Pogoplug - what a piece of kit! Network Hard Drive Sharing

[Roop]

I have had a Pogoplug for 18 months or so now. It's good but not robust enough yet. Transfer speeds for big files are fine but for smaller files are hideously slow. This makes it fine for dumping big media files to but try and use it as a target for mirrored backups and it's dead in the water. I also found that copying very big files (2GB+ HD video) caused the windows application to memory leak, nick all my RAM and crash. Iphone app crashes regularly when browsing folder structure.

[Podie]

There's also a software version available too.

Still not as good as a dedicated NAS using WebDAV IMO, but a cheap and cheerful solution if you don't want to use the "cloud"

[Nish]

This looks interesting.

Regarding the speed issues, is it quick enough for me to access a 720p file over wifi (from a USB drive connected to Poppoplug) and have it play on my TV, or is it likely to stutter etc?


The general wifi connection is up to the task as I do this at the moment but have to have two machines on, one with the usb drives attached and the other accessing the network share.

[ceebmoj]

paul.deitch said:

ceebmoj said:

Can you recomend any hubs that do this?

here is one example
http://www.macconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Deta...

What i personally use is a Philips SPD 8020 NAS (which has a usb port) with a firmware update from "fvdw" at http://forum.nas-portal.org/showthread.php?7909-up...

Edited by paul.deitch on Thursday 11th August 08:54

thanks allot, I'm never sure weather the devices show up as a NAS or if you need some from of client software. Having said that the top one is a good bit cheaper than I was expecting so I think I will get it and see how it runs as media storage in the car for the phone to stream from.

Edited by ceebmoj on Thursday 11th August 10:24

[Funk]

Roop said:

I have had a Pogoplug for 18 months or so now. It's good but not robust enough yet. Transfer speeds for big files are fine but for smaller files are hideously slow. This makes it fine for dumping big media files to but try and use it as a target for mirrored backups and it's dead in the water. I also found that copying very big files (2GB+ HD video) caused the windows application to memory leak, nick all my RAM and crash. Iphone app crashes regularly when browsing folder structure.

Have you updated to the latest Pogoplug client? Transfer speed was one of the issues that was addressed in a later release. As you can see from my post above, it's transferring fine at 21Mb/s...

Nish said:

This looks interesting.

Regarding the speed issues, is it quick enough for me to access a 720p file over wifi (from a USB drive connected to Poppoplug) and have it play on my TV, or is it likely to stutter etc?


The general wifi connection is up to the task as I do this at the moment but have to have two machines on, one with the usb drives attached and the other accessing the network share.

Yep, I tested it with my laptop just now for you on wifi (even though mine will be hard-wired) and it's fine. A little bit of buffering before it played but then I guess that's to be expected. Once buffered, it played just fine.

[Roop]

Funk said:

Roop said:

I have had a Pogoplug for 18 months or so now. It's good but not robust enough yet. Transfer speeds for big files are fine but for smaller files are hideously slow. This makes it fine for dumping big media files to but try and use it as a target for mirrored backups and it's dead in the water. I also found that copying very big files (2GB+ HD video) caused the windows application to memory leak, nick all my RAM and crash. Iphone app crashes regularly when browsing folder structure.

Have you updated to the latest Pogoplug client? Transfer speed was one of the issues that was addressed in a later release. As you can see from my post above, it's transferring fine at 21Mb/s...

Yes. Try it with 1,000 files of 1kB or less each (a good test is a system backup / sync). I lose about 20% throughput to my HP ProLiant but the PogoPlug goes from 20MB/s down to 5-6MB/s.

Not to mention that to the exact same external HDD (LaCie 1TB), sustained write via the HP is 30-35MB/s in the first place, a full 50% + faste rthan the PogoPlug. The disadvantage...? The HP uses 33W of power compared to the 5W of the PogoPlug.

Not to knock the PP. It's a cracking bit of kit for the money and power consumption and I am very glad I bought one, my point being I suppoose that if you're a power user or intend to be reliant on it for business then be aware of it's limitations...

ETA: It seems to be a hardware limitation. I hacked my PP to run a cut down Linux and the CPU is saturated when you hammer it with loads of small files. As I said, nice piece of kit but for another thirty quid you have have the HP ProLiant Microserver...

[Funk]

Roop said:

Funk said:

Roop said:

I have had a Pogoplug for 18 months or so now. It's good but not robust enough yet. Transfer speeds for big files are fine but for smaller files are hideously slow. This makes it fine for dumping big media files to but try and use it as a target for mirrored backups and it's dead in the water. I also found that copying very big files (2GB+ HD video) caused the windows application to memory leak, nick all my RAM and crash. Iphone app crashes regularly when browsing folder structure.

Have you updated to the latest Pogoplug client? Transfer speed was one of the issues that was addressed in a later release. As you can see from my post above, it's transferring fine at 21Mb/s...

Yes. Try it with 1,000 files of 1kB or less each (a good test is a system backup / sync). I lose about 20% throughput to my HP ProLiant but the PogoPlug goes from 20MB/s down to 5-6MB/s.

Not to mention that to the exact same external HDD (LaCie 1TB), sustained write via the HP is 30-35MB/s in the first place, a full 50% + faste rthan the PogoPlug. The disadvantage...? The HP uses 33W of power compared to the 5W of the PogoPlug.

