Customer Reviews

Iomega 80 GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This drive crashed and burned after a year just as my Iomega 100MB External Zip drive had before it. I should have learned my lesson the first time, but I gave Iomega a second chance. Bad idea! I'm through with Iomega for good. The company makes sleek-looking products that are not reliable, and their support is virtually non-existent.

Worked great for about 4 weeks then one day I fired it up and "poof" the computer couldn't see it and their tech support concluded that it was broken. I see from other reviews that I'm not the only who has had this problem. I'm serious, someone should start a class action about this HDD. They obviously know it's a lemon. They must have no conscience whatsoever. I lost about 5 years worth of digital photography and about 50 compositions that I've written over the years. All they offered to do was replace it and send my old back. Dream on! I can't afford to lose all the info on this drive. For the record this drive has no fan, there are some holes in the back that look like where a fan should be but it's just bluff to make it look like they installed a fan. Terrible!

I've had nothing but problems with this product soon after taking it out of the box. It worked fine at first for about 5 minutes, aside from the constant gear grinding, whirring noise.

Well, wouldn't you know it in the middle of moving files to this hard drive two error messages pop up. The first was one of those yellow ballons down by the task bar stating "Windows - Delayed Write Failed; Windows was unable to save all the data for the file E: The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection please try to save this file elsewhere" and the other was an IE mini like pop-up with an x in a red circle to the left of the message stating "Error Copying File or Folder; Cannot create or replace... (the file which I was moving):Cannot find the specified file make sure you specify the correct path and file name."

I contacted Iomega support via 1-1 instant message chat option. I told them the error messages I was getting bombarded with and sure enough I was told that the drive was going bad. They arranged to replace the within-warranty defective drive by shipping me a new one and then I would have to send the defective one back to them in the same packaging that the new drive came in.

Now, after reading all these other reviews and reading that others experience problems with this product as I, I'm scared to store any of my precious files on it fearing the replaced drive will lose my files as the drive it replaced did.

I used this model to store my digital photos for about a year. It made a little death scream yesterday, and is now no longer working. I hadn't created any archive CD's since January, so I've just lost thousands of digital images.

Beware...

Very disappointed....Bought and used primarily for back up purposes,On my (4th)only back up, problems started...Called support,unit has a defect, IOMEGA replaced brand new unit with reman unit. Again on the (4th) back up, unit malfunctioned again, same problem (computer no longer recognized drive). Unit now just out of warranty and IOMEGA refuses to address the problem...I was lucky enough to get only 8 back up sessions and now in the garbage, very costly mistake buying IOMEGA product.Beware

The HD unit is compact, and works well. If you have a Mac, reformat it for Mac files, and its speed will greatly improve. Pretty blue LED light. Price was reasonable.

Problems:
1) There is no On/Off switch - you have to unplug it.
2) The power supply cord attaches to the unit with a difficult to align pin plug, rather than a standard power plug.
3) The power supply unit is big and bulky, so even though the HD is compact, the entire system (HD + powersupply + cords) is not all that portable.

There are better HDs out there.

Yes, it's a good price, yes it's by a good brand company. Well I've had mine for less than a week now, and spend about 4 or 5 days transferring everything I've collected in the last 10 years or so to the hard drive off CD's. It worked fine for the 5 days, great really. Then a loud repetitive grinding noise, and POOF, it's all gone. Now I'll have to head to the dumpster, dig through the trash of mine and my 100 or so neighbors looking for the CD's containing the last 10 years of my folders and files...

I plugged in my Iomega USB 2.0 Hard Drive and it worked about 45 seconds before squealing and dying.

I purchased this Iomega 80 GB External Hard Drive to be used solely for backing up the hard drive in my Mac OS X 10.3.x computer. The reason I chose this particular Iomega drive over all the other possible choices was because it came bundled with the Iomega Automatic Backup software. Just what I was looking for: an external hard drive, plus the software to do the automatic backup.

I should mention that the technical specs for the Iomega Automatic Backup software (version 1.0.2) states that it is supported on Mac OS 8.6 - Mac OS 10.2.1, but I am running Mac OS X 10.3.x. I was a little apprehensive about that, but I assumed that if it runs on Mac OS 10.2.1, it should also run on Mac OS X 10.3.x. Well, that assumption proved to be wrong.

The Iomega Automatic Backup software documentation states that it can be configured to save up to 99 revisions of each file that it backs up. I chose the default during the software installation, which is to save the last five revisions of each file. After letting the Iomega Automatic Backup software run for approximately three weeks, I discovered that some of my files were not getting backed up properly. As it turned out, the files that were giving the Iomega Automatic Backup software a problem were files with long filenames. Now, the Mac OS X operating system supports filenames up to 255 characters in length, but the files that were giving the Iomega Automatic Backup software a problem had filenames that were only 30 characters in length. Further testing on my part revealed that this problem only exists when the software is configured to save more than one revision of each file that it backs up.

I reported the problem to Iomega Tech Support. And, after exchanging many e-mails with them, and waiting several months for a software patch or new version of the Iomega Automatic Backup software that would fix the problem, I was finally informed that Iomega Automatic Backup software is not supported on versions of the Mac OS beyond Mac OS X 10.2.1.

So far, the Iomega 80 GB External Hard Drive has worked flawlessly on my Mac. I have no complaints about it. But, if you are running Mac OS X 10.3.x, be wary of running the Iomega Automatic Backup software with revisions set to more than one, otherwise you might be surprised to find out that some of your files were not getting backed up properly.

Just bought one of these. Seems to work okay, but the high pitch, whirring noise of the fan may be of some concern for some users. It produces 50-55 decibels (equivalent to noise emanating from a 30-year old refrigerator). I'll be using it for backup only, so I'll be able to turn it off when not in use. Which, BTW, must be performed by unplugging it since there is no power switch. If you're in need of disk capacity, spend the extra $100 to get yourself into a firewire compatible drive--the transfer rate of USB 2.0 isn't adequate for quick access.