Seagate Personal Cloud 2-Bay (8TB)
For those with simple needs.
One of the older products in our review, the Seagate has a place for people looking for more value from their NAS. At around $500 with two 4TB drives pre-installed, the Seagate is less expensive than several of the diskless NASs here.
It’s also a nice looking device, with a sealed black case arranged horizontally, suitable for placement anywhere in the home, including the loungeroom.
Of course, the lower price entails a lot of compromises. Seagate doesn’t specify the processor or memory, but its performance figures suggest something considerably less powerful than the other devices here.
There’s only a single USB port and single Ethernet port for connectivity. It uses Seagate’s NAS OS, which is in line with Netgear and WD’s offerings, a simple and elegant tabbed interface that doesn’t offer a huge amount in the way of services and third-party add-ons, but instead offers straightforward solutions for people looking primarily for file and media services as well as backup and sync. It does have a few key apps you can install — including a surveillance manager, Plex, free antivirus, BitTorrent Sync and WordPress.
The mobile and desktop apps for access to the NAS are very well made, perfect for people who just want a ‘plug it in, install an app and go’ NAS. And that’s the kind of device this is; it’s not made for power users looking for fine control and extensive services and apps — it’s for people who just need the core NAS services in a nice, affordable box with easy-to-use mobile and desktop apps to get them going.