GoFlex Net & GoFlex Home

[KainNemesis]

Hi friends i am new to this hard drive, I wonder if you can connect to a single computer directly with the Ethernet cable, or is it strictly necessary to the router? Is but to answer my question.

Thank you very much!

[kenji57]

Yes you can connect directly to another computer with ethernet.

For the initial registration the GFH needs access to the internet which is much easier connected to a router.

If you don't register the device you can't log in and set up user accounts.

When you have done the initial setup then you can connect directly with ethernet you do not need a router, but because there is no router to issue IP addresses you may need to set your ethernet adapter IP address manually.

[longbuxu]

Hi,

I'm writing to show how I connect my Seagate Goflex Home Network 3TB STAM3000100 (SG NAS for short) to laptop without a router.

+SG NAS is a computer, per se. In this writing, I call it a GOFLEX_HOME computer. So what I want to do is, theoretically, rephrased as "how to connect PC to PC by Ethernet cable without a router". For that purpose, a crossover cable is needed, check wiki if you don't know, or you're in a rush and don't want to look it up, here's how you can recognize one:

++crossover Ethernet cable has weird, bulky shape near one end of the cable wire, or

++check both ends of the cable, inside the connector heads, there are 8 little wires with different colors, compare those wires in one end to the other; if they are identical in order, likely to be not-crossover cable; vice versa, they are different in order, very likely to be a crossover cable.

+++now you're confused, don't worry, grab any ethernet cable you have, if it works, it works.

Devices needed:

+Seagate Goflex Home Network

+crossover ethernet cable RJ-45 jack in both ends, CAT-5 or 6.

+router, wired or wireless with internet access: for first time set up.

+some knowledge about networking.

-Seagate setup CD is for wimpy, trash it and follow me, if you can't, stay back, and don't do it at home.

1.Connection: [SG NAS] ... ethernet cable ... [Router]  <--> internet.

As I said above, SG NAS is a computer, so it will have a IP address assigned by router. Mine is 192.168.1.116.

2.Open Firefox, enter IP address of SG NAS. If you don't know its IP, check DHCP table in your router with 192.168.1.1 site.

or use any tools to scan IPs in your LAN network.

Set up page will appear. Complete all setup steps, including enter product key, disk name for seagateshare, credentials (admin username and password).

3. Once finishing, I have 2 options to access my disk.

a. enter IP address of SG NAS in Firefox.

b. use Explorer, expand Network view and I can see 4 virtual harddisk of GOFLEX_HOME little computer.

If asked, I use my admin username and password created in setup steps.

OK, now , unplug everything. Try PC to PC direct connection:

1. Connection : [SG NAS] ... crossover ethernet cable ... [Laptop]. In my experimental, I connect the cable end with bulky shape to the laptop; do another way around, it didn't work.

It takes some time to finish identifying.

On laptop, this connection is "Unidentified Network, No internet access".

On SG NAS, green light and white light is stable, no blinking any more.

2. Now I can access my disk using Explorer, expand Network view and see the same 4 virtual harddisk from GOFLEX_HOME computer.

Other options to connect directly to PC:

+SG NAS is basically a hard disk with SATA outlet at the bottom. A wired ethernet dock comes with it, this dock is a little computer with SOC (system on chip), just like android tablet/phone or iPad/iPhone, but very weak, enough to service NAS for the hard disk, that's why I call it GOFLEX_HOME computer.

This dock is detachable, so you can take it out, buy Seagate USB2 or USB3 dock to connect the disk with PC/laptop through USB port, alternatively, you can buy any kind of SATA docks that fit the bottom.

Hey developer, anyway to flash/install FreeNAS into this SG dock, to make it more feature-rich. The stock ROM only has UPnP.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

LBX.

[longbuxu]

With wired and direct connection to PC without a router, I got ~10-11MB/s.

With wireless n, I only got ~ 1.5MB/s.

Despite of ~1.5MB/s, I got very good experience with DLNA/UPnP to stream HD 1080p, yes, you heard it right, ten eighty p.

I tried my low setup: wireless g, 54Mbps, ~1.5-2MB/s with LAN Speed Test.

Seagate 3GB Goflex Home Network ... [RJ45/100Mbps]...router... [wireless G/54Mbps] ... --> to device.

You know this Seagate disk serves UPnP, right? So let put some movies in it and try with iPad, Nexus 4, laptop and Samsung Smart TV series 6.

I put in it 2 movies with specs:

video: H264 1920x816 (2.35:1).

audio1: AAC 5.1CH or AC3 5.1CH.

audio2: AAC 2CH.

subtitles: eng, spa.

container format: mkv.

size: ~2GB.

Results:

Video: 1. smoothly played without stuttering; 2. frame skipping. 3. no playing at all.

Audio: a. smoothly played; b. AUDIO DELAY; c. no playing at all.

