I've been using the 1TB media drive for about a month and a half now and have had a very positive experience. I set it up on an XP machine and had little problem connecting to it from my Vista laptop and XP netbook without installing any software. The only feature I haven't used is the USB print server (my printer is located in my office and the hard drive is connected in the living room next to the router and haven't wanted to move either one so they could be physically connected).
My PS3 automatically found the device on the network, and I use the PS3 to watch TV shows stored on the hard drive on my HDTV. This works great. I can't edit files using the PS3, but I can play AVI and MP3 files (I sometimes play music through my stereo system this way as well as TV shows). Formats like .mkv files won't play this way, but that's a function of the PS3 rather than a limitation of the hard drive.
I'm not using the backup software that comes with it; I manually load files to the device from any of my computers. I store my business files, writing, music, etc. on the drive and thus can, for instance, sit outside with my netbook while still accessing all my files (which is handy since the netbook has very little local storage). All my files are in one place and it doesn't matter which computer I'm using.
Uploading files is not much, if any, faster than a USB 2.0 drive in my experience, but download speeds seem very snappy and even very high resolution video files play back over the network with no delay.
For me, this HD solved a lot of problems. I highly recommend it if you have multiple PCs in your house and a collection of media or data files that you want to share, especially if you have a supported device like a PS3 connected to your TV. If you only have one PC and don't want to play media on your TV, you're better off with a 1 TB USB drive since that will be cheaper.
Pros
* Decent transfer performance over my network (via both wired and wireless connections)
* Can connect to it via PS3 or Xbox 360 to view/listen to media files
* Pretty painless setup
* Takes up very little space
* Works exactly as advertised and I'm in no danger of filling up the huge 1 TB drive
Cons
* Drive is a little noisy
* Whether it's a factor of my router or the net drive, sometimes my netbook (wireless) and PS3 (wired) lose connection temporarily. I think this is something happening on my network rather than the drive though.
* If I rename a file on the drive using my PC while a file is playing back on my PS3, there is a hiccup on playback: I lose sound for a second, then sound resumes but video playback lags for a few seconds before resuming. Audio and video remain synced when this happens, though.
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I'm getting another one b/c they are so inexpensive, plus I plan to reuse the 1TB HDD in the old one. But here's what happened: One day it was working, next day it wasn't being located by the network. Hmmm. Weird. I power it down, then power it back up. Lights on the case flash, then turn off once the NAS gets up to speed, about 20 seconds I think. The drive is still moving, but the same thing happens each time. I look in the lengthy Iomega forums and see other people have posted this problem. One response from the Iomega person asks if there were any 'brown outs'.
Oh, yeah! I put two and two together, the power outage I had at home corresponded to the NAS failure!
SO... if you buy this thing, be sure to give it a UPS.
I had it networked with my ReplayTV boxes and was able to watch archived TV from it at real time, albeit 480 resolution.
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I was shopping for a storage device to back up all of my data from my 3 computers (1 running mac os x, 1 running windows 7, 1 running xp) and my wife's laptop (vista) so some type of device sharable between multiple devices was a necessity. Initially I was thinking about buying a larger drive and putting it in my home server but came across the iomega device on sale when walking through a local store. They were on sale so I snapped it up... I bought a gigabit switch as well and did a couple of tests from my two PCs - one with gigabit and one with 100Mbps. The transfer of a 700MB avi file tool took ~ 68 seconds with the one with the fast ethernet (100Mbps) interface. My other pc with the gigabit interface was able to transfer the file in about 35 seconds.
I don't like installing 3rd party apps to manage backing up so I'm manually copying things over that I want to back up versus using iomega's included software.
The device is DLNA compliant and will stream to various media devices.... you'll be able to see it under network and also the PS3 sees it as well. I believe the playback of various media types are dependent on what your player will support (ps3 - divx (both avi or divx extensions) - mkv's won't work since ps3 doesn't support it). XBMC picks up the shared folders as well.
You can set up different permissions for each folder by going to the web interface. The web interface comes up as completely open by default. You'll have to set up an admin password. You can create user accounts for each of the folders and specify under each folder if you want to secure it and which users to allow access to the folder. Creating/deleting folders is a snap as well (though folder names are limited).
The device is also a print server. I plugged in my usb hp 2410 all in one. I only use it as a printer so I installed just the print only driver from hp and it works ok... a little setup is required like specifying the ip address, and for Mac osx specifying the queue as printer1 but took me less than 5 minutes... takes a bit for the print job to come out (~30 seconds) but now I can print from any of my computers which is a plus.
I only wish that the drive was a bit quieter (the cooling fan of the enclosure is the culprit I believe) as well as a way to spin down the drive in a power save mode if no one is accessing the server since it sounds like the drive is always on and I worry how long the disk will last being on 24x7... guess time will tell but since this is my back-up drive, makes me a bit uneasy.
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This is an awesome drive (I bought the 500 GB model), but it can be very slow. I notice that connecting to the drive causes my laptop to freeze for about 45 seconds, then it comes back up. Don't get me wrong, I really love my drive, but it is very slow.
It was also a bit tricky to install, but I didn't have too many problems. BE ABSOLUTELY SURE TO READ THE SETUP PART OF THE MANUAL INCLUDED! IT WILL SAVE MUCH FRUSTRATION! (sorry for caps, but I think this part is extremely important)
The drive has excellent security features. It will automatically find all the user accounts on your computer and put those accounts on the drive. You can also manually add accounts via the web-based setup, which is excellent if you have multiple computers using the drive. I would recommend locking this drive down as tight as you possibly can. This way, if a peeping neighbor comes across the drive, they can't get into your files (even by mistake). Post a comment if you need help securing your drive, I would be happy to help!
