Customer Reviews

Iomega 31475 4x4x6 External USB CDRW Drive

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Iomega products aren't known for their reliability, so I was skeptical, but I decided to buy one because the price was right (and because it looks good). I happy to say that I haven't had any problems so far. I've burned a dozen CD-Rs in the past few weeks, both data and audio. What's more, it works perfectly with Mac OS X v10.1. I just plugged it in, put in a blank CD-R, and, to my amazement, it prepared the disc and was ready to burn! I didn't have to install any drivers or special software first. iTunes fully supports this drive, too, which makes burning audio CDs a breeze. Overall, my experience using this Iomega CD-RW drive with Mac OS X has been excellent.

There are 3 simple steps to "burning CD's".

[1] Buy the Iomega Zip650 USP Drive; [2] Install the Software; [3] Connect it to a USB port.

For me, that is all it took to start creating CD's for my RoadWarrior {IBM ThinkPad}. The Adaptec Software is easy to use. The Iomega Drive is accurate and easily portable.

Since I do a lot of my work "on the road", it makes it easy to transfer data back to my Desktop system when I return. I have found no problems with the different drives that I use; being able to read from or write to CD-RW media formatted on either machine. I can make extra copies and snail-mail them to collaborators without any problem of lost data, (for less than a BUCK including postage). If we are at the same conference, I can burn the data and hand it to them in less than 15 minutes (sometimes more than 300 HiRes Digital Photos and 20 MB of data from a single weekend conference).

The speed of "burning" is better on this portable drive than on my multiple media desktop drive. (DVD-ROM/CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW internal IDE drive).

I still use a Iomega ZIP (100Mb) USB drive but am finding fewer times that I need it.

If you want to burn audio CD's and make data CD's but don't want to install an internal CD-RW drive, then you might want to check out this item. Extremely easy/fast to install via the USB port. Burns CD's easily, but it's not the fastest. Comes with lots of software--Music Match jukebox and Adaptec CD wizard/Direct CD and some blank CDR's and a Verbatim CD-RW. Installs itself as a new drive. (Mine is drive F). Caution--for data discs--don't use generic CD-RW's. They will not work. Use the Verbatim DataLifePlus 2x-4x Rewritables. The unit requires you to format the CD-RW disc before the first use (which is an annoyance) but after that, all you do is drag and drop from Windows Explorer like you would with a diskette. Very Fast. No problem with any brand of CD-R's for audio. I've used various ones and all burned fine.

Since the day I've bought this device I was not able to make a single CD. I've been in contact with Iomega technical support first via email (took weeks) and then on the phone (available weekdays only from 9 to 5!). I've received numerous (sometimes conflicting) advises from Iomega technical support personal. None of the solutions led to a satisfactory outcome. The device ruined dozens of blank CDs.
If you have a Toshiba laptop DO NOT buy this device. It took 6 months to find out that this device is not compatible with Toshiba laptops (the problem is the USB driver made by NEC used on some Toshiba computers).
However, Iomega CD-RWs work well with Mac computers.

I was freaked out when reading all these reviews - it seems that people either love a product or hate it. I bought this burner for use with my HP Pavillion PC, and I have had no problems whatsoever with it. It is really easy to set up, the software is easy to install and intuitive to use, and it is very quiet. It is not as fast as some burners out there, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to burn an 80 minute CD. However, unless you are burning CDs for commercial applications, I doubt you will miss the speed. There is built in CD and jewel-box label design software, but they seem to be extremely cheesy and I would recommend buying a real design program if you want to put together really nice labels...

A little slow, but worth it with all the good software including Easy CD Creator and MusicMatch Jukebox. Great for making audio cds of many varieties. Just buy this one if you haven't a load of money and you need a good one.

I use this external USB 4x4x6 usb drive to backup data from my Toshiba notebook (using the Backup program that comes with Windows 98) and to make copies of cd-rw disks.

I found this drive to be easy to use and quite reliable, but it is slow. It takes 20-25 minutes to backup,compress and verify 390MB of data, so it is no speed demon. I use Sony CD-RW disks and had no problems with storing data on them.

