Name: Pogoplug POGO-P21 Media Sharing Device - Black
Brand: Pogoplug
SKU: COCPOGOP21
Price: 14.95 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 4.31 (59 reviews)

Pogoplug POGO-P21 Media Sharing Device - Black

Pogoplug POGO-P21

Pogoplug

Pogoplug POGO-P21 Media Sharing Device Ethernet, Black

Adorama

Computers

Drives, SSD & Storage

NAS & Servers

Pogoplug NAS & Servers

Pogoplug POGO-P21 

Top Rated Gear: Pogoplug POGO-P21 Media Sharing Device - Black Storage Type: Media Servers & Remote Access

Garbage

This device is not worth anything. After paying for this you still need to pay just to use it . Don't fall for the cheap upfront cost. There are a lot of much better NAS devices out there that will be cheaper than if you pay this subscription fee for a month or two.

This device is not worth anything

You'll need to crack this baby open to be able to do anything useful with it (like installing Debian).  Expect to get yourself a USB-to-TTL adapter.  There is good debian support for the P01 which is what I was sent.

Tech skills required

Awesome device

Works perfectly right out of the box. Installation is pretty straightforward and the cloud services works as it should. I was able to access my files anywhere using the pogoplug web services.

The only thing I don't like with this is that customer support does not exist anymore. I contacted them a couple of times and just got an auto reply referring me to their FAQ page.

With that, I don't think we will be able to see any upgrade to the pogoplug cloud/web services anymore. My guess is that there's only a couple of people working to maintain their current services and they are in the brink of closing shop.

Works but no more customer support.

Great for sharing larges files without entrusting your confidential data to others.  Easy to use.  Great price too.  It's a steal.

Excellent Device

I use the POGO-P21 to automatically back-up photos from my iPhone...added a cheap USB2 HD, connected the Pogoplug to my router, and it just worked. No subscription fees...great user interface...what a great back-up solution at a great price.

POGO-P21-great mobile back-up solution

I'm setting up my PogoPlug as a server for my home network. I'm learning Linux networking as I go, following online instructions at http://benjaminbordonaro.com/bb/page/PogoPlug-Linux-Server.aspx and the wiki.archlinux.org site. The setup has gone well so far. I've set it up for my home network, and plan to configure it to be accessible via secure connection from outside my home network. Can't beat the price for a home network server.

Useful as an ArchLinuxARM server

This device works perfectly, exactly as advertised, at does so at an almost "giveaway" price.  I use it to share large, confidential files with a colleague 100 miles awy and as a result no longer have to mail CDs.  I have no problems to report.

Works Perfectly

1. Sign up at Pogoplug.com
2. Attach any hard drive. Plug it in to ethernet port on a switch & power it up.
3. Go to Pogoplug.com and activate

Done - It's very easy to backup all your stuff in your own site

Pogoplug is excellent for file sharings

I've loaded Archlinux and learning a lot about installing different kinds of programs. Before that I tried the standard software that came with it and that was good stuff too. It's been a great investment so far.

Great device

I have 4 laptops and 3 desktops in my home network and a 500 GB hard drive connected to the pogoplug device. I have quite a few songs, pictures and videos in it. The songs and pictures work right for the most part, the videos are another story. They have to be optimized to play and bigger videos usually take pretty long. Once optimized, it works perfectly. All in all very happy with the product.

Excellent product, works flawlessly

Seems to be working fairly well now for streaming music. Occasionally skips a song halfway through. Does not work well with a disk drive but seems to be much better with a flash device. 
After a recent upgrade to the PC software, the PC interface now works flawlessly. Hopeing future upgrades will fix remaining problems

Overall Happy - hoping for some software

Very Easy To set up and access. Great for accessing your files on the go. Really nice that it shows up as another harddrive on my computer so i can run files right from that drive. The only down side I have really found is that it runs its onwn media player so it can only stream certain types of media files when I stream media on my android devices.

Excellent Product

Work as expected. Value for money

Good

Works well as an Internet accessible storage device. Wish it were more reliable as a network drive so I could sync to it. It is a great way to have music, etc available for steaming with family members. Really easy to set up! I attached an unused android phone to my home stereo and now I have 120GB of music at my fingertips. Works really well!

Works well!

This thing is great for its intended use and AWESOME for its possible alternative uses. I have mine running Debian 7 "Wheezy," acting as a home server. It integrated easily into my network and GigE makes it nice and fast. I love it.

Awesome home server

As everyone, embeded linux great with 5W power only. 

I may have 1 more later.

very kind service.

