From solid state to corporate storage to home media servers, Seagate offers solutions for all situations and has done so shipping over 1 billion drives. In addition to producing quality hardware, the company prides itself on delivering proprietary software for all of its products. Continuing a full-service tradition for home networked solutions, the GoFlex Home Network Storage System is an all-in-one option for the tech savvy.
- App Store
- Goflex Home Sign In
- Seagate Freeagent Goflex Home Software Windows 10
- Goflex Home Software Mac
Design
The GoFlex Home is designed to work with Seagate’s GoFlex line of external desktop hard drives. The drive docks into the top of the networked cradle, which hosts a power/reset button, CAT5 ethernet port and USB. Two front indicator LEDs help to easily keep tabs on network activity and power supply. It is important to note that the cradle is not WiFi compatible – it must be directly hardwired to a router.
https://brownworx751.weebly.com/blog/how-to-setup-the-mail-app-in-mac. Internal design is also important, as the file structure is Mac/PC compatible out-of-the-box and the whole GoFlex line offers the same convenient easy to use format.
The Seagate GoFlex system is intended to be flexible so that drives can be swapped between GoFlex Home and GoFlex Desk and that works fine for drives up to 2TB. Seagate's little secret, is that for drives larger than 2TB the GoFlex Desk adapter changes the sector size to 4096 bytes, but when connected directly with SATA, like in the GoFlex Home. There is a GoFlex app for the Mac which includes an information tab, a drive test, and the ability to disable the activity lights on the drive. I cannot imagine why you would want to do that. Seagate’s GoFlex series has a few extra tricks. The most distinctive is that the interface is removable, which means you are not restricted to the usual.
Network
The GoFlex Home is designed solely as a network solution, and setup was fairly straight forward. The included 5 step quick start guide had me up and running in roughly 10 minutes. As the drive is hardwired to your home router, it is accessible on up to 3 PCs or Macs (additional licenses may be purchased), game consoles, Seagate’s own GoFlex TV HD, and on iOS using a companion app.
Function
The drive is easily added as mounted storage for OS X. This is different from a standard USB hard drive because the GoFlex Home is always conveniently available via the network connection. Once mounted, interacting with the network drive is exactly the same as working with attached USB storage devices.
Internally, the folder structure has three main folder systems. Home Public is a folder than all users can access, making it the perfect location for family media libraries or other shared content, Home Personal is for individual user access only, and Home Backup (Time Machine compatible) is intended to be utilized for, well, backups! The functionality of these default folders is predetermined, but similar folder functionality can be controlled via the SeagateShare.com Dashboard.
The SeagateShare Dashboard (the desktop client is only Windows compatible) is the interface for storage management and sharing stored content. Wunderlist mac productivity apps. By creating “Share” folders in the Dashboard, the user can then invite others to view the content utilizing a built-in sharing system. If necessary, a limited time frame can be used to deny access after a certain period of time. In addition to managing shared folders and invitations, the Dashboard also manages access to and from connected network media devices such as gaming consoles.
The hardware also has a few tricks of its own. If having an up to 3TB GoFlex Home drive proves to be inadequate, the USB port will accommodate an additional hard drive. The USB port can also be used to attach a printer, automatically transforming it into a shared network printer. If that isn’t enough, a premium service is offered on a monthly payment plan that links with services like Tivo, Facebook, Flickr, and more.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134151517/493206713.jpg)
GoFlex Access App for iOS
The GoFlex Access app (free, iTunes Link) allows Dropbox-like access to the hard drive from anywhere in the world, assuming internet connectivity. If you have a large amount of video or music, you could free up space on your iPhone and access your content over the air with GoFlex Access. The app boasts a built-in media player, and it is even AirPlay compatible!
In addition to music and videos, the app will present photos individually or cycle through in a slideshow-like manner. While you’re at it, you might just want to take a picture and store it in your GoFlex Picture folder. The GoFlex Access app uses the built in iOS camera to directly upload photos and videos to your networked drive.
Similar functionality is possible using networked gaming consoles. Once the GoFlex Home was up and running, my PS3 had no trouble automatically connecting. The complete file structure was viewable from the PS3, and pictures, music, and movies were all accessible.
