Customer Reviews

Iomega 32393 External USB 2.0 7200 RPM 80 GB Hard Drive

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I recently purchased one of these drives and so far, I'm very impressed with it. It was shipped to where I work, and I immediately plugged it in (USB) to my desktop at work to test out the USB 1.1 transfer speeds. The installation was as smooth as possible (win2000) and I was transferring files to the drive within literally 10 seconds. However, the real power came when I got the drive home and plugged it into my main workhorse machine. USB 2.0 is fast. Very fast. I had heard things about USB 2.0 being a shared bandwidth connection, but since this is the only USB 2.0 device I currently own, it screams. The transfer rates and data access rates are amazing, possibly even faster than my master drive. It's fast enough to install and run applications on, and porting it from computer to computer is a breeze. I'd definitely recommend this drive (or any of Iomega's other external HDDs) to anyone looking for an easily portable storage expansion solution.

Pros: Strong software bundle: Norton Ghost 2003 and Iomega Automatic Backup....Good price (although just went up).

Cons: Noisier than other external hard drives I've owned....No on/off switch!

I purchased this drive because it was so cheap compared to other external drives. I'm running XP and the installation was actually quite simple and there weren't any problems....until I shut off my computer. It was about 1:00am and I was awoken by this faint noise that sounded similar to a fly buzzing in my ear. I honestly got out of bed, turned on the lights and spent minutes looking around my room trying to find the stupid thing. That's when I noticed the Iomega drive was still on and it was actually the culprit. The next day I called Iomega and this is what I was told:

Iomega: Are you using a USB 80 GB Desktop HDD drive on Windows XP? IS it getting a drive letter?

Me: Yes to both

Iomega: Are you able to read and write files to it?

Me: Yes

Iomega: Please let me know the issue that you may be facing using this product.

Me: I just installed the product last night. As I was going to sleep the drive was making low whirling noises which startled me. It happened about every 10 minutes until I unplugged it.

Iomega: Iomega suggest you unplug the drive from computer, if it has not to be used for long time. It is quite Ok for the drive to make small sound.

Iomega: To unplug the drive you can just disconnect the power from it.

Me: What is considered a long time?

Iomega: Say a few hours.

Me: Why doesn't the unit have a power switch?

Iomega: This is default design of drive.

Me: I don't feel safe unplugging the unit when the possibility of a spark could occur plus the wear and tear of the plug over time can't be good. I will probably send it back for a refund.

Iomega: If you disconnect the power from the HDD end, no spark will occur and it is quite safe to do so.

Me: It just doesn't seem like a solution I'm prepared to accept. Thank you for your time.

Ivan: I apologize for the inconvenience. Is there anything else that I can do for you?

Me: No thank you.

Iomega: Thank you and have a great day. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance. Once again, thank you for using Iomega's Online Support Services.

Take it for what it's worth. If I had known about this wonderful "design", I wouldn't have bought it.

I bought the drive for the sole purpose of system backups with Norton Ghost on a Windows 2000 computer with an Intel mother board and processor. I've spent the last 10 hours trying to get it to work. Yes, it was up and running in a couple of minutes. I reformatted the drive to NTFS and rebooted several times. THEN, I installed the Iomega backup software. Ever since then Windows Explorer or any other program can't see the drive UNLESS I remove the hardware and re-install EVERYTIME I reboot. Ghost won't work because when it reboots it can't find the drive again. Iomega has ten pages of instructions to help with the problem and online chat with customer service that was only too glad to get me offline. VERY DISAPPOINTED.

I have alot of mp3's, games, and videos. I also have family members that can easily screw up the pc. I would end up reinstalling the OS at least once a month and losing content in the process. I wanted something that was big and was immune to viruses and improper uses.I originally wanted to purchase a dvd writer drive, but I was tired of storing and caring for discs. A friend of mine showed me his Iomega 48x burner drive, and I was thoroughly impressed with the results. I used to have a grudge against external products for their notoriously high prices. But this is a great deal!

This drive is absolutely perfect, installation for both Windows 98 Second Edition and XP Professional Pro was a snap. Backups are easy with the supplied Norton Ghost. USB 2.0 is amazingly fast and 1.1 transfers at a liveable rate, but you can pick up a 2.0 usb pci card [for very little money]. If you dont want usb you can buy a firewire cable from iomega directly for [not much money]. The only drawbacks are lack of a power switch and the a/c cable. Not having a power switch is a little scary knowing the discs could fail from an improper power-up. The arrow symbol at the end of the cord is upside down. Which was a little confusing top plug in at first because the pin positions were very hard to differentiate. These little nuances can be taken care of easily: dont unplug anything but the usb cable.

Two tips for owning the drive -
1. Don't Drop!! HDD do not take shock nicely
2. Keep the room cool, this thing gets a little warm when its on for days at a time. I suggest keeping a mini-fan by it.

Overall, a terrific buy for anyone who is too afraid to open a pc and wants a really big upgrade in storage. Thanks to Iomega for the perfect product.

I received the hard drive a few days ago and would just like to mention a few things. I read a review on here mentioning the drive was not compatible with XP. I am running Win XP Professional (with NTFS naturally) and was able to get the drive up and running and all my data (19GB of my 60GB drive) backed up in very little time at all. I hooked everything up according to the quick start guide, formatted the drive as NTFS (simply went to my computer, right clicked on the drive, and clicked format) and used the Backup software that comes with windows to backup everything. It took about 1.5 hours to backup 19GB. Well, I just wanted to say, the drive seems to be working great so far. There is a very slight whir for about 3 seconds every hour or two but I had no trouble getting it running. After recently having my laptop hard drive crash and losing all my data this reassurance is really nice.

Two words describe this hard drive: BLAZING FAST! I have never seen an external hard drive copy files in a blink of an eye. Just install from the CD, connect the USB cable, and within a few minutes you are up and running with an 80GB hard drive. Iomega gets an A+ on this product. I have purchased similar products (Zip 750 MB Zip Drive, Zip 100 MB, and CD-RW) and I will continue to do so in the future.

I've had this hard drive for over 5 years now and its still going strong. It worked with Vista without a problem. When its time to upgrade I will definitely stay with this brand.

Easy to install. great software included. quick & easy backups. what an improvement from the tape backup system I was using!!! In a lightning summer storm, hurrican season area it is so nice to always be backed up & just unplug & go.

I bought this drive hoping for a good hard drive backup device. I was not disappointed. Installation was easy and straightforward. The included software from Iomega made scheduled backups easy. My only complaint concerns the Norton Ghost software. Although the software does exactly what it's supposed to do, it could have benefited from better documentation. I am quite pleased with the drive itself.