Usage:
We wanted to test the drive speeds with the USB 3.0 connection and came up with what you see above. It is definitely not the fastest drive out there, but that is not the major factor with this drive. WiFi and streaming to multiple devices is the real key to success for this drive. It may just take a little longer to sync your media, but “oh well.”
Located on their site are a lot of files you can easily download if you lose your original files or reformat your drive. You also get the firmware update from here as well, which you can see 2nd from the top.
Once everything had finished updating, we checked our network lists and found the GoFlex drive. We selected it and got connected right away.
Once connected to the Satellite drive, we were greeted with this nice looking user interface. We took screen shots from our laptop and our phone app’s. As you can see, both user interfaces look nice and are easy to navigate.
Under the Settings tab, you will get all the above options. We decided to put a password on our drive so that people can’t just take all our goodies, not that we have anything on there yet.
Setting a password is easy, as you can see above. Just enter your password once and you are good to go, hopefully you enter it correctly. If not, then you can restore the device.
Above, we are streaming on our devices and checking to make sure the Satellite does not lag and can handle 3 devices streaming all at once with our HD movie. We decided to watch Captain America, because what is better than Captain America? Answer: Captain America on three devices surrounding you at once, that’s what! The Satellite did a great job of keeping all the devices streaming without any problems.
We had two devices streaming Captain America and one streaming music without any lag what-so-ever. We also read in another review online that this device could not stream different movies at once, which we thought was ridiculous. We tested it out and found out that those reviewers were “full of it” and must not have tested it properly as we watched Captain American and Battle: Los Angeles at the same time. We were relieved to find out that we are right and the other site was wrong … we love it when that happens!
Then we tested streaming three movies on three devices to see if the Satellite could handle it, which is could. We think we saw one little hiccup in the two plus hours of watching the three movies, but that is great news to us!
Battery Usage:
While doing our tests, we kept our eye on the battery usage for the Satellite. We found that:
- Red low battery LED was on for about an hour to an hour and half before our Satellite died.
- Charging the the battery from dead to 100% took about three and half hours.
- Battery from 100% to dead, while streaming the whole time, took about four and half hours.
Conclusion:
The Seagate Satellite wireless storage device was great to play with in our testing. It was easy to setup and easy to connect to all our devices. Streaming was fast to our devices and had very little load time once you selected your media to play or watch. The 500GB hard drive used in the Satellite is a nice size and handles what the Satellite is meant to do. Since it is wireless and only about 5-7 hours of battery life, there is no real reason to have massive 2 or 3TB drives. To get any good use out of those, you would need to be plugged into a power outlet and this would defeat the purpose of what Seagate is going for.
There are, however, a few things we should point out that you may not like. When connected to the Satellite drive, you will not be able to use the Internet per your own wifi, as the Satellite does not act like a bridge. If you want to use the Internet, you will need to disconnect from the Satellite and connect back to your wifi. This does not seem to be a huge issue as you most likely will not be surfing the web or anything while you are streaming a movie. Plus, you will probably be using this when there is no other wifi around, like in a car on a road trip or in a building with no wifi – or at least not unsecured WiFi.
Once you get your Satellite, you will probably need to update the firmware, as we had to. Why? Well, glad you asked, because we are about to tell you! With the firmware that showed up on our sample, our iPhone 4s could not use the app. We logged in on it before we updated the firmware and all our navigation was grayed out. Once we updated, we were good-to-go with enjoying everything we loaded on the Satellite. Also, before we updated, we tried to connect four devices and were shut down. We thought to ourselves … “hmmm did Seagate lie to us on their website about 8 devices?” … Nope, come to find out, the original firmware only allows three devices at once, while the new firmware adds five more and giving you the eight total devices!
The Seagate Satellite is a great thing to have around the house to connect to easily and watch movies or listen to music. It is even greater to have on long road trips where you can get about 2 full movies out of it before it needs to be charged. This gives you plenty of versatility to help keep your kids under control while all in the car, even if you are not on a long road trip.
The Seagate Satellite Mobile Wireless Storage Drive receives the Techreaction.net Gold Silicon Award!
For more information on the Satellite or other Seagate products, please visit their website.
3 Comments
@ JOE …. gonna break this down for you ….
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How many devices (and types of devices) were used to connect to it?
It would be nice to seen more on connection with:
- iPads (all supported versions and with different iOS versions) to be connected
- iPhones (all supported versions and again with different iOS versions)
- iPods
- Android phones (with versions ranging from 2.1 on)
- Android Tablets (with versions ranging 2.2 on)
- The Kindle, the Nook (which have specialized Android devices)
- non-phone Android devices (TV’s etc)
- ANYTHING else that can talk to it. It would be awesome if a camera could use it.
Does it work with Macs, PCs , Linux machines (through WiFi)? If so what OS versions?
Can it connect to Blackberry devices?
Can the Apple TV or other streaming devices use it?
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We has a total of 5 devices at one time connected to it. 3 phones, laptop, ipad.
dont have all versions of iphones or ipads to test with.
dont use ipods, as long as they have WiFi connectivity and a web browser they have a chance of working.
only had one android phone (the S3 mentioned)
no android tablet
no kindle or nook
cameras cant use it
yes it works with macs and PCs … look at the pics and review please. Linux – not sure. Yes wifi or USB.
dont have a blackberry device
dont have apple TV
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Also can the device be plugged in somehow. ie can it have a USB capable device (laptop, car charger, car radio, external battery, etc…) power the drive?
