Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

<Update 1/2016 - I still use this as a normal external USB drive without any issues, but have not used it wirelessly for over 3 years now, not because it does not work, but because I have not had the need to do so.> <Update 1/2014 - I currently use a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 for all my portable computing and video needs, so I seldom use this drive as a wireless drive anymore. I mostly just plug it into my SP2 via USB and play my FHD WTV files to avoid the throughput problem and no longer need to bother with charging the battery anymore. In truth, using it as a wireless device for our Android phones was more trouble than it was worth, so we seldom actually used it. Too often video would stumble and it just got annoying.> <Update 1/2013 - My wife recently purchased the Samsung Note 2 and the Smart Dock and now we only use this as a wired USB hard drive. Since most of what we use it for is watching FHD TV shows, the wireless speed was just not fast and reliable enough. It will still come in handle for slide shows tho and watching DVD quality movies on the road.> This review got a bit lengthy so first off, the short version: If all you want to do is play your entertainment files on WiFi device(s) and your files are supported by the Seagate Media App, then this works like a charm and you do not need to read the detailed review below. All you need to do is: 1) plug it into the USB wall wart and let the battery charge 2) plug it into a USB port on your computer 3) upload your files 4) unplug it from your computer (you cannot do a USB connection and WiFi at the same time) 5) push the on button on this hard drive and wait 50 seconds for the WiFi software to load up 6) download the Seagate Media App 7) on your device, connect to the Seagate Wireless WiFi network 8) open the Seagate App and play your file The supported files are (straight from their user guide): For iPads * Video: H.264 video, MPEG-4, Motion-JPEG * Audio: AAC, MP3, M4a, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV * Documents: Microsoft® Office®, iWork®, Adobe® Acrobat® (PDF) * Select files supported by third-party apps For Laptops, Tablets, and Smartphones * Any files supported by your device's applications And now the more detailed version: Btw, bonus points for the manufacturer reading our reviews and taking them seriously. I am using it with a HTC Droid DNA phone (which has a 1920x1080 screen and a 4 core processor) which comes with only 12GB of user available memory with no expansion capabilities. <Update, I have also tested it with my wife's Samsung Note II and my new Samsung S4.> I have researched/tried/returned every other wireless storage device out there to compensate for the DNA's lack of storage without any success until now. For the advertised ability to upload files wirelessly and for the advertised ability for multiple simultaneous users, the WiFi speed is slower than I would have expected at 8Mbps. I would have rather seen a speed of well over 12Mbps (the rate at which many FHD video files are encoded). Plus, first time usage experience is a bit ornery (no instructions for how to turn it off, no way to rename/delete files, no instructions on how to access the drive from your computer, unresponsive or difficult to activate buttons... all of which can be overcome), however it is still the best option out there right now that I have been able to find. With this drive, I can now not only now play video in general on my phone with relative ease (which was a royal pain without it), but at 1TB, I can also store an entire vacation's worth of going-to-bed-or-rainy-day viewing and provide plenty of choices. It is working very nicely with my Amazon Kindle 1 for playing DVD quality movies (using MX Player). Much better than that portable DVD player we had been using before. I do get more stuttering than I'd like in my FHD file playback. Since it is common to use 12Mbps to create FHD files, I am leaning towards the opinion that this drive's 8Mbps speed is not quite fast enough for FHD movies. I have uploaded a couple of photos. The drive itself is 5" x 3.5" x 3/4" and feels very nice in hand. It feels like a high quality piece of equipment. Like the GoFlex series, the circuitry for the USB 3.0 connection is within a separate plugin bar (a USM adapter) which add 3/8" to the length of the drive, so I suspect that in the future they will have options for Firewire/eSATA/Thunderbolt? I believe that I read on one of Seagate's comments somewhere that you can use the adaptors from the GoFlex series. It comes with an 18" standard USB 3.0 cable. Power: It comes with a 5v 2a USB charger block with the folding prongs and a 40" USB 2.0 to very-thin-round-tipped power cable. You do not need this to use the drive connected to your computer via USB, but this cable does allow you to charge the battery and use the wifi device without draining your battery. DO NOT LOOSE THIS CABLE as it is the only means you have of charging your battery and is not easily replaceable (I have yet to find one anywhere). This was a bad call on Seagate's part. They should have used a non-syncing MicroUSB port like everyone else. That way, everywhere you go, you can power/charge your drive without having to remember to pack this cord everywhere you go and hope you do not damage it in any way. It does NOT use the same Type H plug that was used in the Seagate Goflex Satellite external hard drive. It is much thinner: roughly 2.5mm Outer Dimension and 0.7mm Inner Dimension. I have found that the 2.5mm Nokia plug does not fit either. WiFi startup: You push the button on the side to power it on and wait about 50 seconds for the blue light to glow steadily, after which you will be able to see a wifi network called Seagate Wireless. Password: Initially, this "Seagate Wireless" network does not have a password, but in the settings there is an option to create one as well as change the name. AndroidApp/iOSApp/Web interface: When you connect, it directs you to a web page that looks and feels 95% the same as the Android App, tho the WebApp has issues with placement of its icons on phones... they frequently overlap on both my phones... on the KindleFire and iPad2 it looks good and works well. PassThru internet access: It makes for a decent wifi extender. I did notice some, but not too much of a slow down in internet access connecting to the Seagate Wireless drive and from there connecting to my home network. SpeedTest clocked my internet access speed as 8.5 Mbps (vs 23 Mbps bypassing this drive), so the WiFi signal is a bit slower than I had hoped. When you connect, you are asked if you want the other computers connected to the router to be able to access the drive (ACTUALLY they reverse the question, so you have to answer NO) and if you do and you know how to ask your router what the IP address is that the router gave it, you can browse files on any computer on the network by typing that IP address (\\###.