Customer Ratings & Reviews

I have tons of photos and videos on my hard drive. When I saw this device on Best Buy, I didn't even know such a thing existed "Diskless Personal Cloud Server for Photos and Videos" Seemed like just what I had been hoping for in a device. I did a bit of research before my purchase. Read the reviews and went to their website...etc. Ordered the device. Setup was not too difficult. Note that it doesn't support 5G network. No problem. Hooked up a WD 8Tb external hard drive. Connected the device to my TV via HDMI and started importing my photos and videos from my phone. Installed the desktop app and started loading pictures and videos from my hard drive. The process of uploading is very slow; but I knew that from reading the reviews already; so no big deal. So my main reason for buying this product is so I can view my videos on my big screen TV. Monument website states video playback in various spots. However, video playback is NOT possible through HDMI. Within the Monument app, when you click on any videos, it goes to a black screen with a spinning icon. There's an option from top right corner to "Display on TV" or "Start Slide Show on TV." Neither options do what they purport to do. Your TV displays a statement saying that video playback is not supported at this time....etc. I chatted with Monument technical support who confirmed this. He mentioned that video playback is possible through Chromecast. However, I asked for specific steps to do this and have not received an answer in over a week. I tried to see if casting possible to my Sharp android TV which has Chromecast built in; there was no options whatsoever. The TV couldn't see the Monument device as a server. The Monument app does not show Chromecast in my TV as a separate destination aside from the TV itself. What's also disappointing is that the app itself is VERY sporadic in being able to open video files at all. 9 out of 10 times you can't even see the videos playback on your phone. So, Monument is a decent device for photo storage/server. It has no video playback function.

I've had this device for a few months and am truly in love with it and happy that I have made the purchase. The setup was was a bit rocky in the beginning but after following the steps in the video instructions, it went smoothly. I wish Monument could connect to a 5G WiFi network - this is why I'm rating it 4 stars. I highly recommend it for anyone having trouble to manage backups, and with the photos stuck in computers and hard drives. I connected two USB drives and it automatically creates another backup on the second drive - RAID-1. I'd like to see improvements on the desktop apps but overall I really enjoy it. I created another account for my wife and we love creating albums and view slideshows on TV. The customer support follows up issues on time and they're doing a great job for a new tech startup.

Have been using for 2 months and Monument has changed my life. It backs up my photos and videos automatically. You can add multiple family accounts and share photos with them. Great way to keep your photos secure and private. I recommend to anyone looking to back up photos and videos securely.

Instruction/documentation was minimal for the device. Needs to be better. Found out ethernet cable SHOULD NOT be plugged in during set up the hard way (trial and error, lack of documentation). Once set up, device works as a RAID 1 backup without issues. Monument App could also be better. I have two Android Pie devices connected and both work fine uploading. However, when granting access and sharing, one device would upload but cannot view contents uploaded from other device. The other doesn't have this issue. Again, no documentation and no explanation as to why this is so. Settings all appear to be fine and correct so I can attribute this to a software/firmware bug. I'm also running RAID 1 using two Toshiba Canvio 2TB USB 3 drives. They are smaller than the slot in the back of the monument and device has no way to secure the drives in place. A flap, a door, even a black rubber band would help so this appears to be an engineering/design oversight. It's a keeper for me because I need automatic upload of pictures and video from phone to RAID 1 storage. I'm not too concerned about ability to share or slideshow output on TV. It might be a deal breaker for others though.

I uploaded about 50,000+ photos and videos. The upload took about a week. It took all uploads without any problems and sorted them by date. Wish there would be more user control available over how to store and group your images.

I love this device! It’s fast and relatively easy to use. I wish there were a few more instructions on how to set up and run the app on my phone. But once you get familiar with everything it has worked flawlessly. Just make sure you get a big enough hard drive to hold how many pictures you need. You can also plug two drives in and it will back up your existing data for redundancy.

Easy system to back up photos for iphone and ipads. You provide your own external hard drive which make it easy to expand memory. You are not restricted by limited memory like other device. It is easy to hook up.

A must have for someone like me who keeps and sorts in albums. A great backup

Was looking for a way to back up photos - haven't had time to utilize it yet. Will update my review after I get it going

Not as slick as you would like. Got it for the wife and I’m always resetting or helping her use it.

As other reviewers have noted it's a great alternative for photo storage. You will need to buy external USB hard drives. I have 2 WD 4TB Easystore drives that will fit in the Monument box: one for storage and the other is an archive duplicate. You can have larger capacity drives but they may not fit in the Monument box. Also, if you initially load a lot of of photos, it will take some time for the photos to show up on the backup drive (the reason why I gave it a 4 vs 5). However, once it is set up, the server runs like a charm. Photos off my iPhone are automatically uploaded via wifi as soon as my phone connects to my home wifi and photos from my DSLRs are uploaded via the SD card interface.

This is an awesome device that enables you to organize and backup your photos. I set mine up with two 4 TB Western Digital easy store drives and I’m very happy with this device! Setup was so easy and simple! I’ve uploaded over 20,000 photos and it’s handled them with no issues at all although it does take some time to process that many initially which was anticipated. Facial recognition is pretty good but not perfect (I’ve not seen any that are perfect though) but it’s easy enough to correct them though I wish there was a way to correct them in batches rather than one by one (maybe this could be an enhancement they could make in an update down the road). It does everything as it was described it would do and the best part is they are continually updating it with enhancements and fixing bugs. I was on the fence at first with getting it but I am glad I got it as it’s going to do exactly what I hoped it’d do in terms of being a solid replacement for cloud services that really don’t even do what it does. One other feature that I think is understated is once photos are backed up the app on a phone can be run to automatically delete photos from your phone that have been backed up saving TONS OF TIME when you need to free up precious space on your phone!!

I have thousands of photos in different computers and phones. After I install the apps, it transferred all my photos and videos in high speed (I used Gigabit Ethernet connection - have not tested WiFi performance). The installation is easy - I just followed the steps in their video. I usually take my DSLR with me when I travel. After I come back home, I just inserted my SD card and could view all my photos on my TV and mobile phone which was great. Another good thing is that I can create users for my family and they can all save their photos and share albums easily. Also, taking backup through another USB drive is a plus point, so I have two copies. There’s no ongoing contract or any monthly charges; awesome product!

At this price it should contain at least 2 TB of hard drive space and be USB 3.0 USB 2.0 is TOO SLOW and 10 years out of date. I can get this in a different brand with USB 3.0 for $30