Seagate GoFlex Satellite user reviews

Pros Slightly better than having no external drive at all, but only just.

Cons The WiFi connection is not fast enough when trying to play HD movie content, the picture & sound keep stalling, with no sign of a buffer being used.
The free App does not remember what's on the drive and has to rebuild it's contents every time you go

Summary One of the most poorly software implemented products I have ever found. Barely usable in it's current build. Avoid it until some major rework is made.

Updated on Aug 22, 2011

The problems I have identified nearly all apply to the Goflex Media App for iPad/iPhone. I have found that the product works much better, including streaming of HD movies, when using Safari web browser, rather than the App itself.

Updated on May 28, 2012

*UPDATE* The new firmware makes the device very usable at last. Shame it wasn't this good to start with as they would have sold tons of them. Thumbs-up to Seagate who have stood by their product and have obviously invested heavily in improving it at no additional cost to purchasers.

Pros Portable, battery powered, far more storage space than competing products

Cons Buggy software, support staff unfamiliar with their own product

Summary When it worked, the Goflex Satellite was a good remedy for the limited storage space on my iPad and iPhone. Unfortunately, both the app and the web interface were plagued with database issues. The few occasions that the list of files stored on the drive ever updated at all, it was very slow to weed through the drive's contents.
The last time I tried to use it, the app displayed nothing on the drive. The web interface at least indicated that it was trying to refresh the database. After hours of waiting, I tried reinstalling the firmware to no avail. I finally gave up and made the mistake of formatting the drive and reloading the firmware BIN file.
Thanks to a Google search (and no warning in the manual) I discovered that formatting the drive deleted a piece of software responsible for extracting and installing the firmware. The web post said that due to encryption in this piece of software, Seagate could not make a replacement available on its website for download, but to contact tech support directly to get another copy of the extraction software.
I contacted tech support and 'Todd' insisted that contrary to the post on their own support forums, there is no other software necessary to extract and install the .BIN firmware, that all one needs to do is drag the firmware file to the root directory, unplug and reboot. I tried this multiple times and the firmware never extracts. When I plug back into the PC, the only thing on the drive is the firmware file - so nothing got extracted/installed.
I freely admit I screwed up by formatting the drive without first backing up the original files/folders, however it would be nice if Seagate would try to ensure that their support techs were at least as familiar with the product as the novice users who post on their support forums.
Since I'm always working during Seagate's phone contact hours, and 'Todd' insists it should just work, I'm left with nothing more than an overpriced USB hard drive.

Updated on Mar 20, 2012

Change my rating to 4 stars. I was finally contacted by another support technician who advised trying a second format/firmware update. Seems to work now.

Pros User friendly interface, Good WiFi streaming with my iPad or iPhone.

Cons Extremely poor battery life, Need to attach adapter to connect to USB, USB cable is unique to this product. Charging cable also unique to this product.

Summary This drive performs very well with my iPad and iPhone. I "upgraded" to this from an Airstash which worked pretty well with my iPad, not at all with my iPhone, and was limited to max 32 GB SD cards so if you wanted to take a lot of movies with you required quite a few cards as well. I thought this was a solution and it would have been were it not for the lousy battery life. I fully charged this drive right out of the box and transferred some videos. After a full charge I watched about one hour of a movie and then shut it off. The next morning I turned the unit back on to watch the rest of the movie and the battery was almost depleted. That is in my opinion just ridiculous and makes it useless for any flight lasting over an hour or so. My Airstash lasted WAY longer.
Adding to the problem is the charging cable which unlike most things these days is unique to this drive instead of having let's say a micro USB port to charge with. So this is one more cable and charger you have to carry around when you travel.
Thirdly, in order to transfer files from your computer, again instead of a standard or micro USB port there is a clumsy looking adapter which has to be plugged into the end of the drive after removing a cover which looks like it would be very easy to break. This adapter comes with a detachable cable and again this cable is unique to the product. The third thing for me is no big deal since I only use this to watch movies, but if you are using this to travel with other types of files and need to transfer files in multiple places, then this is another cable and adapter to carry. The drive will charge off of it's USB connection. I just don't see why Seagate could not just put a standard or micro-USB port on the unit for charging and file transfer like the Airstash.
Overall, I found the Goflex a great performer in terms of actual streaming of media and the user interface was also great, but poor battery life and the lack of cross-compatible cables for file transfer and charging limit it's usefulness for the traveler.

Pros Easy to attach to the drive and have alll my movies and other stuff I cudn't take along before

Cons For movies its perfect, but I wait for upgrade for music to be more like itunes!