Tech Olive

Having your important data becoming remotely accessible can be a chore for some and just setting up a simple home network storage drive can be tasking. You could spend hundreds and maybe thousands of dollars on a NAS device to remedy your woes, but we all know that’s not a viable option for most home users. Seagate recently came out with a small device that basically makes any external hard drive accessible on your home network and beyond. Not only that, but the process is insanely easy.

The DockStar uses PogoPlug technology, which makes sharing USB storage devices over the internet straightforward through an online interface. Simply connect the DockStar to your router using the included ethernet cable as well as plugging in the AC adapter. All you have to do now is plop your FreeAgent Go drive onto the dock (or any USB drive into the extra USB ports) and activate your DockStar on PogoPlug’s website. You’re now ready to access your files from anywhere using a simple username and password login. One cool feature that we like is sharing your files with someone else, which is as easy as sending an email with a link to your shared files.

The $100 price tag includes a year of free PogoPlug service, but you’ll have to dish out $30 a year after that for remote access. If you decide you don’t want to pay that kind of money, you can still use the DockStar for your home network, but you won’t be getting any remote access capabilities. We can’t quite justify why Seagate would charge a yearly subscription, since a basic PogoPlug adapter is the same price as the DockStar and doesn’t even have a subscription fee.

This brings us to something else that seemed odd. We couldn’t find a way to access DockStar-mounted drives directly on the home network. While you can still access the drive via a local PC, you’re really only accessing it through the online service rather than directly connecting to it, which seems extremely illogical.

The DockStar is really only a great device for the non-tech junkies who want it easy and don’t mind spending yearly subscriptions on things that don’t really need yearly subscriptions. Otherwise, for us geeks, it would probably be better to just grab a regular PogoPlug adapter or go all out and get a NAS box.

Score: 7 Olives