INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Whether you just want to share data with everyone in your house or the office or if you just want your data to be accessible from anywhere on the planet owning a NAS (network attached storage) device is the easy way out. Unfortunately there aren't currently many solutions in the market targeted towards home users so even the most entry-level NAS servers require quite a few steps to be taken prior to actually using them and if you're not into computers that might be hard. Seagate is one of the very first manufacturers to think of that back in 2013 when they introduced a very basic NAS aimed towards home users which they named the Central (suitable name for a device in which you can store all your media files and access them from anywhere). It wasn't however until last year when they introduced the more "advanced" Personal Cloud and Personal Cloud Pro (2-Bay) models again aimed at home users and today with us we have the 4TB model.

   Founded in 1979, Seagate is the leading provider of hard drives and storage solutions. From the videos, music and documents we share with friends and family on social networks, to servers that form the backbone of enterprise data centers and cloud-based computing, to desktop and notebook computers that fuel our personal productivity, Seagate products help more people store, share and protect their valuable digital content. Seagate offers the industry’s broadest portfolio of hard disk drives, solid-state drives and solid-state hybrid drives. In addition, the company offers an extensive line of retail storage products for consumers and small businesses, along with data-recovery services for any brand of hard drive and digital media type. Seagate employs more than 50,000 people around the world.

   Unlike both the original Central and the Personal Cloud the Personal Cloud Pro by Seagate is a 2-Bay NAS device which is currently available in 3/4/5/6/8TB versions (no diskless version available) and its drives can be configured either in RAID 0 (increased performance) or RAID 1 (increased safety). Unfortunately using RAID 1 means you have half the advertised available capacity so our 4TB model actually goes down to 2TB with RAID 1 (prior to getting the device i was hoping Seagate had their Personal Cloud Pro devices configured only in RAID 1 for increased safety and thus the 4TB model would come with two 4TB drives inside). In terms of connectivity just like every other NAS in the market the Personal Cloud Pro connects to your local network via an 1GbE Ethernet RJ45 connector and since its main task is that of a media hub (can be used to stream media to smartphones, tablets, Roku, Google Chromecast, gaming consoles and smart TVs) it also features one USB 3.0 port and one USB 2.0 port on which you can connect external USB drives. Obviously as stated by its name the Personal Cloud Pro can also be used as a backup and sync device for mobile devices, PCs, and Macs both locally and on the cloud via a good number of compatible services (Amazon S3, Box, Baidu, Dropbox, Google Drive, HiDrive, and Yandex.Disk).

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The front of the box inside which the Personal Cloud Pro gets shipped has a small product image, the model name, number of bays and available drive capacity.

 

A few drawings placed on the left side showcase the devices which the Personal Cloud Pro can be used with.

 

 

A list of compatible software is placed on the opposite side.

 

 

All of the features are listed at the rear of the box in 11 languages.

 

 

Inside the box we see the Personal Cloud Pro placed between two plastic spacers and the rest of the bundle placed inside a 2nd cardboard box.

 

 

In terms of bundle Seagate hasn't placed much in the package so aside the Personal Cloud Pro and its power adapter (EU/UK plugs) we just see an Ethernet RJ45 cable and a quick start guide.

 

 

THE PERSONAL CLOUD PRO 4TB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2180g heavy plastic housing of the Personal Cloud Pro measures 235.15mm in width, 234mm in length and 48mm in height.

 

 

We placed the Personal Cloud Pro 2-Bay 4TB model right next to the Central 4TB and as you can see the difference in size (1 vs 2 HDDs) is quite large (in this review we will be testing both devices).

 

 

A white activity LED is placed at the top of the Personal Cloud Pro just over the company name.

 

 

The USB 3.0 port is placed on the far end of the right side of the device.

 

 

Moving at the rear the first thing you will notice are the two triangles placed on both ends (the right one is used to open the housing).

 

 

The left triangle is also the on/off power button and is placed right next to the DC power in, Gigabit Ethernet port and the USB 2.0 port.

 

 

At the perforated base of the NAS Seagate has placed four small rubber feet.

 

 

Opening the enclosure is far easier than we had expected (to open the Central you need to go through several steps) and as you can see inside we find two Seagate NAS 2TB HDDs (5900RPM/64MB Cache).

 

 

SETUP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The easiest way to setup the Personal Cloud Pro is to install the latest Seagate Dashboard software. Once run it you will list all the connected Seagate external drives and will give you a number of available backup options.

 

 

To head onto the web interface you can click on the Go To Seagate Personal Cloud 2 Bay link seen above.

 

 

Through the dashboard software you can also check the installed firmware version and the drive letter assigned onto the Personal Cloud Pro.

 

 

Once on the web interface you will be asked to agree to Seagate's terms and conditions and then the software automatically will download not one but two firmware updates (the 2nd slightly changes the design of the web interface along with the Seagate logo displayed).

 

 

Last stop before you can use the Personal Cloud Pro is to configure the drives and as you can all see by default these are configured in RAID 1.

 

 

WEB INTERFACE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main screen of the web interface has six pre-installed apps listed (plus two which you will need to download if you want to use them).

 

 

Through the device manager app you can check the overall used capacity of the drive, current users connected, add/remove user access, turn off/on the status light and check for FW updates.