Doesn't allow you to access files unless you have there premium PC software installed

didnt work like i assumed

This is Version 1 of the Pogoplug which offers 4 usb connections. The newer version only has 1 usb connection. Pogoplug is both a device and a backup service. For single user using just the pogoplug at home there is a free account which will probably work for you. If you are seeking a family plan they cost 29.00, 49.00 or 99.00 annually depending on how many users and what (if any) cloud back you may want. Also, the device does not have any built in storage, you must provide your own storage via USB external hard drives. The other thing you need to know is that right now pogoplug is offering a free device (newer version 4) with purchase of an annual plan (shipping fee extra.) The device was easy enough to set up, however the plans and software may be a bit confusing so do your homework ahead of time so you know what to expect. It seems to me that the company is shifting from home cloud computing to online cloud computing and that is why they are giving away their device. They also offer a plan for a single computer with unlimited online cloud storage for 29.00 per year. The software for this package is different than the software for the actual pogoplug device so make sure you don't get confused. I am satisfied with my purchase because I knew what I was getting and how much it was going to cost me ahead of time. It works for me. I have a 1tb Canvio and a 500gb seagate usb external hard drive plugged in and they work like they are supposed too.

Do Your Research Before You buy!

I took this thing out of the box, plugged it in, and immediately installed Debian Linux on it.  I had a Samba (Windows File Sharing) server up and running right away.  After a couple of days of tinkering with it in my spare time I was able to get the following setup and running:
* A DLNA/uPNP (universal plug and play) server setup using minidlna.
* A torrenting server running behind a VPN all the time (to avoid six strikes) using transmission-daemon + openvpn + privateinternetaccess.com.
* A VPN server running openvpn so I can access my home network securely from anywhere.
* A home web server so that my kids can stream movies from any device in the house.
* An rsync backup server that I can back up all of my other computers to.

Overall, I'd say I'm more than getting my money's worth out of this little box, in fact I just bought another one for my brother, he's got home server envy.

I did hose my linux setup a few times trying to get my fstab (the configuration for mounting external drives) setup correctly.  All I had to do was pull the thumb drive containing my system partition and plug it in to one of my other linux machines, then I could revert my changes and go back in and try again.  I also backed up the thumb drive in case anything happens to it.

A great little home linux server

I have 2 other pogo cloud devices that were a little different than this one.
I had been wanting one of these for quite a while and knew when the price was right I'd buy one. Wow, was the price right.

Makes me want to get more and give them as gifts.

It meets all my expectations and then some. Plenty fast for me as a networking sharing device at home. Even over the net, access is no problem for me. Don't fortget

Perfect product perfect price

Arrived on time. Even though there is a subscription for other services when using the pogoplug, I don't find them necessary for my needs so I am using the basic service.

Pogoplug p-21

Great little device - I was looking for a very low-power device for a NFS/CIFS server for my XBMC media player (and for storing backups).  This + ArchLinuxARM was a great fit!

Great little device - it's E02, not P21!

POGO-P21

I thought this product would help me make redundant copies of backups but since purchasing it, I found it was incompatable with OS X Time Machine.  Further the PogoPlug backup software is not very useful on the Mac Platform.  In my case, it scrapped my entire HD and copied every image and movie file to the PogoPlug drive.  I thought I did something wrong the first time, so I reformated the drive and tried again, with the same result.  Talked to tech support who tried to help, but gave me PC solutions even though I told them I was an OS X user.

Not great solution for OS X users

This is an OK device for a single person who wants to use personal storage instead of trusting a cloud service. However, be wary to the fact that the company who makes these actually sells online cloud storage and the real flexibility for this product especially for a family lies in obtaining extra storage plans which range from 29.00 to 99.00 per month. Do a little homework on the pogoplug devices before you buy to be sure that it will fit your needs.

It's OK BUT do your homework first!

For simply storing files on a shared network at home, this gets the job done. However, I don't think it can replace Dropbox or Google Drive -- the persistence they offer is much more robust.

Good for most situations.

Using the machine for its standard purposes, it makes a great on-site or off-site backup device, and access that data from just about anywhere that has an internet connection.  The only limitation is the speed of the internet connection the box sits on.

But, that's not all.  If the Pogoplug ends up being an "e02" (on the foot of the device, not what the box shows) and you don't care to use the Pogoplug as intended, there are LOTS of guides for how to hack them and install ARM processor versions of Linux onto it.  This makes it possible to do all manner of nifty things.  But, once you convert the machine to Linux, you can't really revert it back to just being a Pogoplug anymore.

They were such a good deal when I bought them that I bought 4 (2 pink, 2 black), so I could keep one or two doing standard Pogoplug and hack 2 or 3 to do other things with no worries.