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A Random Life In Review

Hi Every one, hope your all well and ready for the weekend.

So its time to review some more stuff, today the main review is my new Seagate STBF 500GB GoFlex Satellite Mobile Wireless Hard Drive or for short – WiFi Hard Drive.

Seagate 500GB WiFI Hard Drive

A number of friends, family and even customers have asked me why I only got the 16gb version of both the iPhone and iPad – this is the reason, I’ve got miles more storage for music and video then I could ever get taking the GB versions at a much lower total cost.

Copying stuff to the WiFi Hard Drive

I had a little trouble getting the drive to be seen by my PC to start with but I think that was more my USB connection on the PC then the WiFi Hard Drive as once I changed sockets it worked fine. I used the free software which you need to go online to download, to sync my content, although you can copy and past to the drive like any other hard drive.

The program is very simple and a little lite on features, for example you have no progress or ETA and so no way of knowing once it has completed the sync – there is an update for the WiFi Hard Drive which may fix this (I’ve not yet installed this) but its not in the patch notes so I doubt it will. All my files where moved over in a maxim 6 hours (may well have been faster but I couldn’t be sure).

The App for your iPhone or iPad

To get the WiFi Hard Drive working on your iSO device you need to install some more free software via the App Store – its very easy (as is any app download from the Store).

Again the software is a little lite in terms of features – for example you can search via content type (e.g. video or photo) but it takes a very long time to bring up all the content and then its only sorted by date or name (a-z or z-a) which isn’t great for TV or large amounts of music (which is sorted by song name not artiest or album). I’ve found it easier to use the folder view but not every one will like this (with a large amount of content it could become complected). However the app works and more importantly works straight away so its not all bad.

Connecting the WiFi Hard Drive

Turn the drive on, change your WiFi network to the WiFi Hard Drive and then open the App – that’s it nice and easy.

Playing Content

Again nice and easy (once you can find the content – see above), just select the file and it will play in a mini media player or for a move it will open in a browser and play in that.

HD is fine – there is no lag and no buffering problems at all. I was able to play music on one ISO item, Movie on a different and a photo on a 3rd – I’ve also tested 3 ISO devises at the same time with HD video and not had any problems at all.

It appears to have a range very close to that of my BT Home Hub, as in the drive was at one end of my house and i was at the other, still playing the contend with no problems.

Video

Sound and image are just the same as if playing from your ISO devises internal memory.

Music

Alas it only plays in the App which isn’t great but the play back quality is great.

Delivery

OK i did opt for the free postage but only because I was 100% going to be in around the ETA date, otherwise I would have paid – however the first order never turned up, I then had to wait 7 days until the replacement was sent out. Amazon also thought it would be a good idea to quote there impression of the Law in a customer service email to me after I raised the missing delivery which didn’t leave me with a nice feeling .

I understand why, but still to imply dishonesty (even only very lightly) when I’m the one missing a delivery is a little much. In an effort to be fair the replacement did turn up two days after dispatch (but a total of 11 days later then the original ETA) so I can’t complain two much.

Hardware: 5 out of 5
Software 3 out of 5

Overall: 4 out of 5

In Summary

A great bit of kit, if you travel a lot and need storage then this dose the job, if you have a family with more then one iPhone then this is perfect for car trips or on the plan etc. Would have been 5 out of 5 if the software was better and then its more the interface then any thing so this could be fixed (if they wanted to) its a shame because that’s the only reason its not a 5 out of 5.

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