Seagate GoFlex Home – Technology for the Whole Family (Giveaway)

In this day and age almost everyone has a computer. I know not everyone does (my Grandfather doesn’t), but a big chunk of the world’s population does. In some homes you’ll even find more then one computer. In my home we have SIX computers. Two are desk tops (one I use for work, the other is currently not hooked up anymore) and four lap tops (five if you want to include my husband’s work lap top). Every member of my family has their own lap top.

I do A LOT of work on the computer. Two computers actually. I work mostly from my lap top but I also do a lot of work on my desk top. Between my business and my photography I have A LOT of important documentation, images, graphics and other important things I need to make sure are backed up. That is why I am a huge fan of external hard drives. If I lost ANYTHING I would be devastated. There are things on my computers that cannot be replaced, most especially precious family photos.

Both of my computers are hooked up to Seagate external hard drives (GoFlex). I swear by them. In all the time I have been using them I have never had any issues with failure to back up or retrieve my important documents and images.

Some Seagate GoFlex externals you have to make a conscious effort to back up your information every day. Others, such as the one I have on my lap top, automatically back up the files on your computer daily so you don’t have to worry about it. That is a great feature for people like me who would forget their head if it wasn’t attached. Ha Ha.

I think its important for the rest of my family to back up important files too. My daughter loves to take pictures just like dear old Mom (me!). She also does a lot of her homework, essays and research papers on her computer. I think she would be devastated if she spent hours on homework only to have it lost if there was a problem with her computer. The same applies to my son. He loves to make videos. He’s actually pretty skilled at video editing, especially considering that he’s only 11 years old. My husband also has important files he should back up.

The thought of everyone in the family having external hard drives is easier said then done. Both of our kids use their lap tops all over the home, including sitting outside on our balcony. They would not have that flexibility if they had to keep their computer attached to an external hard drive. Up until now if they needed to back something up they would borrow my flash drive and I would store it on my external, or they would e-mail things to me and I would save it that way.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could back up important information from your computer’s wireless to an external hard drive for safe keeping? You can! SeaGate has an external hard drive called the Seagate GoFlex Home. To quote my Mom “its the greatest thing since sliced bread” (ha ha).

The Seagate GoFlex Home is a wireless external hard drive that allows up to 3 computers to access it wirelessly within your home using your computers wireless router (WiFi).

I’m a bit of a dork. I didn’t think to take a photo of it before it was set up. I was too excited about it and had my husband connect it as soon as he got home from work the same day it arrived. Currently the GoFlex Home is situated in a spot behind my desk making it impossible for me to get a decent picture of it.

I am far from a computer tech. I leave all computer related things up to my husband since he’s a computer tech by trade (that is what he does for a living). My husband told me that the GoFlex Home was very easy to set up that I could have done it myself, with the exception of reaching behind the desk where it had to be set up. I’m short and it would have been hard for me to get back there to do it.

After the initial set up your next step is to set up the GoFlex Home system on your computer. To be honest I left this up to my husband. I don’t know why. I was worried I’d mess it up. He just rolled his eyes at me telling me that it was easy enough for me to do. I was concerned I’d hit the wrong option and mess things up.

Once my husband got everything set up I was ready to play around with it.

I think the best feature about the Seagate GoFlex Home is that myself and my kids can upload important files to the drive quickly and easily. Best of all we can share certain files with one another which has actually been a great help.

In the past when my kids had a report they needed to have printed out they either had to e-mail it to me or give it to me on one of the flash drives. My computer is the only one connected to the printer. With the GoFlex Home all my kids need to do is upload the file to the drive and tell me to print it out. I can access the same file from the GoFlex Home and print it out on my end.

Another thing that the GoFlex Home has been terrific for is photo sharing. This has been a huge help! We only have one camera. We had two but my daughter accidentally broke one. So now we just have the one camera.

