Home > Consumer Reviews > Seagate FreeAgent DockStar Network Adapter STDSA10G-RK (White)

I wanted a device that will help me connect my external hard disk to my wireless network so that I can access my songs,photos, etc. The fist device I tried was belkin F5L009 usb hub. After three years of talking to all support levels I understood that belkin network usb hub did not support more bandwidth data transfer, I cannot stream audio/video in the network. My options were pogoplug, seagate freeagent dockstar, Cirago NUS1000, etc. After reading through reviews, sending mails to manufacturers, I finally chose the seagate product.

Pros:
Easy to connect.
High quality of the product, physical construction, size and usability.
Good speed to stream photos, videos, songs etc in the network.

Cons:
None

I was not expecting the access my files on the internet away from home, but this device cam with that feature which was good.

I would like to appreciate a seagate representative who is addressing some of the issues mentioned in this forum, I hope that if I have an issue in the future it will will addressed well. This was one of the reasons I picked the device

One point to mention about the device, you cannot stream HD videos in the network.

I had gone to Best Buy and talked with their computer "Pro's" to find a device that would connect the usb hard drive I already owned to my home network. I was told no such device existed and that I would need to buy a hard drive kit that was specifically made to connect to networks.

Not satisfied with their answer I did some researching and found this kit from Seagate and a similar device from Belkin. I compared features, ease of installation, and cost. The Seagate Dockstar network adapter seemed to have better features for what I was looking for and the installation was to simply connect power to the Dockstar, connect the Dockstar to my network hub via cat-5 cable, and connect my usb drive to the Dockstar via usb cable. A short trip out to their website for a quick software download mapped the drive as a network drive and allows me to connect to this drive anywhere I have an internet connection.

Hardware setup is easy, but I could not get the web activation to work. The Seagate activation webpage was broken. The product does not work without the web activation. Completely dissatisfied.

I wanted to connect a hard drive to my home network for INTERNAL use only. The product says this is possible, and it is, BUT you MUST have an internet connection to access files or to make any config changes to the local dock, EVEN just internally. You HAVE TO sign up for the 1 year service even if you don't plan to use it over the internet. It uploads file information to their servers, hence a security issue, I don't care what they claim.

It's back in the box....

It took a few hours to get the settings just right, but I finally got the DockStar setup and working consistently. I had some trouble at first with my Windows 7 PC recognizing the DockStar, but then figured out that there were some settings wrong in the PogoPlug software. After that, the unit has been working consistently. However, it can be extremely slow at times to open files, expand folders, etc. Overall, it's worth the money if you don't want to spend too much on a NAS device.