Seagate GoFlex Satellite

A portable hard disc that you can access without a cable

The biggest complaint most of my friends have with the iPad is that it can't access data from a hard disc or pen drive without a cable. For me, this is not really much of a hassle, as I store a lot of my files on a data cloud. But if you would rather carry a hard disc full of movies because the built-in storage on the highest-end tablet computer does not suffice for you, sweat not. The Seagate GoFlex Satellite drive is here.

The Satellite offers 500 GB of storage that is accessible wirelessly. It features a built-in wireless access point and rechargeable battery, so that you can carry your library of movies, pictures and documents (if you want to) and access them wirelessly using the free GoFlex Media App. In case you want to avoid plugging cables into your Android tablet, you can also access these files off a Web browser—without any cables.

It can only handle three devices at one time. I wouldn't bother about that. What I would worry about is its battery time of just 5 hours. What makes this figure distressing is that your laptop/tablet would last longer than the hard disc.

Since Satellite is part of Seagate's GoFlex range of drives, you can use it as a standalone hard disc, a USB 3.0, Firewire or eSATA hard disc.

I am happy with the packaging. It has a USB 3.0 adapter, a car charger (which took me a while to figure out what it was), and a USB charger. The GoFlex Media App though has a long way to go. The moment you relegate it to the background, it stops streaming. It is also slow when it comes to photo streaming, which I expect Seagate will fix in future releases. What I am not happy with is that you can't use the Wi-Fi network while using the drive as a data store.

I want to buy this product. It fills a gap that I never knew existed in my life. Also, it's time to go spend some money this Diwali.