Not to knock the PP. It's a cracking bit of kit for the money and power consumption and I am very glad I bought one, my point being I suppoose that if you're a power user or intend to be reliant on it for business then be aware of it's limitations...

ETA: It seems to be a hardware limitation. I hacked my PP to run a cut down Linux and the CPU is saturated when you hammer it with loads of small files. As I said, nice piece of kit but for another thirty quid you have have the HP ProLiant Microserver...

I can understand why it slows down on loads of small files compared with larger ones. Have you tried Microsoft's Synctoy which looks only for the changes in files? It's very, very quick for backing up once the initial backup is made.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?...

[GHW]

Nish said:

Regarding the speed issues, is it quick enough for me to access a 720p file over wifi (from a USB drive connected to Poppoplug) and have it play on my TV, or is it likely to stutter etc?

I've installed Mediatomb on mine, and it's happy streaming 720p content to our Humax Freeview HD box. However, mine's on a wired network..

[ceebmoj]

have had a look through the pogo plug web-sight and i'm unsure of the flowing. When i'm accessing a pogo plug on my home network does it round trip out on the web so that you can access files? You seem to need to play for the premium version of there app to stream media files to your phone can you stream to phone for free over your home network?

[Funk]

ceebmoj said:

have had a look through the pogo plug web-sight and i'm unsure of the flowing. When i'm accessing a pogo plug on my home network does it round trip out on the web so that you can access files? You seem to need to play for the premium version of there app to stream media files to your phone can you stream to phone for free over your home network?

1) Accessing on your home network doesn't go 'outside' the network. You get gigabit speeds if your network supports it (mine does).
2) To stream to a mobile device requires the premium subscription.
3) I've just installed the Pogoplug software on my iPad to test whether you can stream over the home network for free - you can, although it wants to optimise the files as they're not natively-compatible with the iPad. This seems to be a somewhat lengthy process, and saves a copy of the optimised file in a hidden .cedata folder on the drive which could get very big very quickly. If you want to stream to things like iPads etc, I would convert your videos to .mp4 format yourself which the iPad will play without need to be transcoded. Alternatively, you could download the video to the iPad and let iTunes handle the conversion. I won't be using mine for that, my laptop will be pulling the files across the network to play on the TV via HDMI.

[ceebmoj]

Funk said:

1) Accessing on your home network doesn't go 'outside' the network. You get gigabit speeds if your network supports it (mine does).
2) To stream to a mobile device requires the premium subscription.
3) I've just installed the Pogoplug software on my iPad to test whether you can stream over the home network for free - you can, although it wants to optimise the files as they're not natively-compatible with the iPad. This seems to be a somewhat lengthy process, and saves a copy of the optimised file in a hidden .cedata folder on the drive which could get very big very quickly. If you want to stream to things like iPads etc, I would convert your videos to .mp4 format yourself which the iPad will play without need to be transcoded. Alternatively, you could download the video to the iPad and let iTunes handle the conversion. I won't be using mine for that, my laptop will be pulling the files across the network to play on the TV via HDMI.

Thanks for that. I have been looking for a way to store all my music in the car this looks like it might be the solution if I add a wifi acnes point.

[Funk]

Mine has now been resprayed a rather more fetching shade of matte military green:





I rather like it!

[Pooky67]

Please excuse me dragging up this thread but I'm thinking of getting one of these as to help share my photos and music files around the house...

How easy is it to access music and photos on:

a. A PS3
b. Panasonic Viera dnla TV (I know I will need a wireless adaptor)
c. Samsung Galaxy S II
d. iPhone 3GS

Is there a difference between just wanting to look at a photo or download it to the device?

Just trying to get an idea of how user friendly it is in simple home use...

[Funk]

Pooky67 said:

Please excuse me dragging up this thread but I'm thinking of getting one of these as to help share my photos and music files around the house...

How easy is it to access music and photos on:

a. A PS3
b. Panasonic Viera dnla TV (I know I will need a wireless adaptor)
c. Samsung Galaxy S II
d. iPhone 3GS

Is there a difference between just wanting to look at a photo or download it to the device?

Just trying to get an idea of how user friendly it is in simple home use...

Just tested what I can for you...

a) PS3 - there is a setting in the Pogoplug that allows it to function as a media server for PS3s and Xboxes. This works great for pictures and music, but for video playback you will have to stick to file formats that the PS3 can play natively, such as .avi, .mp4, .mpg etc. It won't play .mkv files this way.

b) I'm afraid I can't test this.

C) I have an HTC Desire (so Android, the same as the SGS2). Viewing pictures and streaming music to the phone is rapid, pictures are great quality. Hit the 'Menu' key and you have the option to download the picture to your phone if you so wish.

d) I have an iPad (so the same iOS as your 3GS probably) and the app works great on there as well. Again, you have the option to download the file you're viewing to the iPad itself.

I haven't ever had success with streaming video to either Android or iOS devices; I suspect this is because I use mainly .mkv high-def files which neither the phone nor iPad can play natively. I suspect if I converted them all to .mp4, I'd be able to play them over the network as well.

When I logged into my Pogoplug today, I found it's been upgraded and now has 5Gb of cloud storage which is useful. Again, this can be accessed anywhere you want.

Overall I'm still very, very pleased with mine and it's happily formed the hub of my video and music network at home. Still very much recommended, especially at the price!

[Pooky67]

Sold! Thanks for your help!