Seagate Drives Into The New Year
Yes, another Christmas has passed. 2010 is just a few days away, and another decade will have come, hopefully making real the unfulfilled promises of the last one. We’re not wearing jet packs or flying cars, and likely won’t be this time next decade either. But we will doubtlessly be storing ever more data, in ever smaller packages. And if Santa didn’t bring you your hard drive of choice this year, perhaps you can make backing up your files a new year’s resolution.
Seagate made our ‘best of’ list this year for their super-satisfying NAS, and we’ve taken a look at every manner of keeping those bits and bytes straight this year, including several from the FreeAgent line. For those not already familiar, the FreeAgent series comprises of a wide variety of consumer drives for every occasion, including those formatted for Mac and PC, in several sizes and colors. The two on our list today include the FreeAgent Go for PC in the odd size of 880 GB, and a uniquely gold-colored FreeAgent Go offering 320GB of storage. Both offer the same balance of sturdiness and style as the previous models we’ve checked out, offering decent performance at reasonable prices.
Seagate calls the gold color “Champagne”, and it appears to be only currently available in the 320GB model and runs around $100. If space is more important than style, consider the 880GB drive available, which appears to be only available in black (called Tuxedo, keeping it classy). Either model offers USB 2.0 connectivity and the same good software we’ve talked about before, making backing up your stuff easy enough for anyone. Either way, you’ll be able to use the nifty new Seagate DockStar, a special dock for FreeAgent Go drives that quickly turns your portable hard drives into network-attached storage. We liked the extra USB connectors, so you can also plug in your USB thumb or pen drives, along with your other USB hard drives and get the same network treatment. Similar in form to the other USB hub dock we’ve seen, this one offers an ethernet adapter on the back that connects to your router. It also offers a year of service to Pogoplug, a service that allows you to access those shared files and drives from anywhere in the world.
Which is great- except that it costs $30 a year after the first year, and you’ll need to go through an activation process and some hassles when first using it. The box makes it sound fairly easy to use the DockStar apart from the Pogoplug service o your local network, but it takes some navigation and such before you’ll find the Samba settings that aren’t enabled by default. Pogoplug’s user interface is simple, clean, and easy to use, and there are some nice options for easy sharing with other people (emailed links for instance). We liked the integration, and appreciated the sturdy build, but it wasn’t quite a convincing value proposition for us- those with a need for network file access from their portable hard drives should find it a joy though, especially at the pretty reasonable sub-$100 pricetag.
By contrast, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player is an excellent value no matter how you look at it. Which may be why they were sold out from Seagate when we last checked- at $150, this upgrade to the Media Player line fixes some of the issues we had with the original, while keeping the flexibility and home entertainment center appearance. Offering an optional wi-fi adapter, it can connect to your media library either through the ethernet port or your wireless router, but is best used with the included portable drive (500GB) or another USB drive of your own. FreeAgent Go drives slide nicely into the bay, and you can connect it directly to your television with component, composite, optical audio or HDMI connections. Able to handle pictures, music, and videos with aplomb, most file formats are supported.
YouTube, Picasa, and Flickr are also available through the device, along with some widgets and full support for RSS feeds. The front-accessible USB port allows you to connect your digital camera or thumb drive, and even playlists like M3U and PLS are handled capably. For photographers, JPG photos up to 20 megapixels can be shown- our 12MP images were fine, though they weren’t always on other media players. OGG, FLAC, XviD and DviX, subtitles, and true 1080p- what more could you want? It’s fairly light and portable as well, certainly compared with the Popcorn Hour we love (and which calls itself, rightfully so, a tank). The Theater+ by comparison is small, sleek, though not particularly sturdy and feels a bit cheap. Folders and files automatically play sequentially, nice for those who download shows that may not be always properly named or combined. The included remote offers all of the functionality you need, though we found it a bit clunky and also low-power (we had to carefully aim it). We couldn’t get Blu-ray menus from saved files to display, though DVD menus were. Overall, while it won’t offer quite the ease of use or sturdiness of the C-200, it is a fraction of the price and is remarkably versatile. Owners of the original non-plus version likely won’t find it a necessary upgrade, but anyone with media files on their portable hard drive and a TV would find the Theater+ a good bet.
