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Product Description
Pogoplug POGO-B01 is a multimedia sharing device that lets you connect any external hard drive and then access and share your content over the internet. Installation takes less than 60 seconds and there are no monthly fees.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
From what I've read, this pink version is the same as the black version I bought for $50. It's a steal at $25.
It's pretty easy to set up and once you get their software updates, works very reliably to serve your files to yourself and/or your friends. For me, the user interface is dumbed down a little too much, but I'm a professional techie. I've also had minor problems showing videos from it, but those problems have worked themselves out.
I've found their technical support people to be pretty helpful, though they send stock responses at first. Eventually they get around to actually digging into your problem and getting you a real solution. But they're always polite, never dismissive, and they get back to you pretty quickly.
It's pretty easy to set up and once you get their software updates, works very reliably to serve your files to yourself and/or your friends. For me, the user interface is dumbed down a little too much, but I'm a professional techie. I've also had minor problems showing videos from it, but those problems have worked themselves out.
I've found their technical support people to be pretty helpful, though they send stock responses at first. Eventually they get around to actually digging into your problem and getting you a real solution. But they're always polite, never dismissive, and they get back to you pretty quickly.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I got the pink/magenta pogoplug because it was only 25 bucks. It seems that the color of the plastic did not market well (compared to the same unit with black plastic being sold for double the price!), but saving 25 bucks for this minor difference seems like a very good deal.
The pogoplug is variation of a technological breakthrough in a low cost, bare bones, stripped down computer that consumes about 5 watts of power. If you plugged in a touchscreen LCD monitor and hacked in a new Ubuntu operating system, you would have a decent little computer. My brother visits a Linux users group where they converted units like this into usable computers (adding a USB wifi to visit local wifi cafes, ones that allow you to plug into their wall socket, since it does not have a battery inside). I was tempted to get one just to do this conversion, but with the netbooks and tablets around, when you add up the price of the things that you would need to upgrade it to a full computer you are not saving any money (you would need to add some thumb drive memory, a USB wifi stick, a USB LCD screen, USB hub, and possibly a keyboard and mouse).
The main strength of the pogoplug as a stripped down computer turned server is that you can leave it plugged in and only consume a small amount of wattage, less than some low wattage light bulbs. I found some minor challenges activating the unit. It is kind of "plug and play" but you need to use your browser to connect with the pogoplug website. There are two different activations. One is very automatic and easy, to activate the unit. The other one, needed to have the plug sense any external hard drives that are plugged into it, is also there, but not as well marked and a little harder to find. Once you are on the right page, you just follow some easy instructions and click the "next" button about five times, moving through the pages.
Once done, you can access your chosen hard drives (I have two set up, it looks it can handle 3 or 4, since it has four USB ports) from any browser and upload things to the harddrives through the uploading software. You also get free cloud space of 5 gigs by signing up on their site, whether or not you buy a pogoplug. This is good, because downloading from the harddrives is somewhat slower than downloading from the cloud. If there is a file that needs more upload and download speed, the 5 gigs of cloud memory comes in handy.
You can also share your files by giving them a URL through the pogoplug site. Then you can send the URL to friends who can then access and use them. They might also need to sign up for a free pogoplug site account in order to manipulate the files, but I think you can download the files without signing up. I notice that you are not given a password option to protect your files. You can remove the URL and protect them, but then friends cannot access them. There are two security modes. One with an encryption that you can activate from your settings that will slow down the download/upload process some (which can be slow already). Two is "collaborate" mode where you designate files that people can upload, download, and edit. This second security level feels the best for me, since everyone who joins your collaboration must have a (free) pogo account. This prevents random hack ins from unknown sources.
You can make any computer into a server using Opera Unite, which I find gives one a lot more server and hosting capabilities than the pogoplug. The disadvantage of Opera Unite over the Pogoplug is that whatever computer you dedicate to be a server gets locked into this function and uses up whatever wattage the power supply demands. Since you essentially have to keep your computer on 24/7, this power drain and bandwidth drain could be significant. But the pogoplug is low wattage and it seems to only use a small part of the bandwidth (but sacrifices some download and upload speed in the process). In short, it serves as a good virtual serves for relaying files between computers. It even seems to be able to stream some videos in real time within a local network (through the router before going across the web). It might also be able to stream through the web also, provided that the bandwidth can handle it (in this way it is much like some youtube videos that sometimes get hung up when the local bandwidth cannot support them).
