The Seagate unit seems best suited for small businesses that need a network drive for a handful of employees. But if you want cloud access too, you’ll need to have some understanding about advanced network configuration. If local network access is all you need, then the Iomega StorCenter is a capable device. On a normal day’s shoot, I rack up between 300 and 600 Raw files, and the Internet connection on the road often isn’t nearly as good as the one I tested at home. Even with really good cable Internet access on both ends, the upload took two hours. I tried a sample shoot of 79 Raw files that totaled about 2GB of storage, and uploaded them off the card via my MacBook Air to the Buffalo CloudStor at my studio, about six miles away. Wouldn’t it be nice to upload a day’s shoot from the hotel and know that all of your Raw files are safe and sound back home? Unfortunately for Raw shooters, the technology just isn’t there yet. The second task was using the CloudStor as an image backup device while working on location. In the studio on the local area network, it was faster. It’s not the fastest server, but it’s fine for small batch downloads. You can preload it with your master image files by connecting a separate hard drive via the CloudStor’s USB port on the back of the unit, then access those files from anywhere you have an Internet connection. On average, it took the Buffalo CloudStor about a minute and a half to download a 27MB Raw file from a remote location. The downsides to the Buffalo CloudStor are that the build quality of the unit doesn’t feel as solid as its competitors, and that the drive is noisy. Pogoplug offers free apps for iOS devices that let you access your files on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. This is much easier to maneuver than having to work though a browser interface. Pogoplug software for the Mac that enables you to view files on the CloudStor as a network drive on your desktop. The interface is well designed and fairly easy to navigate. Within minutes you should have access to the hard drive via the Web browser. To get started, you connect the hard drive to the Internet via its Ethernet port, power up the unit, then go online via your Mac’s Web browser to register the CloudStor. Unlike the Iomega and Seagate units, Buffalo partnered with Pogoplug to handle the software for network connectivity. Buffalo drive was the most affordable of the group and by far the easiest to set up and use.
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