 

 

You can click on the show advanced settings to gain access to other settings such as the customize menu from where you can configure available services, adjust network settings and setup the when you want your drives to spin down.

 

 

The maintenance menu includes the system monitor but it's really the storage menu which matters most since from here you can check the state of the drives and change between RAID 0 and RAID 1.

 

 

The download manager can be used to download files either from your devices onto the Personal Cloud Pro or files from the internet via direct links.

 

 

From within the app manager you can check the installed applications and also install others (all are displayed in the above picture).

 

 

I also used the file browser app and found it very fast and easy to use (yes even faster compared to what i see with the equivalent apps in full-sized NAS servers).

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY – PERFORMANCE RESULTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Originally we had decided that since some of the NAS servers/devices we've tested in the past are no longer in our possession (naturally) we would keep performing the exact same testing methodology we did in the past for as long as possible in order to provide accurate comparison results. However since our real-life tests are not enough for some people we also decided to throw in ATTO and Crystal Disk Mark to cover the more demanding users. However as always we will be using up to six Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB SATA III hard disk drive(s) with 3.5” compatible units and up to two (for now) Enterprise Capacity 2.5 HDD V3 2TB SATA III HDDs with 2.5” compatible units to perform several upload/download tests with 10.9GB (Single) and 40,8GB (RAID) files. Tests are repeated a total of 4 times after which we record the average numbers (from the 4 peak ones) into our charts. The network device used for 1GbE tests is the same Netgear D6300 AC1600 Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem/Router we’ve been using lately when performing tests on NAS servers. Since the 25^th of June 2015 for 10GbE tests we’ll be using a Netgear ProSafe XS712T 10G Smart Switch and an Intel XT540-AT2 10GbE PCIe card (10GbE compatible NAS cards will be provided from each company and stated in each review). Finally both test systems we use when testing NAS devices are equipped with Kingston HyperX 480GB PCIe SSDs.

 

SINGLE DISK TESTS

Since the Personal Cloud Pro is not a single drive device in these tests we only have the Seagate Central NAS.

RAID TESTS

The Personal Cloud Pro only supports RAID 0 and RAID 1 modes so these are the ones we used in this test (we usually only test RAID 0 when a NAS doesn’t support RAID 5 but the Personal Cloud Pro doesn’t even support single so this seemed like the proper thing to do).

 

 

TEST RESULTS – TEMPERATURES / CONSUMPTION / NOISE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEMPERATURES

POWER CONSUMPTION

Seagate ships the Personal Cloud Pro with two drives so the above power consumption is with both drives installed (again not something we do with NAS devices in general).

NOISE LEVELS

Both the Seagate Central and the Personal Cloud Pro are passively cooled so they don’t produce noise aside when their drives are accessed.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   One of the goals of this review was to compare the “old” Seagate Central with the brand new Personal Cloud Pro and as I’m sure you can all tell from our charts performance is not really that different between these two NAS models. Of course things are way different in terms of the web interface and available options so the Personal Cloud Pro is a lot more like the NAS servers we test all the time than the Central since it can be used for many other things (adding extra apps helps with that) than just to share your media library. That doesn’t mean I’m 100% satisfied from the Personal Cloud Pro since I do believe that Seagate should had also added an JBOD mode (perhaps that would be possible with a firmware update) for people who’d still want 4TB but as individual drives and not in RAID 0 or RAID 1 (that way you are getting a 4TB NAS without having to worry about losing all your data if something goes wrong like with RAID 0). Also using a passively cooled system may help with keeping noise levels to a minimum but while testing the Personal Cloud Pro in a room without an AC resulted in temperatures spiking (expected from two 3.5” drives placed right next to each other and inside such a small enclosure) and us receiving several temperature alerts in our email (all our tests are done in the lab with both our ACs set at 23 degrees Celsius but after that we placed the device in a room with more realistic ambient temps hitting 30 degrees). I’m certain that nowadays most people use ACs in their homes and offices but just in case you should keep this in mind especially with summer only getting hotter. The Personal Cloud Pro can also be used with the SDrive software which basically provides users with local access and end-to-end encryption for file transfers (unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to test it out since Seagate’s server was offline for maintenance).

  At first glance it seems that the price tag of USD299.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 280Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) Seagate asks for the Personal Cloud Pro 2 Bay 4TB NAS (STCS4000100) is set quite high and normally I’d also agree since we’re basically talking about an external enclosure with just two 2TB NAS HDDs inside. The thing is however that you’re also getting a basic NAS device with RAID 0/1 capability and a plethora of functions which place it in an entire different league compared to regular external enclosures. The only real question is whether you need RAID 0/1 cause if not then you could be better off with the Personal Cloud 4TB single bay model (STCR4000101) which costs roughly 40% less (Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk) and offers the same capacity. At the end of the day it may not be perfect but we all liked the ease of use and plethora of features offered by the Personal Cloud Pro 2 Bay 4TB NAS by Seagate and that’s why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Good Build Quality
- Good Performance
- Compact Size
- Easy To Use Interface
- HDDs Preinstalled (Zero Compatibility Issues)
- Passive Cooling (Silent)
- Very Low Power Consumption
- USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 Ports
- RAID 0/1 Modes
- SDrive Software (Remote Access)

 

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Only RAID 0/1 (No JBOD)
- Temperatures