(OLD MODEL) Seagate Central 3TB Personal Cloud Storage NAS STCG3000100

I just received my Seagate Central 4TB (SC) today, and wanted to post a preliminary review of how fast it was to copy bulk video files to it.I've learned that Amazon reviews have to be looked at with a more critical eye to the most recent first, as responsive manufacturers often will keep updating their product/software through the life of the product. Also, particularly with networks and computer stuff, users can have some real varied experiences in performance that are caused by their network/computer configuration. I believe this might be the case with the SC, as it achieved a more than acceptable bulk file transfer copy rate. I wanted to get a preliminary review posted in hopes to assist other potential buyers looking at the SC for a streaming server for the home, but who are concerned with some of the reviews that have said the SC is slow.My intended use is primarily for streaming my video/audio collection to various devices in my home. After reading the reviews I was concerned about the SC's speed, however my results were outstanding.I'm using a Motorola SGB6580 Router leased from cable provider, a very fast notebook, Cat 6 cabling, Gigabit Ethernet. I copied from an old USB 2.0, external drive to the SC today (over the Ethernet, via Win 7 Explorer). One set of files was 419 GB, containing 364 files. The files copied to the SC, from my very old USB 2.0 external HD, in approximately 3 hours and 45 minutes. I didn't calculate how fast the transfer was . . . but dang, 400 GB in under 4 hours is great for home use!I've not streamed any videos yet, but with that fast of file copying I have no doubt that I'll be very happy with the streaming ability of the SC.A couple things I did to ensure a fast transfer rate:1. Located the SC on the router with the SC included short cable with nothing in-between the SC and the router.2. Updated the SC firmware (my SC was 1 version outdated right out of the box)3. Turned all the SC "services" off in the "Manage Seagate Central" software, per one of the suggestions in the SC literature.Don't forget to turn the services back on after you've bulk copied files to the SC.4. All the Ethernet cable in my network is CAT 6I've not had the SC long enough to write a thorough review, but so far I'm real pleased with the unit. For my intended use, it appears to be spot on. The SC is simple to configure, has great instructions and is a very fast unit for the money. It can stream in the home, and I can access the unit over the web when away from home. True it doesn't have high-end capabilities, but geesh, what do you expect to get for under $200 for a 4TB NAS server! And for my intended use, I don't need all those high-end business networking features . . . I just want to stream videos/audios on my home network (and out and about). The SC looks like it'll get the job done just fine.Will update this review after further use.[7/29/14 Update:Streams GREAT to Ipad.The ios (ipad) SeagateMedia Software is weak., with many critical features missing which I won't go into here, but are fully documented in the reviews on on SeagateMedia on the Ipad. Seagate should put the effort into making the SeagateMedia ios software feature rich & address the issues raised by the reviewers on the Ipad. By doing so, you would really corner the market on a full one-step reasonably priced home server solution. SeagateMedia should remember folders and last played spot on media; keep persistence when the app is shuffled to the side and another app opened or the media is paused and the Ipad cover closed and then reopened; Vid playback should allow 3rd party association hooks option, and the SeagateMedia Vid player should have saturation, contrast, brightness adjustments in the main GUI while watching the vid, and again - last spot played and file folders looked at persistance, even when the app is shuffled to the side or the lid closed. These are critical features that would make the Seagate Central and SeagateMedia Software a one-stop solution. I note you can use any other software you want to access your media just fine thru the Ipad or other device.]Great job on Seagate's part on working at getting the Seagate Central 4T right.[8/5/14 Update:The 4T SC is till working great for streaming Vids to Ipad. It is extremely fast for my home use. A couple things I've learned.Two great iOS apps for streaming vids on Ipad are nPlayer and AVPlayerHD. Both are great for streaming vids. nPlayer is faster with identifying the SC and loading folders and a little better at keeping persistence when shuffling the app aside or closing the lid. nPlayer also has a slick finger slide on the screen to adjust volume and brightness, but lacks saturation and contrast tuning. AVPlayerHD has brightness, saturation and contrast tuning while watching a vid right handy. You'll spend under $10 to get both. I'd start with nPlayer if I had to pick just one, but if you need saturation and contrast adjustmeht, that'd be AVPlayerHD. I use nPlayer as my goto, but AVPlayerHD when I have a vid that requires extra tuning to get the picture just right.Number of subfolders matters in the Video folder on the SC when using iOS apps. I don't know if this is true in general with the SC, but I had created 11 main subfolders under the Video folder, and all the iOS apps was failing to recognize my MP4 files. When I merged the subfolder into just 6 (with the 6 having tons of subfolders in each one), all vid files were recognized by the iOS apps. So somewhere under 11 is the magic number of main subfolders under the video folder on the SC when working with an ipad.Rescan the SC after adding files. After copying files to the SC, you may want to "rescan" the SC so that it creates a fresh index of files on the SC, otherwise your newly added files may not show up on your devices accessing the SC. "Managing Seagate Central", "Services" tab, "Seagate Media" and "DLNA" have "rescan" options.]

