Seagate Launches Wireless Plus External Drives

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Here are three ways to back up your mobile device files.

On Tuesday, Seagate Technology announced that its Seagate Wireless Plus line of mobile device storage products now includes three capacities: 500 GB for $149.99, 1 TB for $179.99 and 2 TB for $199.99. The two larger drives are available now, and the 500 GB model will be made available on May 9.

In addition to the capacities, this series also allows users to sync their stored files on the drive with popular cloud storage solutions like Dropbox and Google Drive. The Seagate Media application will create a Dropbox or Google Drive folder on the portable drive and upload the data to the cloud storage accounts once the device jumps back on the network.

"Cloud storage services provide a convenient way for people to migrate files between devices and share with friends and colleagues," said Scott Horn, vice president of global marketing for Seagate. "With the new Seagate Media app and Wireless Plus mobile storage, people will now be enabled to use these cloud services to access even more media from their Wireless Plus storage device."

As with other wireless hard drives, the Seagate Wireless Plus has its own "personal" wireless connectivity, acting like an access point for laptops, smartphones, tablets and other Wi-Fi enabled devices. The Seagate Media app serves as an interface, allowing users to manage their files from mobile devices. This app is available for Android, iOS, the Kindle Fire HD tablets, and Windows 8.

In addition to the wireless connectivity, these external hard drives also provide a USB 3.0 port for quickly transferring large files, and a rechargeable battery promising up to 10 hours on a single charge. The device can also handle up to eight simultaneous connections, has a range up to 150 feet, and works with Apple Airplay, DLNA devices, Samsung Smart TVs and Blu-ray players.

For more information about the Wireless Plus series, head here. As previously mentioned, the two larger drives are available now, and the 500 GB version won't be available until Friday, although customers can pre-purchase the smaller drive starting today.

Kevin Parrish
3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • eBoyDog
    This sounds like it might have great potential esp as it appears to be based on open source.
    Reply
  • game junky
    Will have to check this one out at the local BB - being able to stream content to my iPad while stuck in an airport would be pretty ba. I know the first round of these drives got a luke warm reception because you couldn't connect to both your wifi network and your drive's wireless network simultaneously, will be interested to see if this is still the case
    Reply
  • Tanquen
    A new Wi-Fi device and they don't tell you what Wi-Fi it supports. Wow, just wow. Not even on the spec sheet from their site. There is a reference to the USB 3.0 being X number of times faster than 802.11N so I guess it's N? Like when you look at laptops and they don't show the screen res. ??? It 17", you like, it good. But what is the res? It 17", you like.
    Reply