Pros: Seagate's latest storage iteration sounded promising. I had experience with the previous versions, the woeful Seagate GoFlex and the less awful but still crippled Seagate Central. Would the third time be the charm for Seagate? My hope was yes, as Seagate's Personal Cloud device natively supports a wide range of sharing and file serving functions. Enough, even, that the STCS4000100 - on paper - appears to be targeted not only at the home market but as an entry level SOHO/SMB file server.

A necessity for any storage solution is data security. The 2-bay Personal Cloud server defaults to a RAID 1 configuration. Backblaze recently published a hard drive reliability report covering their experience with over 40,000 NAS drives. Seagate's proved to be the least reliable, so drive redundancy is even more important here.

First impressions of the STCS4000100 were good. It is a sleek, unobtrusive unit packaged with a good quality, shielded Cat-6 network cable. The power brick has a standard cord rather than a wall wart that covers multiple outlets.

Setting up the STCS4000100 was relatively painless albeit slow. Plug the ethernet cable into a networked connection, turn the unit on, and wait 10 minutes until it initializes. The box then appears on a list of networked computers. There is a "Personal Cloud" internet shortcut that launches a browser window to complete the configuration.

After firmware upgrades are complete you can select what functions you want the server to support.The STCS4000100 can act as a DLNA or iTunes server for media sharing over the network or it can use one of several Seagate-supplied iOS, Android, Windows (Phone or 8.1), or even Kindle apps. The STCS4000100 can also share files using standard SMB messaging (supports Windows, OS X, and Linux), AFP if you only run OS X, FTP, WebDAV (a huge security risk with the Seagate implementation). It also can act as a Time Machine backup server for your Mac or a networked print server.

If that isn't enough you can download apps to provide real-time file backups, be a BitTorrent server, a Wordpress host, or various apps that allow access to your files from anywhere with varying degrees of security. The number of apps is limited for now, but Seagate provided developers with an open SDK to create apps for Personal Cloud devices.

I tried every function I could find. All of them worked to some degree or another. Straight file transfers to the STCS4000100 went through at 55-60 MB/s. That's about half what one gets for a Gig-E connection to a speedy hard drive array. Transfers out were slower averaging 25-50 MB/s. Adding encryption to the mix slowed both incoming and outgoing transfers by 20-30%. Using Seagate's file sharing apps was painful. I used the STCS4000100 at our office where we have 550 Mb/s upload capacity and the best it could do was 1.2Mb/s (i.e. 0.15 MB/s), with an average speed of 0.6 Mb/s. That's better than dialup, but not by much.

Syncing files to cloud storage a

Cons: The Achilles' heel of the STCS4000100 appears to be the CPU. A single user copying large (2-5 GB) files to the device pegged the CPU at 100%. I found that for larger (1+GB) files, the fastest transfers were obtained by copying 2 files in parallel. Smaller files benefitted from moving 3 or 4 in parallel.

If two users copied files to the STCS4000100 simultaneously, overall throughput fell from 55-60 MB/s (combined) to 40-45 MB/s. Going to four users at a time reduced combined throughput to 15-25 MB/s. All this was conducted on our internal network that uses multihomed 10G connections, so network bandwidth was not an issue here.

Outgoing transfer rates were slower still. Simple file transfer rates dropped to 5-7 MB/s when four users were active at once. Spread across four users, we're talking s...l...o...w file transfers.

If the STCS4000100 was used as a DLNA server or one of the installed apps was active, incoming and outgoing file transfers slowed to a crawl. Playing videos from the STCS4000100 worked as long as that was the only process active. If another computer started file operations, video playback froze and even aborted entirely. Similarly, running a SFTP file transfer or using a secured Seagate file transfer app at the same time as other activity occurred on the STCS4000100 lead to app crashes and aborted file transfers.

My initial testing had the STCS4000100 in our server room. In mild Winter conditions, the room is heated only by the servers running. Ambient temperatures were in the 10-12C (50-54F) range. I noticed the STCS4000100 CPU temperatures spiking to 79C. There are no fans in the unit and it was sitting on a open mesh shelf in a nearly empty rack. This had to be absolute best-case thermal conditions.

I then moved the STCS4000100 inside our office where the ambient temperature was 24C (75F) and placed it on a desk. The only vents on the STCS4000100 are on the underside, so this led to the CPU heating up quickly. Hammering it with multiple file transfers and outgoing video connections or encrypted app connections shot CPU temperature to 92C at which point the Personal Cloud locked up. Upon restarting, the RAID 1 array was corrupt. It took slightly over 17 hours for the STCS4000100 to repair and rebuild the array.

