Mobile file access with the Pogoplug

Posted on 24 Jun 2010 at 14:27

The only downside of the Pogoplug is its shockingly pink colour, says Paul Ockenden

You may have read elsewhere about the Pogoplug, which appears to have been getting rave reviews all over the place. For those of you that haven’t, in essence this is a small box you plug into your wired network at home (or in the office if you’re allowed to), into which you can then plug one or more USB hard drives. These may be old-school spinning mechanical drives, USB memory sticks or indeed any kind of storage that connects via USB.

The only gripe I have is over the Pogoplug’s colour, which is pink

It’s a really neat device and it’s no exaggeration to say that the whole thing can be up and running in less than five minutes; you simply plug it in, then visit the Pogoplug website to activate it.

The system is usually clever enough to match the IP addresses of the device and your web browser, so there are no lengthy “please type in your device ID” screens. Once working, the Pogoplug then enables you to access your files from anywhere. It’s being marketed as “Your personal cloud”, a slogan I’m not totally convinced by, although you can’t really blame its manufacturer for trying to jump on such a hugely hyped bandwagon.

For the typical road warrior it’s something of a godsend, especially if you’re working in a team environment. It’s a bit like using Live Mesh or one of the other cloud storage devices, but with a number of advantages: unlimited storage space (just plug in a bigger hard disk drive), LAN speed access when you’re connected to your home network, and the ability to share files securely with other people on your team. As you can probably tell, I’m a bit of a fan.

The only gripe I have is over the Pogoplug’s colour, which is pink. In fact it’s PINK, a truly shocking shade that really can’t be adequately described except in block capitals. You won’t see just how shocking it is from this page, because neither the CMYK colour printing process used to print the magazine nor the RGB pixels used to depict it on the website are capable of adequately reproducing the full shouty horribleness of this particular PINK.

That’s a real shame, because apart from its migraine-inducing colour scheme, the design is otherwise quite nice. I imagine most Pogoplugs will end up well hidden behind bookcases or stuffed into the cupboard under the stairs (which will have to be lined with aluminium foil – it’s that PINK).

What makes Pogoplug particularly relevant to this RWC column is that mobile clients are available for the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and even for webOS-based Palm devices, and these mobile apps will enable you to browse the files on your home Pogoplug while out and about, including reading Office and PDF documents, listening to MP3 files and, if you’re on a fast enough mobile network, watching videos. Depending on the mobile client you can also upload files, such as photos and videos, directly from your phone.

These phone clients are all very usable, and although the Pogoplug is marketed as a consumer device for sharing photos and music, I reckon there’s massive potential for field engineers, and others in a similar line of work, to use it for accessing spec sheets and device manuals, product demonstration videos and similar information from their phone rather than having to lug around a heavy laptop.

I’ve been using my Pogoplug with several of the mobile clients for a few weeks now and they’ve all been solid as a rock, and luckily I have a convenient cupboard that I’m able to hide it behind.

Download a year of Paul Ockenden's Mobile & Wireless columns by heading to our Free Downloads site

Subscribe to PC Pro magazine. We'll give you 3 issues for £1 plus a free gift - click here

From around the web

User comments

Pogoplug is great. With this article as a recommendation I bought one and it just works beautifully. No fuss, no problems, it just works, if only all IT products were so simple to set up and use. Locally it is just an almost limitless storage with the amazing bonus of being able to access it from anywhere on the net, even from a mobile phone, mines a Blackberry. Well worth the small investment.

By Captainandy on 24 Jun 2010

Does it come in PINK?

Just kidding!

A guide price was missing from the article but Amazon UK have it for just under £80.

Sounds very useful but not sure how I would use it myself. Just about all the files I need are already on my PC. In order to use this without having to leave the PC on, I would have to transfer all these files to another drive (or stick). That would create data redundancy and become a pain when files become out of sync between the drive and the PC.

Yes, I could simply move all my files to an external drive but then I would need to power that device everytime I wanted to use the PC.

I also doubt my O2 broadband has enough upstream bandwidth for streaming media (it barely has enough downstream bandwidth out here).

I currently use Syncplicity for accessing and syncing files I need for work and this has the advantage of being able to access files locally on my machine as well as from their servers if I need that facility.

Still, sounds useful.

By mviracca on 24 Jun 2010

Was sceptical

I thought that there must be cheaper ways to share your files, but then I realised that it's the equivalent of a little server running all the time. Even an atom powered nettop would cost more and would require (minimal, but still some) setup so actually it's a good deal.

By windywoo on 25 Jun 2010

Bargain of the century

The review doesn't do justice to the flexibility of this device.
At work I have set up a Pogoplug as our main file server. With 4 USB sockets expansion possibilities on the one device are huge, one 1Tb disk is enough for our purposes at the moment though. Once set up you can either access through a web browser or install a small driver that makes the device appear as if it is a regular drive on your PC. If you have multiple Pogoplugs then they each get their own drive letter.
Using Pogoplug I now have directory level security allowing me to control which members of staff have access to which directories. I’ve also solved the “out the office” problem as every member of staff can access any data they are entitled to from any web connected pc, iPhone, Android phone, etc.
One downside of Pogoplug is that it isn’t recognised as a backup location for most backup software. It does, however, have an “ActiveCopy” feature which allows you to select directories to maintain between your PC and the Pogoplug. I have set up each user with a private area on Pogoplug, and their profile (in Windows I mean C:\Users\) is copied to the Pogoplug using “ActiveCopy” – this of course means that they can access it through their mobile device (iPhone, etc) when they are on the move, really handy for when you need that document that you forgot to print.
At home I have installed a second Pogoplug. Apart from being a file server for home, it allows me to use “ActiveCopy” to keep a backup of the work Pogoplug – just configure it through the web browser and leave it to get on with it. Offsite backup runs automatically, continuously, and all for the one-off cost of buying the Pogoplug and drive. The only downside is the initial copy takes a while as you are reliant on the upload speed of the site being backed up (Pogoplug is clever though, it recognises if you are on the same LAN as it is and if you are does local LAN access rather than access via the internet).
If you have a broadband internet connection I am struggling to imagine why in these days of really cheap storage you wouldn’t buy one of these, chuck a disk on it, and use it as your backup. I can access all my music, videos and photos without having to carry them around with me, and I have the security of knowing that I have an automatic backup of them running continuously. How good is that?
Like I said at the beginning, the review doesn’t do justice to the device!

By Neil_D on 30 Jun 2010

It wasn't a review...

Thanks Neil. One thing it's important to point out is this wasn't a review. I wrote about the PogoPlug within the context of a real world smartphone column.

If you read it as a review, I can see how you'd be disappointed.

By PaulOckenden on 30 Jun 2010

Plug into your wired network? any reason you can't just plug it into the back of your router?
Love the colour, Barbie Pink, should have called it My Little Server...

By stokegabriel on 30 Jun 2010

You'd be able to plug it into any switch or router, however, as you have to PLUG it in then the term to use is "wired network", as written. If it was wifi then you'd connect it to your wireless network.

By JmLing on 5 Jul 2010

Thanks for the clarification, I WANT ONE.

By stokegabriel on 30 Jul 2010

Thanks for the clarification, I WANT ONE.

By stokegabriel on 30 Jul 2010

Leave a comment

You need to Login or Register to comment.

Paul Ockenden

Paul is a contributing editor to PC Pro specialising in smartphones, mobile broadband and all things wireless. He's technical director of a combined IT and marketing company, which works on websites and intranets for several blue-chip clients.