While I had sworn off spending willy-nilly on new gizmos in 2009, it looks like the $99-dollar Pogoplug is going to test my self-control. Why? It turns any USB-enabled drive into a personal storage locker accessible over the Internet. The little device hooks up to a local storage device via USB and can be connected to a broadband connection via a router. Simply go to a special web site to set up the device and boom! You’ve got access to all the contents of your local drive, right off the Internet. You can even get to them via an iPhone, though the preview functionality isn’t great.
You can easily share files, including photos, with friends and family off the local drive itself. The concept behind Pogoplug is quite similar to that of Fabrik, a storage company that worked with disk drive makers like Maxtor by embedding its software on the drives and allowing people to share those drives online. But Pogoplug is much simpler, and it will work on pretty much any USB drive without the need for special software.
Kevin Tofel, co-editor of our sister site jkOnTheRun, took it for a spin and was blown away by its Apple-like ease of set-up and use. So far I have used Buffalo’s LinkStation as a network-attached storage device with web access. With it, I can turn my G Technology’s G-Mini Drive into a web drive.
Apple-like doesn’t only apply to the ease-of-setup and use … it also applies to the industrial and package design. It really is a wonderful gizmo which has really made our uploading and sharing of our constant supply of photos and videos a cinch!
Really responsive team too via http://twitter.com/pogoplug
candice
since i have not received mine just yet, i will comment on the packaging and design after i experience it first hand.
Nice device. I’m gonna get one. And it looks like the word “cloud” is already being hyped out with misuse 🙂
Any component stuck to an ethernet cable and accessible from IP does not become a ‘cloud device’ (heck if that were the case, cloud computing is as old as when WAN came in)
Some of the key components of cloud, in addition to being ‘remote’ are ‘scalable’, ‘distributed’ and in my book ‘multi-tenant’
LOL. I don’t understand either what made Om call this Cloud Device.
Sunil, actually it was Arjun who used those precise words.
I have ordered the SheevaPlug similar to the PogoPlug (it uses the same SOC from Marvell). My intent of course is to tinker with it. There was an article on WSJ on how Marvell is trying to open a new front for itself, here is the link to that article: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123535737573645547-lMyQjAxMDI5MzI1MzMyNTM3Wj.html
Of course so far you had devices like the LinkSys NSLU2 that were hacked to run plenty of Open Source stacks such as OpenWRT to make them like file servers hooked up to USB storage devices.
Device is supposed to works with their website what happens if tomorrow they disappears?
You are right; how personal is it when it depends on other online service
Can you upload to your storage device from another computer? Say I’m working on something at work and I want to back it up at home, can I head to the web interface and upload it back to the storage device I keep at home? If so, i’m pretty much sold on the spot.
Ryan, I hit that in my full review that Om linked to. Yup, you can upload files & create folders on your home storage device from any computer’s browser with this.
I haven’t gotten a chance to play with the PogoPlug, but it’s on my wish-list!
+1 Daniel 😉
Check spam again Om 🙂 (posting from my home IP)
All access routes through their web site at some level. Which means that someone is paying the bandwidth bill. I’ve seen no mention of a monthly or annual fee to keep the lights on, so are we being sold that the $99 hardware cost has this fee built in, and that it will support access to these resources in perpetuity? Or, is this somehow ad supported, or are they selling my info, etc?
I knew I’d seen this before.
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9634061300.html
The question is what kind of volume discount is Marvell giving them, and is it enough to support their bandwidth bill.
Also, if they go out of business, you may be able to flash it with your own OS, or use a port of OpenSlug/SlugOS.
I saw it on OStatic in February too.
http://ostatic.com/blog/get-your-head-out-of-the-clouds-plug-computing-is-open-too
Isn’t this a device with functionality of GotoMyPC and others ? How does his become Cloud Computing ?
Looks like the same device as http://www.tonidoplug.com/
Apple-like doesn’t only apply to the ease-of-setup and use … it also applies to the industrial and package design. It really is a wonderful gizmo which has really made our uploading and sharing of our constant supply of photos and videos a cinch!
Interesting device. Advertised to be your own personal cloud, which it isn’t really, but will allow you to share data over internet, which I am very interested in. But one of the things I wonder about with this is security. Basically your operating a server open to the network. I know almost nothing about servers, but isn’t there inherently a risk of a fixed device like this being hacked since it won’t be necessarily routinely updated, and will be managed by a server idiot (me).