Using the backup applications gave mixed results. As an OS X Time Machine server, it worked well. The only problem was speed. Seven hours to create a full backup of a 128GB drive, 18 hours to restore. The ElephantDrive app worked sporadically. Restoring backups from the first session worked (at about half the speed of Time Machine) but trying to use Archive Control to restore deleted files from the NAS did not.

Other Thoughts: The intentions behind Seagate's Personal Cloud are admirable. A near-zero configuration box that supports most file transfer protocols, backup applications, media streaming, and external apps is a great idea. Add to that the ability to automatically synchronize files to a wide range of cloud storage providers or securely access files from anywhere - great! The STCS4000100 even allows password-protected user accounts, so multiple people can use the NAS.

It all went wrong in practice. The CPU proves not up to the many tasks Seagate wants to provide. At a single-user level, it works but for anything other than simply copying files back and forth or streaming videos or iTunes to a single device the STCS4000100 gets so slow as to be unusable. The STCS4000100 chassis is not capable of adequately cooling the CPU at normal room temperatures. Using the STCS4000100 for more than simple, local access led to a locked up unit followed by a lengthy array rebuild.

Secure file uploads to remote devices occurred painfully slowly. If you need access to a single, small document it works but transferring large files is impractical. A benefit of the Seagate Personal Cloud is that you can store large quantities of files for less than the yearly cost of a cloud storage plan. When you can't access your files in a reasonable time, cost savings become meaningless.

A final note concerns the Seagate's licensing and privacy policies that you must agree to to use the STCS4000100. The privacy policy asserts that all the information in your files "may be sent to Seagate or Seagate service providers. Seagate or Seagate service providers may store this information for you and may use this information in order to facilitate or improve the use, remote access and restoration of that data on your device through the Offerings provided." That pretty much rules out using the STCS4000100 for business use or storing anything you want to keep private.

The license agreement contains the standard dire warnings about not decompiling, sublicensing, etc. It also states that you may not "Take any actions that would cause the Software to become subject to any open source license agreement if it is not already subject to such an agreement." No open-source licenses are provided nor are any other copyright notices attached. Unless we are to believe that Seagate developed their own cleanroom Linux, wrote Samba, FTP, WebDAV, etc. daemons from scratch, and all other features themselves there is a *lot* of open source, GPL code at use here. I wrote Seagate to enquire about these concerns and received no response.

Unfortunately I can't recommend the STCS4000100. If you simply want a NAS device, there are other options available that cost less and offer more than a paltry one year warranty. For a device that provides all the options Seagate promises but with useable performance, you should consider QNAP, Synology, Thecus or other more powerful devices. These do, however, quickly get expensi

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Ethan,

We wanted to note that the peak CPU temperature is 95 C. If your unit was approaching or exceeding those values, and this caused system problems, please contact us directly so we may troubleshoot further.

The data transfer speed will decrease as more users access the Personal Cloud. If you are looking for a network drive with the best performance with multiple users, please consider our NAS Pro drive listed below:

http://goo.gl/4XSg6L

Our NAS Pro drives also have a longer warranty period than our Personal Cloud drive.

We wanted to note that we do provide information on all copyrighted and open source software for our Personal Cloud. For this information, log into your NAS OS, and click "Credits" on the far bottom right of the page.

If you have additional questions or concerns, please contact our support staff and we will be happy to assist further:

http://www.seagate.com/contacts/

Best Regards,
Seagate Support

Pros: The casing is pretty sleek, and set-up is relatively easy.

The HDDs included in the NAS are NAS-rated (ST2000VN000-1HJ164), and should do fine for extended periods of 24/7 usage. For quick reference, the drives are SATA 6.0Gb/s and have a 64MB cache, and can easily be switched-out and/or used elsewhere.

The SMB file sharing protocol works best on this device, and is compatible with most operating systems (and works without any difficulty on Windows).

Even though the box doesn't mention it; this NAS works fine on Linux (maybe even better considering the built-in file sharing protocols) both for file transfers and set-up.

Opening and servicing the NAS is pretty easy too. Can push a button to pop the top lid off, and service the HDDs if needed. There's no real reason to go under the other half of the NAS (nor is there anything really interesting there), but unscrewing all screws (5 of them; one is hidden under the top aluminum sticker) will get you in without too much trouble.

During initial-setup, you are also given a chance to register the product with Seagate for warranty-purposes.

Cons: The transfer rates are a bit lower than expected also with most protocols, but this may also be due to the processor the NAS uses (according to the system monitor, it maxes itself out quite frequently).

