Review on 💾 Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Home 1TB STAM1000100: Hassle-Free Home Storage Solution by Leonard Beard

I bought the Seagate GoFlex Home 1TB from Revain at a great price as an alternative to Apple's Time Capsule. I was put off by numerous reports of the Time Capsule's 18-month lifespan before a power outage. This is covered by my MacBook Air's AppleCare, but it's not great if the backup data is lost. The only thing I want to use for GoFlex Home is backing up my MacBook Air with Time Machine. If you read reviews of home network drives, you will see that the reviews are not very good and there are a lot of disappointments. Most of them seem to be related to the correct operation of the software. It seems that the devices have not yet been perfected, and that may be true. When working over a wireless network, many things can go wrong and the operation is more sensitive. You have to deal with it, knowing that he might have problems and it will take time. The hardware of the GoFlex Home (GFH) looks well made and of high quality. It runs very quietly and only heats up during long initial backups. Setting up the devices is very easy and quick. The setting to make it work is not. The MacBook Air does not have an optical drive and the GFH manual directs you to a web page on the Seagate website to download the software. It tells you what to do to replace a lost or damaged software CD. Nothing about downloading the software or where to find it. I shared files with my iMac and used its optical drive to download software to my MacBook Air. I set up Time Machine according to the instructions in the manual, but I couldn't get my MacBook Air to recognize GFH. I spent several hours trying to solve the problem using the Seagate Knowledge Base and Troubleshooting. I stumbled across the fact that no software is required to use GFH with Time Machine. It's instantly compatible. The instructions say nothing about it. I followed the setup instructions and GFH appeared in Finder. I connected to it and it showed up as a Time Machine backup drive choice. He performed the initial backup and subsequent scheduled backups. The first backup took about half as long as the backup to the hard drive shared with my iMac. My next problem was the MacBook Air losing GFH as the selected backup when the Air went to sleep or was powered off. At this point I did what I should have done right after connecting the GFH devices. I called Seagate Technical Support. The technicians are competent and patient. They are easy to follow and clear up anything you don't understand. They have dealt with problems like yours before and they have a process to go through. In my case, the problem started with Time Machine not being able to find GFH. The technician fixed the Time Machine issue and then asked me to call AppleCare and have them fix the Time Machine issue. He gave me a case number and said they would be happy to work with Apple if needed. AppleCare is always good. They had me run some tests on Time Machine and found that Time Machine doesn't automatically get the password from the keychain. This was fixed and everything worked fine until I updated to Lion 10.7.2. Then I completely lost GFH on the net. This time I called Seagate Tech Support and they helped me figure it out. Another good experience. Seen from the front, the GFH has a recessed pinhole with two light bulbs on the left side. Sticking a paper clip in the hole until you feel a click and holding it for at least ten seconds will reset the GFH without losing your saved backups. After releasing the button, you need to wait a while until the green top indicator flashes amber. When the reset is complete, it will turn solid green again. After that, GFH showed up in Finder and I was able to connect to it and select it as a Time Machine backup drive. Some comments on Seagate support. The support phone works well. There is no help on the site. Each department can add something to the knowledge base and fix errors. As such, there is no logical way to find anything and things are where you don't expect them to be. I have heard that it is being completely remodeled, with completion scheduled for the end of November. He will have his own department and a responsible manager. I hope this will be a big improvement because it just doesn't work right now. Skip it and just call tech support. I don't think GFH is the ideal backup solution for Time Machine. There were times when I had to reselect a drive in Time Machine. Sometimes it skips the first backup but catches the next one after waking up or turning back on. It doesn't have a very strong signal and doesn't connect anywhere in the house. At the moment I don't think there is a good solution for backing up laptops. The most reliable is a hard drive plugged into the laptop's USB port, but you'll have to do this manually. The Time Capsule works fine but is expensive and may have a short lifespan. Apple lets you share a USB hard drive connected to another computer, but it won't work if the other computer is asleep or turned off. Other home network drives seem to reflect my experience with GFH. Part of the problem is that Apple doesn't support third-party hardware for use with Time Machine. I hope future firmware updates from GFH will provide more reliable performance. Until then, it's probably as good as it gets.