CONCLUSION

   One of the goals of this review was to compare the “old” Seagate Central with the brand new Personal Cloud Pro and as I’m sure you can all tell from our charts performance is not really that different between these two NAS models. Of course things are way different in terms of the web interface and available options so the Personal Cloud Pro is a lot more like the NAS servers we test all the time than the Central since it can be used for many other things (adding extra apps helps with that) than just to share your media library. That doesn’t mean I’m 100% satisfied from the Personal Cloud Pro since I do believe that Seagate should had also added an JBOD mode (perhaps that would be possible with a firmware update) for people who’d still want 4TB but as individual drives and not in RAID 0 or RAID 1 (that way you are getting a 4TB NAS without having to worry about losing all your data if something goes wrong like with RAID 0). Also using a passively cooled system may help with keeping noise levels to a minimum but while testing the Personal Cloud Pro in a room without an AC resulted in temperatures spiking (expected from two 3.5” drives placed right next to each other and inside such a small enclosure) and us receiving several temperature alerts in our email (all our tests are done in the lab with both our ACs set at 23 degrees Celsius but after that we placed the device in a room with more realistic ambient temps hitting 30 degrees). I’m certain that nowadays most people use ACs in their homes and offices but just in case you should keep this in mind especially with summer only getting hotter. The Personal Cloud Pro can also be used with the SDrive software which basically provides users with local access and end-to-end encryption for file transfers (unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to test it out since Seagate’s server was offline for maintenance).

  At first glance it seems that the price tag of USD299.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 280Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) Seagate asks for the Personal Cloud Pro 2 Bay 4TB NAS (STCS4000100) is set quite high and normally I’d also agree since we’re basically talking about an external enclosure with just two 2TB NAS HDDs inside. The thing is however that you’re also getting a basic NAS device with RAID 0/1 capability and a plethora of functions which place it in an entire different league compared to regular external enclosures. The only real question is whether you need RAID 0/1 cause if not then you could be better off with the Personal Cloud 4TB single bay model (STCR4000101) which costs roughly 40% less (Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk) and offers the same capacity. At the end of the day it may not be perfect but we all liked the ease of use and plethora of features offered by the Personal Cloud Pro 2 Bay 4TB NAS by Seagate and that’s why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Good Build Quality
- Good Performance
- Compact Size
- Easy To Use Interface
- HDDs Preinstalled (Zero Compatibility Issues)
- Passive Cooling (Silent)
- Very Low Power Consumption
- USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 Ports
- RAID 0/1 Modes
- SDrive Software (Remote Access)

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Only RAID 0/1 (No JBOD)
- Temperatures