There is also no SSH options in the interface, nor compatibility for NFS (no GUI option nor the ability to connect). The NAS does accept SSH login however, but using any of the GUI login credentials fails.

Other Thoughts: My testing was done from a Linux machine (Fedora 21) and a Linksys EA6700 router with the latest DD-WRT firmware (at the time of writing).

Finding the device on the network was as easy as checking the "Browse Network" section on Nautilus. If for some reason that doesn't work, the NAS can be accessed via a direct IP (no port numbers or anything) in a browser (can find the IP by browsing DHCP records, and if possible, look for a device with a Seagate MAC address).

The transfer rates with the various protocols were a bit erratic. Here's raw numbers for reference:

SMB = 50-60MB/s Download 50% CPU | 30-50MB/s Upload 81% CPU
AFP = 50MB/s Download 40% CPU | 40MB/s Upload 80-90% CPU
FTP = 13MB/s Download 13% CPU | 13-100MB/s Upload 100% CPU
SFTP = 5-8MB/s Download 100% CPU | 5-8MB/s Upload 100% CPU
WebDAV = 12MB/s Download 20% CPU | 50MB/s Upload 100% CPU

(all testing was done through Nautilus directly, including FTP and SFTP (FIleZilla showed no difference with the latter protocols); CPU usage is what was shown under the system monitor on the NAS interface; drives were in RAID0)

SMB works the best on this device, and is compatible with most operating systems. AFP comes in second. Everything else either does well at uploading or downloading, and does badly at the other. SFTP is abysmal, and this is likely due to the onboard CPU not being able to handle encrypted transfers too well (underperforming). SMB also seems to be SMB1-compliant (so it'll work well for something like OPS2L for example, and does).

For quick reference, a SATA 5200RPM laptop HDD I was using as my backup storage on my server computer gave about 60MB/s over the network. So the NAS in my situation does alright. You may miss some speed if you can transfer at near-gigabit speeds though.

This NAS also runs a bit warm. At idle and load in a slightly uncomfortably cold room, the CPU idles at 70C, and both drives at 38-40C. This NAS does not have a fan (the GUI interface may be a bit misleading on this considering the monitoring section says "Temperature and fans"). The NAS drives have a rated operating temperature of 70C, so they should be fine over-time.

Although the NAS is easy to service, just note that going under the metal shell may void warranty. And just to express it again, there's nothing of real interest under the metal anyway (on the left side, you have the main control board with the CPU on the bottom-side, held tightly to another metal piece as a heatsink; the right-side just has the SATA power/data cables going to the other drive, and the light wires). There is room on the right-side should you want to possibly mod a small fan in or something though.

Works fine with Plex Media Server too (in my setup, I mount the NAS as a drive under Linux and point Plex to it).

So overall, it's a nice entry-level NAS, but you may want something else if looking for more-advanced options and power.

Pros: quiet
large storage

Cons: I was very happy when Newegg asked me to review Seagate's Personal Cloud 2 bay storage unit. I was already thinking of getting one to expand cloud storage and turn off all commercial cloud storage services. As usual shipment was super fast, only 2 days.
When I opened the box I was very surprised not to find any cd with software. Only the unit , power supply, network cable and very small quick start guide.
So I installed the unit to my cable modem router then went to read the manual. The manual is not worth the paper it's printed on. It's very clear up till it's time to configure it. Anybody can figure out how to connect the unit without instructions but getting it working will he difficult for the average user. The manual tells you to configure it but not how to do it. I waited till my computer found "all" the devices. I think there was a total of 6, Twonky NMC Queue Handler, TwonkyProxy, under other. Then Personal storage under storage, personalcloud and win-5kg8rifqd6o under computers and also a personalcloud under media.
I clicked on network/personalcloud/public/personal cloud which was an internet shortcut. I thought it was going to be a better manual explaining setup. It opened a window and began a firmware update. After the update the setup window opened. After you agree to terms you are given a choice if either raid 1 for maximum protection or raid 0 for maximum storage. I picked raid 1.
After it sets up the raid you must enter owners settings and information and register it if you want. Seagate then sends you an email with a code, copy and paste it in the next screen. The next screen gives you your device username and Seagate access id. I suggest you copy the page and click finish.
Now another window pops open and yet more instructions and apps to download. Seagate dashboard installer, 142 MB. Ok installed it. Then you need to download the apps on your phone.
The 2 main apps for windows will not start so that's frustrating and the download manager tells me there is updates for them but the update keeps failing.
I did a search for Seagate apps on my phone there were a few. The only one I got to work was Seagatemedia. Seagate's Sdrive would not allow me to login. Anyway you better have some patience if your going to use an iPhone 4. It brings the phone to a crawl.
After a lengthy install 2 apps needed updating but would not update. So I sent in a request to Seagate for help on Friday night.
Saturday morning I got a reply from Seagate. Too bad they didn't care enough to even try to help because I'm running a tech preview of windows 10.
Well let's test the speed with a large file. My system is a high end system so it should do very well. I tried copy and paste with a 8+gb file, it was dismal. Top speed 7MB/s. Speed varied all the way down to under 1MB/s. I can install windows 7 from a usb 2.0 thumb drive faster then I can copy this file also my internet speed tests out at 97MB/s so I think at the worst my transfer speed sh