Scenarios:

+Samsung Smart TV (wireless n) --> AllShares app --> detect Goflex UPnP easily --> 1a

+Nexus 4 (wireless n) --> BubbleUPnP as UPnP client --> detect Goflex UPnP --> then play with BS player --> 1a.

+Laptop (wireless g) --> VLC --> View --> Playlist --> Local Network --> Universal Plug'n'Play --> 1a.

+Laptop (wireless g) --> play directly (not thru UPnP) the mkv files on the disk with VLC --> 1a.

+iPad 3 (wireless n) --> Ace Player --> detect Goflex UPnP easily --> 1b or 2b.

Audio channels and subtitles can be switched in all scenarios.

I think iPad 3 is not powerful enough to play full HD, not because of my LAN throughput.

Any input that can help my Seagte Goflex speed via wireless would be much appreciated.

Lbx.

[kenji57_?]

Your wireless n speed looks a bit low (same as wireless g). I get 4MB/sec write 4.7MB/sec read on wireless n with LANspeedtest with a 1000MB file.

What wireless security are you using? If you use WEP then you are restricted to wireless g, even if your router and NIC support wireless n. Use WPA2-PSK (AES)

A wired gigabit connection will give you 30MB/Sec - plenty for even high bit rate video. I have tested with over 22MB/sec bitrate.

1080p doesn't define the video quality fully, because there's also frame rate and compression. Bit rate is better for comparisons and not to be too picky, but 1920x816 is HD but isn't 1080p (vertical resolution of 1080pixels non interlaced)

I use samba connections instead of DLNA whenever I can. I have occasionally noticed some stuttering on DLNA that I haven't seen with samba. All my devices (hardware media players and Android tablets) can connect to samba shares so I haven't tried to work out whether it is the device, client app or the Goflex Home's minidlna server that is the problem.

Your good result with the SamsungTV shows that it could be my devices or clients. I use MX player with MediaHouse UPNP /DLNA browser and Movie browser UPnP for Tablet on an Acer A500 on Android 4.0

[longbuxu]

Hey thanks.

How to set up samba SMB for goflex?

[kenji57_?]

SMB is already set up on the GFH. When you connect with a file manager, say on Android ES File Explorer or Windows Explorer that is samba sharing. On my media players I can browse Network (samba) or browse Media Servers (DLNA) 

For Music DLNA /UPnP is better because it sorts the files according to the metadata instead of having to navigate the folder structure, but 1 have all my movies just in one folder so it is no problem navigating. I also use XBMC which reads the samba shares

[longbuxu]

Oh, you mean regular network sharing, I don't know the term SMB or Samba server, now I know it.

I searched other threads and see others tried to install SMB server into FreeAgent (or GoFlex) dock, so I initially thought I was something else.

OK, with that, I  do have ES explorer (free, no ads). I can play both HD files previously mentioned with MX Player (free) and VPlayer (free, no ads, downloaded at official website vplayer.net).

VPlayer showed streaming bandwidth of around 200-500kB/s, peak at 4MB/s, this is weird though.

SMOOTH and good video/audio sync.

But wait, MX Player seems to play better, through out the movies. VPlayer showed some stuttering here and there.

VPlayer also has a plugin called VPlayer UPnP (free), streaming thru it results in stuttering and video/audio out-of-sync. 

Now with iPad 3, I got AcePlayer 1.7 (paid, and don't want get 2.4 update since it won't support AC3 any more) --> Media Explorer --> Samba Servers --> some parameters needed: Host: 192.168.1.100 (my GoFlex IP), Port: 139 (which is default samba port, I think), username: ..., password: .... --> done --> detect my Goflex, and now I can play those files SMOOTHLY and NO AUDIO DELAY any anymore.

So playing apps and type of servers (Samba > miniDNLA) also play a role.

[kenji57_?]

Glad you got the video working properly on your ipad.

btw I noticed an error in my earlier post where I incorrectly wrote 22MB/sec bitrate - should have been 22mbps.  I noticed when I played a 1080p video on my laptop (i-7 8GB RAM NVidiaGT525) and it played perfectly (1a) on wireless-n.

The same video doesn't play as well, with audio lag (1b) on my Android tablet (Tegra2 1GB RAM) but that's to be expected, given the hardware difference.

Fortunately most of my videos are only DVD quality.

[DISNEYLAND]

Hi and Thankx for all that info longbuxu,

All the steps you mentioned worked for me, except the last step where u've mentioned
"2. Now I can access my disk using Explorer, expand Network view and see the same 4 virtual harddisk from GOFLEX_HOME computer."

IP Address assigned to my GoFlex Home is 192.168.1.2
Bt still i cant access any of the partitions on my GoFlex

I even tried typin that in 'Run Coomand' and Explorer's Address Bar
It still ain't workin.

Plzz lt me knw what and where I may b doing wrong.
Thank You