Most cost effective way - purchase an external drive attach it to the iMAC and store there. This also has the benefit of being the faster for access than a NAS solution. Next up, buying a storage enclosure [i.e. Something that holds multiple HDD, but still attaches directly to the iMAC]. Central makes it simple for multiple users to back up and archive their Facebook accounts. On-the-go access with Web browsers. Easily access and upload content using virtually any computer or mobile device and a Web browser.
The scoop: Seagate Central network-attached hard drive, by Seagate. The 2TB model costs about $160; 3TB costs about $220; 4TB costs about $250 (Amazon pricing).
What is it? The latest network-attached storage (NAS) appliance from Seagate is designed to easily connect to your home network to provide a centralized storage location for your data -- documents, photos, music, videos, etc. In addition, the drive can be accessed within your home network by a multitude of devices -- whether it's connected PCs, Macs, smartphones, tablets or even remotely across the Internet.
[ CLEAR CHOICE TEST: FreeNAS: Flexible, fast storage, and the price is rightA
COMPARE: Storage products from CES 2013 ]
The small box connects to a home router via Ethernet, with an easy setup via PC or Mac that lets you drag-and-drop your content into folders on the drive. For smartphones and tablets, you download the free Seagate Media App, which can then easily find your media (videos, music or photos) and play or display them on your device. Remote access is handled through your computer's browser via a third-party app (Tappin).
Why it's cool: I've tried many NAS devices over the years, including those from Seagate. But this is the first one that I truly love to use and access. Seagate understands that it's not just about storage capacity or even centralized content (although that's a worthy goal for everyone to have). Rather, it's the idea that you should be able to access and enjoy the videos, music and photos you've created or collected over the years. There's nothing more frustrating than having a client device that can't easily play a movie or music stored on a NAS device. For many, that means copying files from one hard drive to another, or loading that content locally onto the client device. Seagate's Media app is fantastic -- every file I loaded onto the Central device could play on my devices, including the iPad, iPhone, Amazon Kindle Fire and Xbox 360.
Like other recent drives from Seagate, the Central can automatically back up photos and videos from your Facebook account, giving you easy, don't-even-think-about-it backup. With more people taking photos and videos with their smartphones, they're often skipping the middle step of transferring them to a computer, eliminating a potential backup avenue. This automatic backup feature guarantees that when you upload a photo or video to Facebook, that it will be saved to the Central drive as well.
The Seagate Media app also lets you upload data from your mobile device to the Central drive -- if you have a bunch of photos that you didn't upload to Facebook, you can transfer them to the Central drive via the app. I only tested this while connected to my home network -- I'm not sure if this works remotely.
The hardest part of using the Central will be to transfer all of your content stored on all your other drives and devices to the unit (I'd recommend connecting a PC/Mac directly to the router if you have a lot of data to transfer).
Some caveats: The remote access feature doesn't let you stream videos stored on the Central -- you can download them to your local PC, but not play them. Seagate says it may offer streaming video functionality at a later date, but it's not available at the moment. One other quibble: I had connected the Central to a wireless router, and couldn't find the drive from my powerline-attached Xbox 360, which was connected to my regular home router (in my house, I disable the wireless on the FiOS-provided router to use a newer wireless router). The Xbox 360 couldn't access media from the Central unless I connected it via the Wi-Fi network. But that could be an Xbox issue, as well.
Bottom line: Seagate hits a home run with Central. There are no more excuses for not having a NAS box on your home network to provide centralized storage for your media content, as well as an easy-to-use backup system for your data and social network content.
Grade: 5 stars (out of five)
Shaw can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @shawkeith.
Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.
This story, 'Seagate's Central hits a home run in the NAS game' was originally published by Network World.
Seagate Central Manual
Hi 🙂 - seen you've posted this elsewhere, but replying in the most logical place for others to find it!
I had the same issues with my 4TB Seagate Central NAS. Any form of NAS access from iTunes caused beachballing, app hangs. Repeated, constant dropouts whilst playing files that were both >30MB Apple Lossless and <5MB MP3s.
Is There A Seagate Central App For Mac
I did some troubleshooting - pings from my Macbook to the NAS were responding within 5ms. Copying files from Finder were also slower than I'd expect - a Windows machine on the same wifi network could browse to and get a directory listing of the same folder on the NAS within 10 seconds whereas the MacBook would struggle to get it within a minute, if it worked at all.
I tested wired connection instead - this worked a little better - but just decreased the 'stutters' rather than eradicating them.
The steps that seemed to have worked around the problem:
[LIST=1]
Seagate Central Dashboard
[*]Log on to the Web GUI front end of the Seagate Central NAS
[*]Go to Services
Seagate Central App
[*]Disable iTunes
Seagate Driver For Mac
[*]Restart NAS and iTunes.
[/LIST]
This seems to have stopped the issue this side so far; fingers crossed. I suspect that there's some form of conflict between how the newer versions of iTunes interact with the library files, and Seagate Central attempting to do the same thing.
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I give no guarantees that that will sort your issue out - and naturally, if you rely on using shared library functionality provided by Seagate over Apple's own then that's not for you... no warranty on the suitability of this - just something that I've found whilst trying to troubleshoot my own problem.
Seagate For Mac And Pc
Dec 31, 2013 4:57 AM
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