Personal Cloud 2-Bay 8TB
Cover your household’s backup and storage needs with a single drive
These days, network drives offer far more than just storage. Look beyond this one’s slab-like case and you’ll find that while it lacks some top-end features, it has enough functionality to satisfy most folk.
The 8TB of storage comes from two 4TB drives, set as a RAID 1 array by default. This halves the usable storage, but increases read speeds and gives redundancy against one drive failing. While you can switch to the full 8TB, consider that the USB ports offer expansion options, alongside sharing a printer. Write speeds are par for the course at around 12MB/sec, and the mirrored array read at up to 85MB/sec.
User-friendly configuration tools are presented in your web browser, and they’re easy to use – just flick a switch to enable access to your files over the internet, for example. The drive flawlessly supports core Mac services, including an iTunes audio server and Time Machine, and a
Personal Cloud is a versatile and reliable network storage solution that covers most people’s needs.
limited range of third-party services, including BitTorrent Sync and Plex, extends its capabilities. Mac and iOS apps provide access to files. Both do the job, but don’t pull up any trees.
Sub-par apps aside, Seagate’s solution hits the spot with a combo of good core functionality, reasonable performance and fussfree setup. Nick Peers