###.#.###\) in Windows Explorer, to copy/delete/rename/play your files. Uploading Files Wirelessly: I was able to browse to 172.25.0.1 in IE9 on my computer an upload a file via wifi via the menus there, but it did not provide any progress indication and it seemed to take forever. I will not be doing that again. I tried it again via ES Explorer and again, it took forever, but it did work and I got a nice progress bar. I tried yet one more time by using Windows Explorer to browse \\172.25.0.1\Public-01\Videos\ and this time I at least got a progress indicator and a speed rating of 2 MBps. A 2 MBps WiFi speed means you can browse the internet okay, just do not expect the 24mbps speeds you may get by not going thru this device. I am sticking to wired connections for file transfers. Backup: It works well as a wireless backup while traveling for those photos and videos that you just took. In the Seagate App, simply choose the local device (your phone) at the bottom of the middle drop down, find your files (photos and video are likely in the DCIM folder), click the multiple file pick mode icon on the right (it looks like a checkmark in a circle), Select the files you want to back up, click the up-arrow icon on the left side, and the Seagate app will processed to copy the files on your phone/tablet to the hard drive. It creates a folder for your phone and replicate the folder structure that is on your phone within that folder as it backs up your files. Multiple devices: I have no problems connecting my notebook, 2 Android phones, 1 iPad2, 1 KindleFire all at the same time, however I am unable to play two different HD video files from two different devices at the same time without one of them stuttering. I can play music (4 different pieces) on four different devices at once tho with only minor, barely noticable stuttering. Three is probably a better limit if you want to have no stuttering at all. ES File Explorer: If you choose LAN / Add / Scan - you will find that you are able to browse all the files on the drive, rename files, copy files, move files, use the OpenAsVideo option to play WTV files without renaming them first ... Skip that ... if you play a HD movie via ES it will stutter. There must be some hand off between the hard drive and ES PLayer and finally MX Player that requires a faster connection than the wifi connection can output. Windows File Explorer: I can use \\172.25.0.1\Public-01\Videos\ on the notebook connected to it and \\SW-NA3200WD\Public-01 on all the other desktop computers on that network and even map a drive Letter to it (while it is connected to the notebook... the desktops have no wifi option). Sample Files: It comes with a rather large assortment of music/video/photos that you can use to test it out. Android Menu Bar: Like many pre JellyBean apps, the Android app does not hide the default 3 dot menu bar that Jelly Bean creates when an app does not tell Jelly Bean to not create one plus it has its own duplicative settings button. Music: you can sort your list by Playlist/Songs/Artists/Albums/Genre. For some reason, in my test, in repeat mode, it stopped for no reason that I can tell three times in 6 hours (even mid song). Photo Slide Show: There are options for Transitions/Timing/Music/Loop/Shuffle. It can play any of your music files during a photo slide show. Video: Interestingly enough, it offers to keep playing your videos back to back, which would come in handy to watch multi-part video files. For most of my video, I would probably use the Folders and Files option to be able to use subfolders instead (kids/mom/dad) It also has a Documents and a Recently Viewed listing options. WTV support: I uploaded a 13GB WTV file at an average of 30MBps over a USB 2.0 port (the same speed the manual said it would). I did not see the WTV file in the Video's section until I renamed the extension MP4. Tho it played the sample files just fine, the built in Seagate Player would not play the file I uploaded (nor did I really expect it to). 3rd party Video Player: After I turned off the option to "Use the Seagate Media App" within Settings/General and set the 2 App Associations for Video to MX Player, the 13GB High Def WTV video file played beautifully... no pixelization and I had no problem fast forwarding and rewinding all I wanted to. iOS: Note that this option in Settings / General to turn off "Use the Seagate Media App to play video files" does not exist on the iOS App. It is only on the Android App. It also does not exist on the Web based front end, but I would not expect it to either. iOS VM Player: Adding a new SMB connection with 172.25.0.1 in the Path field and left the UserName/Password blank and from then on, I saw a new bookmark: smb://172.25.0.1 which I was able to use to browse the drive's contents and play movies. Note that VM Player officially supports the WTV file format. I did not get any sound, but do not blame the Seagate drive for this. The problem is that Dolby recently cracked down on ALL iOS apps that used its AC3 codecs without paying them a licensing fee. iOS iMediaPlayer: If you click on the Star in the upper left corner, it opens up the Seagate media browser window and iMediaPlayer will