Can a device be connected to the internet (via 3G, 4G) and still see the drive?
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yes it can be powered by anything with USB charging capabilities.
no its in the review … please read
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1- LIMITED STORAGE. 500GB is a good amount but it may not be enough (even if it can only be use 4 hours at a time) because it is ALL the storage that is portable. If you want to carry multiple movies for a trip for multiple people with different tastes (let say adults, teenagers, and kids) then variety is what is needed and 500GB can be killed in a jiffy as it is split (in this case only 3 way, and if you take sex in consideration that is 6 ways). Also how about songs, pictures, books, and possibly games downloaded to it. Or in case of business, presentations, drawings, spreadsheets, tutorials. 500GB can be filled by anyone so easy. If this is mobile that means you are trying to take everything with you and 500GB is definitely not enough. The battery may last only 5 hours but it can be charge by ANY outlet. The data may no be accessible for days (or weeks). What if you go on a 7 day cruise? No internet access, no phone access this device could be a great way to have things accessible to the whole family but at 500GB it would still be limited. 3 TB may not be enough.
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true I agree it can be limited with the 500gb size if you were on a trip for 7 days and that type of situation. However, I would hope you would pull your head out of your ass and realize what you will get out of 500GB and dont buy it and expect 3TB storage from it. It is a niche device and seagate would not of made it if they did not feel it would be useful for some people. If you need 3TB of storage on a cruise just bring your external storage device – that is what they are for.
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2- WiFi exclusivity. What if you want to transfer something from the network to the device. Lets say you are Starbucks and want to transfer a movie to it. Oh well you are SOL. Or if you want to store more books on your Kindle can the Kindle use it as additional storage? What if you are using the device to connect to a PC connected to WiFi and wanted to save the files in the drive?
Is the battery removable? How big is the battery? How is the battery charged? Does it come with a charger? Will a bigger charger charge the battery faster?
You talk about the size how about the weight?
How durable is it? Can it survive a drop?
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not sure on kindle as we do not have one.
if its connected to the PC use the supplied software to transfer files – in the review
no battery is not removable – thats why we cant answer the other questions
a bigger charger? like a wall charger?
battery charged by USB, car charger, or wall charger – in the review again
yes comes with charger – once again in the review
weight about a pound or 2
seems durable enough – not going to break it to find out.
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How much advertising or how much $$ to buy a techreaction.net award?
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and you can go fuck yourself with that comment. IF we got paid we would have more money to buy gadgets to test with – dont ya think?
This review is very, very thin.
How many devices (and types of devices) were used to connect to it?
It would be nice to seen more on connection with:
- iPads (all supported versions and with different iOS versions) to be connected
- iPhones (all supported versions and again with different iOS versions)
- iPods
- Android phones (with versions ranging from 2.1 on)
- Android Tablets (with versions ranging 2.2 on)
- The Kindle, the Nook (which have specialized Android devices)
- non-phone Android devices (TV’s etc)
- ANYTHING else that can talk to it. It would be awesome if a camera could use it.
Does it work with Macs, PCs , Linux machines (through WiFi)? If so what OS versions?
Can it connect to Blackberry devices?
Can the Apple TV or other streaming devices use it?
Does it use any standards?
Also can the device be plugged in somehow. ie can it have a USB capable device (laptop, car charger, car radio, external battery, etc…) power the drive?
Can a device be connected to the internet (via 3G, 4G) and still see the drive?
Also, the author’s complacency on the downfalls of the device shows lack of imagination on the use of mass storage.
1- LIMITED STORAGE. 500GB is a good amount but it may not be enough (even if it can only be use 4 hours at a time) because it is ALL the storage that is portable. If you want to carry multiple movies for a trip for multiple people with different tastes (let say adults, teenagers, and kids) then variety is what is needed and 500GB can be killed in a jiffy as it is split (in this case only 3 way, and if you take sex in consideration that is 6 ways). Also how about songs, pictures, books, and possibly games downloaded to it. Or in case of business, presentations, drawings, spreadsheets, tutorials. 500GB can be filled by anyone so easy. If this is mobile that means you are trying to take everything with you and 500GB is definitely not enough. The battery may last only 5 hours but it can be charge by ANY outlet. The data may no be accessible for days (or weeks). What if you go on a 7 day cruise? No internet access, no phone access this device could be a great way to have things accessible to the whole family but at 500GB it would still be limited. 3 TB may not be enough.
2- WiFi exclusivity. What if you want to transfer something from the network to the device. Lets say you are Starbucks and want to transfer a movie to it. Oh well you are SOL. Or if you want to store more books on your Kindle can the Kindle use it as additional storage? What if you are using the device to connect to a PC connected to WiFi and wanted to save the files in the drive?
Is the battery removable? How big is the battery? How is the battery charged? Does it come with a charger? Will a bigger charger charge the battery faster?
You talk about the size how about the weight?
How durable is it? Can it survive a drop?
How much advertising or how much $$ to buy a techreaction.net award?
does this product stream to android devices aswell? or only apple is supported? does it work with smart tvs?
regards!