One of the quickest ways your mobile devices can be filled up is with video. Since the average file can be 1GB or more, I was looking for some way to carry all those files without bloating my iPad. I found the best product, the Seagate Wireless Plus.
The Seagate is basically a USB 3.0 1TB portable hard drive with the added bonus of hosting a wireless
network. The beauty is the simplicity of connecting the drive with USB to your computer and the ability to copy video and audio files to it without the need for any additional software like iTunes.
This allows fast transfer of single files or just drag over entire folders, it holds 1TB (1000GB) which compared to even the largest 128GB iPad is huge. Since its USB you can move it from computer to computer copying files to it and organizing it in any hierarchy you want. We like to create separate folders for TV, Movies and Trailers. Also keep in mind the you will still need media to be iPad compatible. It does not allow non Apple approved media to play such as WMV. So be sure to keep videos as MP4 and audio as MP3.
From these pictures you might notice to attach the USB cable a small interface needs to be attached. This is easily done by pulling off the protective cover and pushing on the USB attachment. Very easy to do, but it does add a few more items to carry. Here is a picture of the side of the drive, showing the interface and USB attachment next to it.
The Seagate drive has an internal battery that needs charging to power its Wi-Fi network. The battery is slowly charged when connected to your computer or much faster when using the supplied USB AC adapter. While charging you can leave the USB attachment on or off.
The next step is to install the free SeagateMedia App for iOS and Android that allows you to browse the drive’s files.
Now press the power button on the Seagate drive and when you browse wireless networks you should see a new Seagate Wi-Fi that is unlocked.
When you connect to it and launch the app you can browse the contents of your drive by touching the top explorer and choosing the Seagate instead of your local device.
Then you see the contents of the drive.
I like to choose Folder view otherwise your files will be very difficult to navigate if you have more than a handful.
You can navigate to any MP4 and touch it to play full screen like any other app. Since the files are locally being streamed to you, quality looks great and theres no buffering or skipping frames as sometimes happens when the source is on the Internet. While using the app its easy to forget the media is on another device, it just feels transparent and your device got a huge boost in storage.
Its great for public transport too when you might not have outside Internet. Just carry the lightweight drive in your backpack, once its turned on you don’t really need to access it again. A really cool feature is you can even turn it off from the app, no need to open your bag and look for the drive.
What if you suddenly need to access the Internet? No problem, just click the Wi-Fi icon to choose your original Wi-Fi and then you can access the drive AND external Internet. A very cool feature indeed.
They didn’t forget about your security as well. When you are in a public place, the drive can be accessed by 8 people simultaneously, anyone who connects including strangers can browse too. For that reason you can change the name of the drive and even set a password to limit access.
Highly recommended, check it out now Seagate Wireless