start to play any of the sample videos on the drive. iOS MPlayer: This is a brand new player for iPad that officially supports ac3. I tried it and it does work. One big downside however, even 480i videos stutter a lot and the audio quickly wound up being very much out of sync with the video. To access this drive, I just clicked the SMB button at the bottom and added a connection (as Guest) to 172.25.0.1. iOS 8Player: Add a new server, it will automatically see it and assign it a shortcut of ht tp: // 172.25.0.1:8200 / rootDesc.xml and you can browse the files all you want. iOS Azul: Azul has a built in web browser and if you point it to 172.25.0.1 it will open the familiar Seagate web interface, however it actually streams the video to the Azul player (just as if you turned off the UseBuiltInSeagateApp option). However playback quality of the sample video files was very poor. USB 3.0 Wired Upload Speed: A 6GB file averaged 60MBps (the same speed the manual said it would) over a USB 3.0 port. Help: (In the comments, Seagate gives you a link to the full manual) It did not come with much in the way of instructions on paper, so there was a bit of trial and error involved. There is a several short help documents inside the Settings/Help on the app. Not as detailed as I would have like to have seen however. The initial walk thru help document will guide you thru connecting the drive to a wifi internet connection. Range: According to the specs, it should have a range of 150 feet. At 50 feet direct line of sight, the wifi signal was very strong. Going thru 2 floors in our home, about 18 feet vertical, I loose one bar. I even get a signal, tho barely, at 55 feet away thru 2 floors and 2 side walls (basically my basement rear to my 2nd floor front). OFF: Push the button and wait... the lights go out and then after about 30 seconds the hard drive stops spinning. There is also a software based shut down option that works well within the setting / system screen. NTFS: It is required to be formatted with NTFS and there is note to NOT let TimeMachine to backup to this device because TM will reformat it. BatteryLife: So far, I have had it on battery power for 7 hours and it says I have 72% battery left, however I have not used it much to actually play any video during that time, but it has been spinning and connected and tested that entire time. I have noticed that the drive stops spinning after a short period of non-use and starts up again as soon as it detects your request to do anything. BatteryLife Test Results: Test#1: With my notebook computer connecting to the internet using this device as a repeater and with very little disk access (and very little internet usage either), the battery lasted 7 hours. The WiFi signals are strong at each step. Test#2: Just sitting on a desk with the WiFi "ready to connect whenever you wanted to connect" and not connected to my home WIFI, it lasts a very long time. After 8 hours the battery still read 80%. 65% after 12.5 hours. It probably would have lasted 26 hours easily if I had let it. Test#3: Using my iPad2, playing the music that came with the drive in repeat mode, using Seagate's native player, with "Download and Stream" enabled, starting with 100% battery power, with the pass-thru WiFi not enabled, the battery lasted for exactly 6 hours. The interesting part was that every single time I checked, the hard drive was not spinning. "Download and Stream" must mean that the unit (or the App) is buffering a large segment of video/audio to memory and then powers down the drive until the buffer is empty and requests more data from the drive. I am suprised it did not last longer (this would suggest that the drive is doing the buffering, not the app). This should be nearly exactly the scenerio that Seagate's reply in the comments suggested should give you 10 hours. Test#4: It lasted 4 hours playing a 480i movie with MX Player and D&S turned off. The hard drive spun the entire time the movie played and when I paused the movie, the hard drive stopped spinning. It did successfully start playing the next video in that folder without asking. It comes with a 3 yr limited warranty. DLNA: It says it is DLNA capable. I do not see any instruction on this, not even in the manual Seagate provided in their link. However it appears that 172.25.0.1:8200 is the access point to the miniDLNA server and devices that go looking for a DNLA server can find it automatically. I did manage once to get the normal popup from the web interface for the CopyLinkAddress (in case I wanted to keep them named .WTV), however I have been unable to replicate that result. :-( LTE: As with all such devices, I see no way to use this drive via WiFi and use LTE to access the internet at the same time on my phone. Rename Files: I see no option to do so via a WiFi connection. You will need to use a computer or an Android app such as ES File Explorer. OTG: I did have difficulty getting it to be seen via a wired USB cable via my OTG cable to my phone, but when I turned it fully off before connecting it to a powered USB hub, NexusMediaImporter eventually was able to see it and I was able to upload a file to my phone much faster than using a WiFi transfer. Reindexing: Somehow the index got trashed (I was receiving an error message of Data Loading Failed. Seagate Chat told me to call Advanced Networking at 800 732 4283. We just deleted two hidden folders and turned the drive on again not connected to anything and let it rebuild the indexes uninterrupted for an hour or so. All in all, it is mostly what I was hoping for to make up for the lack of an SD card and address the paultry 12GB available internal memory in my phone. Summary: This is the first WiFi drive I have seen that meets every one of my must-have requirements: - Fast file uploads. - It has no problem with huge files (FAT32 devices are limited to 4GB) - Streams fast enough to play HD movies with FF and RW. - It will pass off the playing of video files to a 3rd party app (at least on HTC Android phones with App Associations... not sure about how other Android devices handle this).