Introduction
The surging popularity of mobile devices combined with a growing number of consumer products with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity explain why manufacturers are heating up to the concept of wireless, autonomous, portable storage drives that can be carried in your jean's back pocket.
Seagate's second generation Wireless Plus HDD is one of the very few on the market to offer 2TB storage, with Wi-Fi connectivity and a rechargeable battery. 2TB is the highest capacity on the market, in a laptop-friendly 2.5-inch form factor.
The STCV2000200 is also available in 1TB and 500GB versions and is covered by a two year warranty.
You can only order the drive from a handful of online retailers and as expected, you will be charged a tidy sum, just under £200 (about US$320, AU$350).
It is not as expensive as one might expect and although Seagate's own 2TB HDD, a 2TB Expansion model, can be had for less than £80 (abound US$140, around AU$150), adding wireless and autonomous features would make that drive both clunky, bulkier and way more expensive.
Design
The drive has been shipped in a well-designed sturdy box, the type we're accustomed to see housing premium smartphones. A tiny detail but one that shows Seagate's level of commitment. After all, the profit margins on these devices is much higher than on stand-alone hard drives and if it can sell more of these, then it's much better for it's bottom line.
Other than the drive, Seagate bundled a 50cm (20-inch) USB 3.0 cable, a 10W wall charger with 3 interchangeable plugs and a quick start guide.
The Seagate Wireless Plus 2TB is 127mm (l) x 89mm (w) x 21mm (d) (5 x 3.5 x 0.85 inch) and weighs a mere 272g (9.6oz).
It's slightly lighter and thinner than a 3.5-inch HDD and smaller on the x-and-y axes. Which is genuinely impressive given that the enclosure packs the drive itself, the USB-B connector (and related components), a battery and Wi-Fi electronics.
The drive feels solid. Other than the Seagate logo on the brush-metallic plastic front, it has four rubber feet, two LED indicators (power and Wi-Fi), a power button and a USB connector.
Specifications and benchmarks
Strictly speaking, the Wireless Plus drive doesn't use a Seagate hard drive because the company has yet to officially announce a 2TB 2.5-inch model.
Instead, it uses a Samsung SpinPoint M9T HDD (Seagate purchased the storage division of Samsung not so long ago).
The M9T is a 9mm model with a 5400RPM spinning speed, three 667GB platters, 32MB cache and rated latency and power consumption of 5.6ms and 2.3W respectively.
The manufacturer claims that the portable HDD should deliver up to 10 hours which is pretty spectacular but ultimately depends on usage. You can charge it via a PC while transferring files to it, which is pretty handy, but it will take much longer to fully charge it.
Seagate quotes three hours when connected to the wall plug and nine hours when connected to a USB 3.0 and in idle mode.
Benchmark
The Seagate Wireless Plus generally fared better than the comparable LaCie Fuel 2TB or the Samsung Wireless 1TB. It scored 2125 points on Futuremark's PC Mark 8 synthetic benchmark, higher than either.
The time it took to complete the 10 components of the benchmark suite ranged from 26.9 seconds (Microsoft PowerPoint) to 489.2s (Adobe Photoshop – heavy duty).
Keys: WoW = World of Warcraft, BF3 = Battlefield 3, PS L = Photoshop Light, PS H = Photoshop Heavy, ID = Indesign, AE = After effects, Ill = Illustrator, all times are in seconds, shorter is better.
Features
You can connect the Seagate Wireless Plus to the internet and then share that internet connection with up to seven devices.
You can also share content stored on it with up to eight devices with a range of up to about 40m (line of sight). Users can stream pretty much everything from it.
I managed to get 3 different HD movies to 3 devices simultaneously without any hiccups thank to its native 802.11n connectivity. The drive was within a 2m (6ft) range from the three devices and the content was accessed using Seagate's own free media app (available for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and Windows 8/RT – but not Windows Phone 8).
You can also access the content of the hard drive – which is not password-protected by default - via the device's web browser. The app can also be used to back up your files without using a PC.
Wireless Plus can sync with your Dropbox or Google Drive automatically when connected, acting as a massive buffer. Seagate has judiciously added AirPlay and DLNA compatibility to the product which allows you to stream the content of the drive straight to an external display.
Setting it up was pretty straightforward and intuitive, the setup guide being rarely used. You can also use a SAMBA-compatible app to access the files in the hard drive.
Verdict
We liked
The conservative design and how small the Seagate Wireless Plus is an attractive feature for those who want to take their data with them on the go. I was also impressed its storage capacity, the long battery life and how easy it was to connect.
We disliked
The confusing power button (which isn't actually a power button). It also lacks a clear power indicator to show how much battery life is left. Right now, a red solid colour means 20% battery life remaining, orange means less than 90% left and green, more than 90%.
Verdict
If money is no object, then this is probably the best wireless autonomous storage device on the market. It is elegant, has tons of storage and a battery life that is superior to almost all of its competitors.
I would have wanted a proper on/off button as well as a USB port to use it as a charger for a mobile device, but that might be a step too far. One thing to bear in mind though is that 2TB is a lot of data to lose, so I'd encourage you to regularly back up its contents or use it as a transient storage device.
James Potter