UPDATE 5/16/16: Drive is doing fine, I am getting upload averages of 44 Mb/sec from Windows 8.1/10 to the drive, and it streams HDTV with Digital Dolby to network devices just fine. Having multiple devices on my network suck data simultaneously can lead to hiccups, but as I said below, there is no way to figure out whether that is the drive or my router. I do know that I've never lost a byte, or had a malfunction, on my sometimes voluminous daily backups. Drive does not run hot (important as I use a power supply double the size), powers down automatically after a few minutes of non-use, and there is then generally a ten or so second delay in powering back up when accessed.UPDATE 2/1/16: I owe you and Amazon an update, although the one star remains. Once I discovered I had been sent a used device, I whined at Amazon loudly, thinking they should have noticed the broken seal. They came back to me the same day, agreed, offered me a 5% discount on a replacement device, and free overnight shipping. Then, they told me not to bother returning the broken unit, and they'd refund the purchase straight away. So that's customer service, thanks Amazon, good show.I decided I might as well try to salvage the hard disk from the "abandoned in place" device, although it had, to the best of my knowledge, not spun up at all, and proceeded to pop the covers off. Before disassembling it, I decided to try another, beefier, 12VDC power supply - the Seagate comes with a 2 amp power supply, and I had a 4 amp power supply lying around. I knew the original Seagate supply worked, as the LED in the device came on when plugged in, but otherwise nothing had happened. Once I plugged it into the 4 amp power supply (you should not normally connect a more powerful supply than one that is rated by the manufacturer, but if you decide to "test", like I did, make sure you're in the same room with the device for an hour or more, turn off sources of noise so you can hear what is going on, have an IR thermometer to hand, use a circuit with a manual breaker, and have a fire extinguisher handy), however, it started blinking again, but this time, after a minute or two, I heard the disk spin up, which had not happened before. I powered down, connected it to a router, plugged in the Ethernet, plugged my 4 amp supply back in, and after four or five minutes, sure enough, not only did the disk spin up, but the Ethernet lights began flashing, and the device turns out to be functioning using the heavier power supply. I have no idea what the problem was, whether the original power supply does not provide enough power, whether this particular drive just needs more juice to start up (being self contained, it would not start if the disk wasn't running), it still won't run on the original power supply. I am posting this partly to let Seagate, who I know follow these reviews, know they may have a quality control problem - once it gets enough power, this drive works fine, I put the covers back on and it is functioning, as far as I can tell, normally. And thanks to Amazon I now have a WD 4TB My Cloud Personal Network Attached Storage - NAS - WDBCTL0040HWT-NESN, just as well, since I have no way of knowing whether this Seagate will continue working (storing terabytes of data on a device you don't know you can trust is scary, do you have all that data backed up?).I am currently testing running a massive (700GB) backup to the Seagate, so far so good. It is so far glitchless, provides Gigabit Ethernet access (so the reviewer who says it does not doesn't understand his router), and runs as fast as network devices normally do, I have streamed HD video from it to network attached laptops, and that works. If you're seeing throughput problems on devices attached to WiFi routers, those are caused by your router, your network, your kids' and neighbours' smartphones and tablets, your ancient microwave, and your WiFi interfaces, not by the server. The backup I mentioned earlier runs using a backup suite by the name of AIS Backup, which creates ZIP archives, for years my favourite backup tool, although I used Windows' system image creator too, this to enable a full recovery of my laptops. As I mentioned, data speeds for NAS drives is dependent more on your network and your router than on the NAS device, in this particular instance I use a subnet with a fast fiber optic capable router, which does not directly face my internet provider, and does not have network translation enabled. In that setup, the compressed backup file created in 60 hours was about 344GB (bytes, not bits), and that translates to about 5,733 sustained MB per hour throughput. In testing, Windows 10 reported speeds up to 660MB per minute on a file copy of 6 or so GB, which is probably as good as it is going to get. Again - if you're looking for the device's performance, you're looking at irrelevant information, a NAS can only be accessed via a network, and that means your Ethernet network and your router(s) are the limiting factors, a NAS will generally accept whatever you can throw at it, and the only way you can make that better is by getting a RAID device, as opposed to a single disk device. But with RAID, you should be using redundant networks, and yada yada yada, if you follow my drift. Most home routers reserve bandwidth for each of their ports, this to enable multiple simultaneous users, and there aren't many ways the average user can increase port speeds, considering most routers have five Ethernet ports, a WiFi port, often a USB port, and don't necessarily have a hugely powerful processor managing it all. Having said that, I find NAS over Ethernet a lot more reliable today than four years ago, the last time I did any extensive NAS testing.As an aside, both the Seagate and the Western Digital cloud devices come with outside public network access enabled, and all that needs is an email address, which by default is public. This is scary to me - anything you put on this type of cloud device can be accessed by any hacker worth his or her salt. I only ever wanted it as a backup device, as I am running out of backup disk space - anything else, you are on your own. I would not want my ex-wives' pictures "accidentally" accessible to the world, not with Facebook offering facial recognition. Just sayin'...Original Review 1/30/16: The unit arrived with a dead Ethernet port, which may be a Seagate problem - otherwise, the shrink wrap had been removed, and the Seagate warranty seal cut (I have pictures). The manual had clearly been handled. "OLD MODEL" does not mean "USED" - I am posting this because I assume the Ethernet problem is the manufacturer's, not a lot of ways you can bust that port without a screwdriver... The way this looks is that this is a return, someone at the vendor's plugged it in and decided the blinking light must mean it is working, and shipped it back out. I understand dealing with the great unwashed is sometimes frustrating, but if you then send a product out that's clearly been removed from its packaging and plugged in, you're not doing the manufacturer or Amazon a service - BTW, if it says, "shipped by Amazon", don't those folks check warranty seals? As it now stands, I am having to spend an extra $50 to get a product from another manufacturer that (hopefully) works.