Seagate Personal Cloud 2 Bay Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. Design4. Using the Personal Cloud5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

It is fair to say the Seagate Personal Cloud 2 Bay impressed me greatly.

The device has a simple and discrete design, providing a pair of USB ports if you want them (1x USB 3.0 and 1x USB 2.0) but other than that, there is no fancy embellishment. It is not an unattractive design, it is just unremarkable, which makes it perfect for hiding away once it has been connected to your router.

When using the Personal Cloud, it soon became apparent to me that this is a very versatile piece of kit. While appearing to be aimed at families, almost anyone would find it useful for different reasons. The Personal Cloud allows you to wirelessly backup your data – be it from a phone, desktop or tablet – which is one job. It then lets you find that data anywhere – from either a phone, desktop or tablet – which is another job. You can then stream media to your TV via Chromecast or Roku – which is a third job. The list goes on.

Practically speaking, families will find it useful as a central ‘hub' – something that stores everyone's data in one location – saving you searching across multiple devices for that elusive photo or video. Individuals will find it useful as a means to backup and access data anywhere, on the go or simply in the living room away from a PC. The Personal Cloud can be almost anything you want it to be, which is mightily impressive.

This particular model has one significant drawback, though, and that is price. It currently costs around the £350 mark at the time of writing, with a MSRP of £379.99. That is no small amount of money for a storage solution, no matter how many bells and whistles it has.

However, it is worth remembering this is for 8TB of storage across two drive bays. Not everyone (in fact, probably most consumers) will need this much data capacity, which is where the cheaper models come in. There is a 3TB, single bay Personal Cloud solution retailing for £125, for instance.

Still, this 8TB model costs around £350, which does count against it. But the product itself is fantastic, and could revolutionise the way you easily store and access data. For most consumers who do not need the full 8TB storage, I would advise you to look at cheaper, single bay Personal Cloud models.

If you do want the full 8TB, though, it is currently available for £353.14 inc VAT from Ebuyer.

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Pros

• Simple design
• Very versatile
• Masses of storage
• Allows data to be accessed anywhere on almost anything
• Software is intuitive and attractive

Cons

• A lot of money

KitGuru says: If you have the cash and want the storage, the 2 Bay Personal Cloud is a great product. However, it is pricey and most users will want to look at cheaper, single bay options from Seagate.

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