The other service to compare the pogoplug to is Dropbox. This is like the cloud part of the pogoplug without its ability to function like a resident server and manage harddrives within a network. Dropbox and the pogo cloud start you with a small amount of "cloud memory" (online memory in their server). The pogo people give you 5 gigs that you can only expand on with monthly fee accounts. The dropbox people give you 2 gigs and you can get up to 8 gigs through referral bonuses as friends join dropbox (I am somewhere around 3.5 gigs now), then you can upgrade more through monthly fee accounts. Of course, by using both services your aggregate cloud memory increases. I got the pogoplug, because I am wary of some of the privacy issues in having online memory. It seems that the user agreements give a fair amount of lattitude for some potential "datamining" to happen from whatever it put up there. While it seems that some of these companies are presently not doing this, the user agreement does not offer much limitation from it happening in the future. I have decided that it is still worthwhile to use these services, but to be cautious about uploading some more personal confidential information up on them (no IRS form pdfs that have social security numbers on them, for instance). I feel safer having them on my pogoplug harddrive, where it cannot be so easily datamined. You can also have a very large amount of gigs to work with without incurring a monthly fee.
Update: I got a chance to experiment with file management on my Linux Mint OS 9 (AMD Duo-Core Shuttle 64 bit). I tried to download the "uploader software" and found it did not use either the package manager or the Debian loader program. It might be possible to use a terminal manual loading, but I did not try it (I usually only try this when there are clear instructions on the site that reference the Ubuntu or Debian layer of Linux Mint). I did find that I could upload and download files via a web browser pointed to the pogoplug site. You just need to make sure that the Adobe Flash Player is current for the OS and the browser. The little bar did not show the file being loaded, but it did load, at least the smaller files below 300 mb. This means that you can pretty much engage most of the resources of your pogoplug from a Linux operating system, probably all of them (with some work arounds if you cannot download and install the uploader software). The uploading process may interfere with using other applications at the same time and may be a little slow. My sense is that the pogoplug is adequately functional through Linux. I did stream a movie through the browser on my Linux computer and it worked. Downloading seems more straight forward than uploading, but both seem possible.
Summary: Thumbs up.
The pogoplug is variation of a technological breakthrough in a low cost, bare bones, stripped down computer that consumes about 5 watts of power. If you plugged in a touchscreen LCD monitor and hacked in a new Ubuntu operating system, you would have a decent little computer. My brother visits a Linux users group where they converted units like this into usable computers (adding a USB wifi to visit local wifi cafes, ones that allow you to plug into their wall socket, since it does not have a battery inside). I was tempted to get one just to do this conversion, but with the netbooks and tablets around, when you add up the price of the things that you would need to upgrade it to a full computer you are not saving any money (you would need to add some thumb drive memory, a USB wifi stick, a USB LCD screen, USB hub, and possibly a keyboard and mouse).
The main strength of the pogoplug as a stripped down computer turned server is that you can leave it plugged in and only consume a small amount of wattage, less than some low wattage light bulbs. I found some minor challenges activating the unit. It is kind of "plug and play" but you need to use your browser to connect with the pogoplug website. There are two different activations. One is very automatic and easy, to activate the unit. The other one, needed to have the plug sense any external hard drives that are plugged into it, is also there, but not as well marked and a little harder to find. Once you are on the right page, you just follow some easy instructions and click the "next" button about five times, moving through the pages.
Once done, you can access your chosen hard drives (I have two set up, it looks it can handle 3 or 4, since it has four USB ports) from any browser and upload things to the harddrives through the uploading software. You also get free cloud space of 5 gigs by signing up on their site, whether or not you buy a pogoplug. This is good, because downloading from the harddrives is somewhat slower than downloading from the cloud. If there is a file that needs more upload and download speed, the 5 gigs of cloud memory comes in handy.
You can also share your files by giving them a URL through the pogoplug site. Then you can send the URL to friends who can then access and use them. They might also need to sign up for a free pogoplug site account in order to manipulate the files, but I think you can download the files without signing up. I notice that you are not given a password option to protect your files. You can remove the URL and protect them, but then friends cannot access them. There are two security modes. One with an encryption that you can activate from your settings that will slow down the download/upload process some (which can be slow already). Two is "collaborate" mode where you designate files that people can upload, download, and edit. This second security level feels the best for me, since everyone who joins your collaboration must have a (free) pogo account. This prevents random hack ins from unknown sources.
You can make any computer into a server using Opera Unite, which I find gives one a lot more server and hosting capabilities than the pogoplug. The disadvantage of Opera Unite over the Pogoplug is that whatever computer you dedicate to be a server gets locked into this function and uses up whatever wattage the power supply demands. Since you essentially have to keep your computer on 24/7, this power drain and bandwidth drain could be significant. But the pogoplug is low wattage and it seems to only use a small part of the bandwidth (but sacrifices some download and upload speed in the process). In short, it serves as a good virtual serves for relaying files between computers. It even seems to be able to stream some videos in real time within a local network (through the router before going across the web). It might also be able to stream through the web also, provided that the bandwidth can handle it (in this way it is much like some youtube videos that sometimes get hung up when the local bandwidth cannot support them).
