Seagate GoFlex Satellite Wi-Fi portable HDD flexes 500GB of digital muscle at iDevices

Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite is a 2.5-inch portable hard disk drive holding up to 500GB of your precious data and while this might not sound like any earth-shattering news at all, it’s the built-in Wi-Fi b/g/n module that truly breaks new ground. What you’re looking at is the very first mobile wireless hard drive with a tailor-made software for the iPad. Basically, the Wi-Fi enabled drive flexes its muscle in this uncharted territory by adding a significant amount of storage all to your disposal from not just any iOS device like the iPhone or the iPad, but from any Wi-Fi-capable phone, tablet or notebook out there. File management, however, should be easiest on the iPad as the portable storage drive comes with the GoFlex Media app that gives iPad owners a nice interface for their data. Unfortunately, the drive supports only up to 3 devices connected at the same time, but this could be changed after a future firmware update.

Nested in a plastic chassis, the nifty disk measures at 4.72 x 3.46 x 1.26 inches. It comes with a standard SATA connector and a miniUSB 3.0 port for speedy data transfers. Included, are a USB-to-miniUSB power cable which doubles for data syncing, a second power cable, as well as a car charger and a wall adapter. The drive itself – rather unconventionally – ships with a rechargeable battery delivering up to 25 hours of stand-by battery life and 5 hours of continuous video streaming. The external storage drive also integrates seamlessly with Windows and Mac OS X computers.

You might wonder what codecs it supports and you’d be happy to find out that it plays back smoothly 1080p full HD videos in practically every iPad-compatible codec. Unfortunately, you’d first have to disconnect from your wireless network to use the one on the GoFlex Satellite, but this seems like a minor trade-off. All of that unique functionality, however, comes at $200, nearly double the price of your conventional non-Wi-Fi hard drive. While the price might be on the higher end, the GoFlex Satellite seems to be taking a bold step towards the post-PC world giving you more independence from your computer. Will this be enough to tip the scales for you? Sound off in the comments below.

source: Seagate