I take a lot of pictures and upload them to the computer. There have been times my kids have asked for certain pictures to put on their computer so they could share them with friends. In the past we have to rely on using the flash drive. The kids would have to pick and choose what photos they wanted, I would then load them on to the flash drive and give it to them to load on their computer. With the GoFlex Home I now upload all the photos to the drive and the kids can access them from their computers and they can pick and choose what the want and download the ones the want to use on their computers. It cuts out the “middle man” (ME). Since I already make it a habit to back up photos its no extra effort on my part to do what I normally do. The kids really enjoy being able to use the pictures on their computers. They love to use photo editing programs to play around with pictures and the GoFlex Home has afforded them the opportunity to access any of the photos and edit them to their heart’s desire.

With the GoFlex Home you can set up individual accounts. Each account has a private folder and a public folder, meaning you can keep certain files private to just one user (you) so that no one else can access it and you can easily share other files with others one your GoFlex Home network. For example, I keep my business and blog related files private. My kids have no need to access that information. Other things, like photos and family videos, I make public for them to enjoy.

Only those set up for your GoFlex Home can have access to the drive. You don’t have to worry about others gaining access without permission. That is why this drive is ideal for families.

I know I can give you a much more in depth review if I included all the “techie specs”. Since I can be “technologically challenged”, I don’t really understand “techie speak”. Therefore I am doing this review based upon my personal experience. All the techie stuff doesn’t matter to me. I’m more interested in what the GoFlex Home can do for me and my family.

There is an upgrade (Pro) you can pay for. I opt not to do that. I think that option is for people who want more “bells and whistles” out of the GoFlex Home. For my family’s needs the regular (non-subscription) GoFlex Home option is fine with us.

The GoFlex Home is available in 1 TB and 2TB versions which is more then enough hard drive space for most people and families. The unit ranges in price from $160 – $220.

To learn more please visit http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/network_storage/home-network-storage. 

If you are looking for something a little less “fancy” you might want to consider the GoFlex Portable hard drive. This is what my husband uses. He backs up things on both his work and personal lap tops. He likes that he can easily pop it into his lap top anytime he needs to retrieve information or if he wants to back things up. He’s not permanently “connected” to it at all times, only when he needs it.

The beauty of the GoFlex Portable unit is that he can take it to work with him too. It gives him enough hard drive space to house a lot of important documentation, more so then a typical flash drive. Its also a lot safer then a flash drive because it can’t be misplaced as easily. Flash drives, as you know, are very small and can easily be misplaced.

The GoFlex Portable is roughly the size of a large wallet. It could easily be carried in a coat pocket making it easy to take it from work to home and back to work again. I think this would also be ideal for a college student. They could take their homework assignments and research papers home with them on the weekends or during vacations.

The GoFlex Portable is available in 320 GB all the way up to 1.5 TB and ranges in price from $90 – $230. It is also available in different colors (black, red, silver and blue).

To learn more about the GoFlex Portable please visit http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/freeagent/portable-hard-drive.

Both the GoFlex Home and GoFlex Portable hard drive would make great gifts. The GoFlex Home would be an ideal gift for a family and the GoFlex Portable would be a great gift for anyone.

To learn more about other great Seagate products please visit www.Seagate.com.

Seagate has generously offered to give a lucky She Scribes reader a 1.5 TB Segate GoFlex Portable hard drive ($230 retail value). Thank you Seagate!

To enterplease visit Seagate, www.Seagate.com, look around then come back here and comment on either another Seagate product that interests you (not mentioned in this post) or something interesting you learned from the site.

For extra entries you can do any or all of the following. Please be sure to leave a separate comment for each you have done. Extra entries are optional.

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This giveaway is open to US residents only and will end on November 27, 2010 at 11:59 PM (EST). The winner will be chosen at random using a random number generator from all eligible entries. The winner will be contacted via e-mail and will have three days to reply with a name, mailing address (no PO Box) and a phone number (for shipping purposely ONLY) or a new winner will be chosen.

Kimberly

*I received a free sample unit to review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own. Seagate will be providing the prize.

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