If you have problems with using this USB cd-rw drive with your computer, you probably want to make sure you are using the Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) or higher on your computer. The older version of Windows 98 had some bugs and problems; Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) contains updates and bug fixes to provide better support for USB and FireWire devices.

If you are a Mac user and considerring the purchase of this product, save yourself the trouble and DON'T. I am a web / graphic designer and had a project that involved my needing to burn an interactive Flash project to CD. I didn't want to spend a tremendous amount of money on a CD burner, so purchased this one with intentions of burning my project to CD, and then using the burner to create personalized audio CDs out of my growing mp3 collection. It wasn't that easy...

Upon first installing the burner, I found I was required to upgrade my entire operating system to 9.1 in order to run the burner... no big deal, I needed to do that anyway. So I did. After that I installed the burner and proceeded to burn my CD projects as needed. However once I began trying to burn my AIFF / WAV files to make audio CDs... all hell broke loose.

The first three CDs burned fine. From that point I have ruined 11 CDs. I have been on the phone with IOMega tech support as many times. I have done everything they say from reinstalling the burner and software to upgrading the Toast software from "4.1" to "4.1.2" to "5.0 Titanium" to "5.1 Titanium". I even received tech support as ... as "I should try a different brand of rewritable CDs". I keep having the same problems along with new ones that continue to pop up. Today I finally gave up and am returning the burner under warranty first thing in the morning. I'm going to get a FireWire drive this time.

There is no reason that anyone should buy a product this expensive and have to do so much extra in order to make it operate properly. To make my long story short, DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT!! (atleast if you are a Mac user like me...)

To make a long story short, I'm a Canadian living in Japan and I wanted a USB CDRW drive for my USB port-abundant Compaq computer (that was short on every other kind of expansion). (...) Finally, it arrives, and before I even get the drive out of the wrapping, the software screws up. It was the wrong driver software! So began a nightmare of e-mails and long distance calls to Iomega US customer service, where one hand didn't know what the other hand was doing. The online support was horrid, while the people on the phone were kind and courteous, but forgetful. Twice I was promised that a replacement disc would be sent to me in Japan, only for me to find myself waiting over a month to then be told that Iomega couldn't send a measly CD to Japan. Fortunately, Iomega of Japan went beyond the call of duty and procured a CD for me on their own. They were kind, couretous, fast, and they kept their promises. If only America and Canada would take a hint from the Japanese. Anyway, the drive is excellent and works without a hitch, but I suggest downloading a demo of Nero Burning ROM to use in the meantime (it works just as relialbly if not more than the Adaptec software) if you encounter a similar problem. The Music Match software is great and works with no problems. For CDRW I only tried using the Verbatim CDRW discs, and they work beautifully. But any decent CDRs will work on this thing. I'd mark the system lower for the lousy US service, but the Adaptec software does work when it's the right software (the disc is (...) red and white, not black and white, which is for USB/Firewire. Easy to get mixed up, I guess), and there are other software alternatives, such as Nero. So I still give this baby a 4 out of 5. Just be prepared for customer service hassles.

I'm using it with an early iMac (Mac O.S. 8.6). I've made more "coasters" than CDs. Called Mac. I have the extended warranty on the iMac. They said that they get calls all the time about using Toast, the software included with this product. They said Toast has a problem with alot of Mac extensions.

For every CD i've "burned", i've ruined at least 1 blank CD. And i do it the same way everytime. One time it gives me some sort of error message. I do the exact same thing again, and it works fine. Yes, i am using the brand of blank CDs that Iomega recommended.

Had a little bit better luck storing data on a CD, but i've ruined a few blank CDs doing that also.

The guy at Mac said if i had at least O.S. 9 (or better) and got iToons it should work better. Maybe. Maybe not.

If you're using a slightly older Mac and want to "burn" music CDs, this will work. And when it works, it works great. But, you may need 50 blank CDs to actually "burn" 20. As far as data storage, 50 blanks will probably get you about 40-45 good discs. Well, at least that's been my experience.