Customer Reviews

Iomega 160GB External Network Hard Drive

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've owned the Iomega 160Gb External Network Hard Drive for nearly 6 months now. The appeal of having storage directly on the network really appealed to me at the time, and this drive was 1) affordable, and 2) had ample storage available for storing my data.

I assumed a couple of things incorrectly with this drive before I bought.

I assumed it was configurable (i.e. that I could change it's workgroup settings, or add it to a domain, etc.) I was wrong. It stays in WORKGROUP. There is no changing this.

I assumed it would be plug and play. No dice there either. Several WinXP machines on my work network weren't able to see the drive when browsing the Windows Network, nor were they able to use the Iomega Discovery Tool to find the drive. I ended up having to assign a static IP to the drive and setup shares to the IP on the computers that had problems accessing it.

I assumed it would be relatively fast. I was wrong. Copying files takes time. Backups are MURDER. Over the past half a year I've amassed about 100Gb of data on the drive. I've tried backing this drive up several times. After waiting on files to copy for FIVE DAYS, I figured it just wasn't going to happen.

I assumed I could remove it from our network and easily plug it into other network configurations. Nope, wrong again. I can't get the other networks to see the drive via IP, via Iomega Discovery, etc.

My recommendation on this drive is: don't buy it. Get a drive that some sort of secondary port (USB/Firewire/etc). Ethernet is way too slow when transferring 100+Gb of Data and this drive lacks the configurability most would need to make good use of it. I've never been disappointed with an Iomega product before. I guess there is a first time for everything...

I purchased this hard drive to be a shared drive on a small network. As a network drive, the Iomega drive links seamlessly and easily with both the Macs and the PCs on the network. Setup was very simple and straight forward. Files are dragged and dropped easily in explorer and backups work well with IBM backup software installed my PCs.

But be warned about a few serious limitations. This drive does NOT work well with Macs. Although the drive docks onto the desktop easily, back-ups are extremely slow (like 3 DAYS to back-up 5 GB!!!). It seems that what slows the file transfers is the number of files being transfered, not the size of the files. Small files zipped into larger files transfer fairly quickly... The Mac also badly misreads the size of files on the drive... And there is no backup sotware on the installation CD for Macs (there is software for PCs).

Also note that there is no way to set permissions on the drive. This means that all files and folders on the drive are open to each user on the network. Iomega says that this will change in the future... So if you want to secure your files from other users, you'll need to use software to encript or password protect specific files. Also, if your newtork is connected to the Internet, you'll need to put the drive behind a firewalled router because the drive has no firewall of its own.

So, as a basic network drive for a group of PCs, this drive is good. But if you have it connected to the Internet, use Macs or are concerned with privacy, do not buy this drive.

I have a couple of laptops where I have stored a lot of information, and music and this extra drive connected to the router works very well. Perhaps the automatic backup program that comes with the Network HD need some improvement, like take the names of the files as is, because when you have a file name with simbols on it, the program refuses to recognize it, and every time that wants to make an upgrade of the back-up the program tells that cannot find the file. Also, the sound of the disk drive it's a little annoying when you have the drive so close to your working area, because of the high frequency of the rpm's of the disk. But Iomega has been gaining a good reputation for making this kind of storage devices, so I found it very helpful.

I spent hours researching inexpensive NAS solutions for my Macintosh home network. There wasn't a lot of reviews out there from the Mac world so I turned to PC magazine, whom I trust in many of their reviews because they tend to the conservative side. PC Magazine rated this drive as the easiest to use and the most compatible with PC/Mac or all-Mac networks. Unfortunately, I don't think they actually tested it with a Mac - here's why:

1) The drive is pre-formatted as FAT32 but you're supposed to be able to format it as HSF+ using the Mac Disk Utility, which you'll want to do to prevent continual errors when backing up. On OS 10.2.8 Disk Utility could not "see" the drive to format it and when I finally emailed "technical support" (because their 1-1 chat did not work!) they simply spat out the same instructions that I had told them I just tried... "Locate Disk Utility, etc."

2) So I took the drive into work and tried it with "Tiger" OS 10.4.1. The included Iomega Discovery Software never "discovered" the drive!

So I'm sending this piece of junk back. Should have learned my lesson with their less-than-stellar zip drives. Thankfully, I never backed up my OS 10.2 hard drive before installing OS 10.4, which was my plan. Had I done this, I would have never been able to get my files back onto my machine with the new OS!

I found this item's performance as a hard disk drive acceptable but the cooling fan was far too noisy (high-pitched mini-jet). I recommend a Buffalo Tech LinkStation Network Storage Center if low noise is a priority.

I have had this drive for over a year and to be honest I have gotten zero use out of it. It takes so long to copy a file it is a complete waste of time. Even worse, more than half the time the file will not complete because the drive will have an IO error. I found Iomega's tech support to be horrible and rude. I might as well have burned 2 hundred dollars, this thing just sits on the floor *turned off* because when it is on the whole network is slowed down!!! buyer beware.

This is a perfect product for my purpose. I hooked up the drive (out-of-box) to my router, installed the program (which searches through my network to find this drive) that comes with it, and here we go. My computers could find the drive in a few seconds. I like its simplicity to use.

I have 2 of these and have been using 1 of them for over a year now. Works great. I have plugged this into my wireless router, so now I can access this drive through my laptop from any room. Its reasonably fast - and just very good. U can even turn off the drive remotely (using the configuration web page)... its a breeze.

I couldn't get over how easy it was to install this network drive! Super easy. I like the backup software included which allows you to schedule customizable automated backups that run in the background. (It works best if these run overnight since they slow things down a bit.) I agree with the reviewer who commented on the noise. It is VERY noisy. I can hear it from 2 rooms away (sounds like a distant hairdryer)... when you are sitting nearby it sounds like an airplane revving it's engines.

I had no issues using this in a home network with 4 WinXP PC's and a router, they all could find the drive OK, and setup was a breeze. Didnt try the backup software, drag and drop copying worked fine. Speed matches the 100Mbs speed of the ethernet port, its fast enough to play DVD quality mpg files at 8Mbps, I didnt see any hiccuping with WMP. It wont be as fast as a 400Mbps USB2 or 1394 drive though, but it is easier to share if you have a spare port on your router.

One gripe is the power connector to the drive itself, its hard to align and insert and the pins are easily bent. It has got to be the weirdest and flimsiest power connector of any pc peripheral I have seen.