Other Thoughts: The unit itself is easy to setup for basic storage but too slow to be useful to me for real backup. Reading pictures for display is fast enough to scan without lag on the computer but way to slow on an iPhone 4. Support from Seagate is cold and useless. I would think they would want to help with windows 10 testers instead of blowing you off.
My suggestion, wait till Seagate works out the kinks.

Pros: Installation:
Without a doubt the simplest electronics installation I have ever done! Makes setting up a networked storage device painfully easy. The Seagate Personal Cloud 2-Bay comes with a small booklet with 4 steps. No words - all pictures. It is that easy.

Plug the power cord into the wall, plug the provided ethernet cable into your wireless router, open your network in Windows Explorer, open the Public folder on the drive and click on the link and it automatically launches the setup configuration.

Setup configuration automatically downloads and installs the latest firmware in a few minutes and then automatically configures the type of RAID you want to run (RAID 1 or RAID 0). No hassle.

The default is RAID 1 (mirroring), which guarantees your data is safe if one of the two drives fails and improves read performance (average 10-20% increase in access times, from past reviews), but reduces your storage capacity to 2GB. The other option is RAID 0 (striping), which doubles your transfer rate and gives you the full 4GB capacity, but doubles your risk of data loss if either of the 2 drives fails. Changing to RAID 0 takes about 3 minutes.

Noise:
Drives were quiet, although you could hear the heads clicking softly while accessing data.

Cons: Speed:
I configured it in RAID 0 (striping) and performed some speed tests:
-Copying a 1GB file from my computer over an 802.11n network to the Cloud 2-Bay - 2.7MB/s (6 min 14 sec)
-Copying a 1GB file from one directory to another (internally) on the Cloud 2-Bay - 1.2MB/s (14 min 10 sec)
-Coping 1GB of 17,670 small files (<128kb) from my computer to the Cloud 2-Bay - 0.6MB/s (29 min estimated)

In RAID 1 (mirroring):
-Copying a 1GB file from my computer over an 802.11n network to the Cloud 2-Bay - 0.9MB/s (19 min estimated)

In comparison, copying a 1GB file from one directory to another on a Hitachi 2TB HDS723020BLA642 - 85.3MB/s (12s)

The results were painfully slow and I am not sure why the drives performed so poorly. Possibly an issue with the RAID controller or firmware. However the firmware was updated to the latest firmware as of 3/13/15 (Friday the 13th)!


Warranty:
2-year warranty is low for a storage device of this cost. 3 years would have shown more faith in this product.

Physical:
The drives are mounted parallel to each other, instead of vertically. Unlike most NAS systems, this makes the footprint twice as large. This was probably done more for marketing than anything else, because it looks more like the set top box that consumers are use to. If space is an issue you could use the packaging material to mount this vertically.

Also, the system gets fairly hot when in use. There are multiple vents, but I would be somewhat concerned with the longevity of the drives.

Other Thoughts: This review started off as a user friendly, easily configurable system that I was really expecting to like, but ended up with disappointing results.

This system is being marketed to consumers rather than as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system. As such the dedicated processing power may be less than Seagate's NAS Pro 2-Bay system. The performance shows. However why the write performance is as slow as it is has to be an issue with the firmware - even a slow laptop hard drive will offer write performance 30-100x more than what I am experiencing. This appears to be a replacement for the Seagate Central 4TB Personal Cloud Storage, which also had performance issues. It makes me wonder if they just changed the external housing to wash away the negative reviews of the earlier product.

One pro, is that the drive can be accessed via the Seagate Media App to upload your mobile data. This would make backup up and sharing photos from your mobile phone quick and easy. There are also other online methods to access this drive.

Overall a potentially great system, with some major performance issues. Maybe it was just an issue with my review sample, but I certainly hope Seagate addresses these issues before launch.