Conclusion [rating: 4/5]
It is frustrating that the desktop Dashboard client is not OS X compatible, and there is no option to email a direct link to share content, which is a pesky oversight (and one feature where Drobox has the edge). Also, when receiving a photo album on the shared end of the Dashboard, the experience is less than intuitive. Overall, though, the benefits of the system outweigh the oversights.
The GoFlex Home Network Storage System (1TB $159.99, 2TB $189.99, 3TB $239.99) is must-have full-function storage solution. Combining the ability to store and consume content, the GoFlex Home is a well-rounded, practical, and useful addition to the connected home. Playing, viewing, and using files from the drive on an iOS device makes the GoFlex Home a complete solution for the user-on-the-go.
Pros
- Easy set up and installation. Quick Start Guide was easily understandable
- Accesible from any internet connected device (including the PS3)
- Networked Time Machine access is great for keeping current backups
- GoFlex Access app is simple and adds to the experience
- USB allows additional storage or network printer sharing
Cons
- Desktop client is not OS X compatible
- Only 5 computer licenses are included (more can be purchased from Seagate)
- Sharing folders and individual files is only possible from the Dashboard
- Mouse cursor kept disappearing on the .com Dashboard
OK, so it doesn't have a display or input devices like a mouse or keyboard, but it does have it's own Linux Operating System in 256 MB NAND flash storage, 128MB RAM and I/O ports (gigabit ethernet, SATA and USB).
Since it doesn't have input devices or a display, if you want to run operating system commands then you need another computer and a way to connect and that's where Secure Shell or SSH comes in.
To send commands to the GoFlex Home with SSH, you need a client application on the remote PC. For Windows machines you can use PuTTY. For UNIX machines like Mac OS and Linux you can use the inbuilt 'Terminal' application.
Update: Android now has an excellent SSH client app: JuiceSSH is full featured and works brilliantly.
I usually just link to the Open Stora wiki pages Easy Root Access but I've leaned not to rely on external sites. The guys at Open Stora do a fantastic job but apart from their time, hosting the site costs money, so there's no guarantee that it will always be there. There's a lot of very useful information on their site and well worth a look.
Update: sadly, it looks like the OpenStora website is no longer accessible.
Anyway, since most people use Windows I'll talk about PuTTY, but the process is pretty much the same using terminal or any client app.
Accessing the firmware let's you do all kinds of things you can't do otherwise but it can also be potentially data destructive so you should read my disclaimer before you start.
![Home Home](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134151517/680777819.jpeg)
You can download PuTTY from here.
Note: Windows 10 now has an inbuilt SSH client - see link below for more details, but I'll keep using PuTTY.
https://www.howtogeek.com/336775/how-to-enable-and-use-windows-10s-built-in-ssh-commands/
In the Host Name (or IP Address) field enter
USERNAME_hipserv2_seagateplug_XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX@YOUR_IP_ADDRESS
Where USERNAME is the user name of an administrator account on your GoFlex Home.
XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX is your 16-digit product key which you can find on a label on the base of your GoFlex Home. You can also get it by clicking the About GoFlex Home link in the bottom left corner of the Seagateshare web page.
Make sure you use hyphens between the 4-digit blocks of the product key and underscores everywhere else.
Update: If you have reflashed with the firmware I made available for download then the 'Product Code' is
AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD
YOUR_IP_ADDRESS is the IP address of your GoFlex Home on your LAN, something like 192.168.0.6 or 10.0.0.6 depending on your router.
Make sure the Connection Type radio button is set to SSH and the Port number should default to 22.
You might want to save the settings so you don't have to enter them again next time, then click Open and a connection window will pop-up and ask for your password.
Note that nothing happens as you type your password but when you hit enter it will validate and log you in.
To access the root file system and run commands you need to become root or superuser, so enter
sudo -s
It will ask for your password again and might also give you the standard warning;
App Store
Goflex Home Sign In
Password is the user name of an administrator account on your GoFlex Home, same as before.
You will get the message audit_log_user_command(): Connection refused but ignore that. The bash prompt changes from bash-3.2$ to bash-3.2# which means you are now superuser.