB (HD-HX1.0TU3), $249.99 for 1.5TB (HD-HX1.5TU3) and $399.99 for 2.0TB (HD-HX2.0TU3).

[via Engadget]

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