The other service to compare the pogoplug to is Dropbox. This is like the cloud part of the pogoplug without its ability to function like a resident server and manage harddrives within a network. Dropbox and the pogo cloud start you with a small amount of "cloud memory" (online memory in their server). The pogo people give you 5 gigs that you can only expand on with monthly fee accounts. The dropbox people give you 2 gigs and you can get up to 8 gigs through referral bonuses as friends join dropbox (I am somewhere around 3.5 gigs now), then you can upgrade more through monthly fee accounts. Of course, by using both services your aggregate cloud memory increases. I got the pogoplug, because I am wary of some of the privacy issues in having online memory. It seems that the user agreements give a fair amount of lattitude for some potential "datamining" to happen from whatever it put up there. While it seems that some of these companies are presently not doing this, the user agreement does not offer much limitation from it happening in the future. I have decided that it is still worthwhile to use these services, but to be cautious about uploading some more personal confidential information up on them (no IRS form pdfs that have social security numbers on them, for instance). I feel safer having them on my pogoplug harddrive, where it cannot be so easily datamined. You can also have a very large amount of gigs to work with without incurring a monthly fee.
Update: I got a chance to experiment with file management on my Linux Mint OS 9 (AMD Duo-Core Shuttle 64 bit). I tried to download the "uploader software" and found it did not use either the package manager or the Debian loader program. It might be possible to use a terminal manual loading, but I did not try it (I usually only try this when there are clear instructions on the site that reference the Ubuntu or Debian layer of Linux Mint). I did find that I could upload and download files via a web browser pointed to the pogoplug site. You just need to make sure that the Adobe Flash Player is current for the OS and the browser. The little bar did not show the file being loaded, but it did load, at least the smaller files below 300 mb. This means that you can pretty much engage most of the resources of your pogoplug from a Linux operating system, probably all of them (with some work arounds if you cannot download and install the uploader software). The uploading process may interfere with using other applications at the same time and may be a little slow. My sense is that the pogoplug is adequately functional through Linux. I did stream a movie through the browser on my Linux computer and it worked. Downloading seems more straight forward than uploading, but both seem possible.
Summary: Thumbs up.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Like many I was happy with my pogoplug until they decided to push an update that crashed both my pogoplugs while I was 400 miles away for the Thanksgiving holiday. What an terrible choice in time to decide to force customers' pogoplugs to update, here I am at my father in law's house about to show them some pictures of their niece when suddenly I can't acces either of my pogoplugs with the family pictures on them. I head to the forums only to find that Cloud engines had decided that the weekend before the holiday was a great time to push an update out. It's now a little over a month and 3 service tickets later and I'm still trying to nurse one of my pogoplugs back into working properly. Thanks Cloud Engines!
If they ever get this fixed I might update my review but for now I'd say just stay away until they get the kinks sorted out unless of course you want to be part of what is apparently their unannounced pubic beta. BTW- if they brick your device from afar pushing it an "official update" chances are slim to none they'll fess up and replace it in my experience thus far.
If they ever get this fixed I might update my review but for now I'd say just stay away until they get the kinks sorted out unless of course you want to be part of what is apparently their unannounced pubic beta. BTW- if they brick your device from afar pushing it an "official update" chances are slim to none they'll fess up and replace it in my experience thus far.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great as a development device
These started out as $100 machines, but have recently been sold for as little as $25 plus shipping. At that price, this little device is great for sharing photos and home video. Read more
Published 5 days ago by Greenman
media sharing device
This device works as advertised and is a good value. I travel a lot and this will allow me to access my external hard drives via any internet connection and let me back up my lap... Read more
Published 2 months ago by winger2000se
Awesome device after you need extra work.
I bought this product for re-install linux to use personal purpose. It's acting like NAS server. However it's not really $1000-ish NAS server. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Borae
Works great for its intended purpose
I bought this little gadget from another site for $25 delivered. And I can say I'm loving it so far. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Charles C.
Great for intended purpose, but...
One of my goals in purchasing this device was to have a private cloud. By that I mean that my files are stored on my system under my control, not on someone else's. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Terry Westley
Perfect home server
I saw this on dealnews one day and really liked the idea of this little device for $25. But I read that you had to use pogoplugs software to access it. Read more
Published 2 months ago by bacon
Beware!!Lost 500 GB of my backup
Received my pink pogoplug and here is my ordeal!!
After setting up the pogoplug using my.pogoplug. Read more
After setting up the pogoplug using my.pogoplug. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Gesu
Know What you are Buying
This is NOT A NAS, I know reviewers call it a NAS but it is not. Hook it up to your Network and it will remain hidden as an honest man in Washington, It requires you to install... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Ardan
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