As far as the noise goes, I don't notice any, but my drive is in my basement with the home theater and a dehumidifier which drown out any noise it may make.
This part will sound very hypocritical: I know I said that it can be slow, but that's for connecting to it. Even with Wireless-G (54.0 Mbps all over in my house), transfer speeds are good.
I have not tested the software that comes with the drive for automatic backups, I use SyncBack (Google it, 2BrightSparks makes it). This combined with the drive make for good transfer speeds.
TIPS FOR SUCCESS WITH YOUR DRIVE:
- As stated above, lock the drive down tight. This prevents neighbors from seeing files, or even dropping their own in the drive. It uses basic security, but it's very difficult to get around it.
-Secure your wireless network. If you don't have remote access enabled, this makes it about 10 times more difficult to get into the drive.
-"User Accounts" on the drive:
~Be sure to create a folder for everyone in the web-based setup. (Login using the IP address of the drive and click 'Folders' on the left-hand menu panel.)
~Make an account for everyone with each having a unique password. If you have a user account for each person on your computer, then attach each folder to the computer on the individual account to prevent users from seeing each others' files.
-Be sure that you use a STATIC IP address for the drive. (Login -> Click "System" icon on the left -> Click "Network" at the top -> set it to MANUAL, not automatic -> give it an IP address that you will remember.) This makes it alot easier to have it connected to user accounts since it won't be hopping all over your network addresses.
-Obviously, never tell anyone the drive's password. Write it down if you think you won't remember it, then hide the password somewhere safe.
-Put the drive in a locked closet that only you have the key to. This prevents someone from pressing the RESET button and wiping the drive completely (no way to recover these lost files!)
Best of luck to you and be sure to comment if you need help!
UPDATE (11.15.09): I am getting extremely fed up with this drive. It is giving me more headaches than it is worth. I attempted to use the Print Server feature on the drive, and it knocked my drive offline. I couldn't figure out was wrong at first because my network said it was there, but my PCs wouldn't find it. Then when I went to reset it, I couldn't tell when it was resetting because the LED light wasn't changing at all. Furious at the time, I pulled the power cord out of it and plugging it back in and then it decided to work. The manual specifically said that it has a print server and that all you had to do was plug the printer into your drive; needless to say, that didn't work. Neither of my PCs would connect to the printer. And the "best" part of it: my printer didn't work correctly when I plugged it back into the computer! Then I had to spend more time figuring that out. Another "wonderful" part of this drive: if you don't connect to it very often, it disconnects itself, but it doesn't disappear from your computer so you can't re-mount it unless you restart your computer altogether. Now I need to go take an aspirin because I am very angry after having just edited this review! I know I originally said the drive was great, but spend the extra money to get a better one. The original rating of this drive was 4/5, but now it is down to 2/5.
UPDATE (1.20.10): I regret to have to say that with less than 5 months, my drive failed. The network port on it died and iomega wanted to charge me to replace it. I am so very disappointed with this company. Their customer "service" is atrocious, the online representative decided to take an attitude with me. They have lost the very little respect I had for them and they have also lost a customer. I hope you heed my warning--do not buy this product. It's much much more trouble than it's worth. I am so infuriated with iomega and their support. The rep I spoke to is lucky I did not contact his manager--I would have made sure he lost his job.
Rating dropped from 2/5 to 1/5, but I wish I could give it 0/5. I attempted everything I could think of to fix it, then I ended up destroying the hard drive with a hammer to prevent any data from being pulled. So thanks iomega, you've cost me money and my data. I really appreciate it. I might as well have burned $112 or threw it out the window on the highway.
~Gonnie
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The Iomega Home Media Network Storage device is an external hard drive that connects to a network. If you have a wireless router connected to the internet, you have a network. The advantage of a network drive is that multiple computers can access it at the same time. A standard external USB or Firewire drive can only connect to a single computer at one time and does not afford any real security.
The drive comes in a nice aluminum case that can be mounted horizontally or vertically. Connect the power supply and network cable (to your routers extra hub ports) and it's ready to configure. The network interface is auto configuring. If you have a newer router or switch, it will do gigabit. In practice, gigabit speed is about 3-4 times faster than 100mb.
Installation of the Iomega drive was made easy by the supplied software. If you're a knowledgeable IT person, you can skip using their software and just map a drive to it. Once configured with an IP address, you can use Internet Explorer to get into the management software. The management software allows you to set up multiple shares (folders with permissions on them) . This way you can have personal folders that only a single person can access as well as folders that multiple users can access. I set up 2 folders that have single user access (one for each of the two of us). Then I set up folders that everyone (on my network... not the internet) could access... one for music , one for pictures, etc.
A network drive makes it easy to backup important files. Copying the files up to a share provides insurance in case your hard drive fails or laptop is stolen. The drive comes with backup software which works well.
This is not a drive to carry with your laptop when you travel (there's no USB port), but if you need a good reliable drive to access at home this fits the bill very nicely.
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Here is the flat honest truth, its an excellent affordable NAS. I TB of storage goodness is awesome.
The bad is if you have a b/g wireless router still running on 10/100 Ethernet and you plan on streaming movies and music as well as large data files, you will be disappointed. You need a router that handles Gigabit Ethernet as well as the new Wireless N platform so prepare to dig deep into your pockets. You will also need Wireless N Cards for all your computers and devices, so again, prepare to dig deep.
I have a Linksys WRT54G2 router running 4x 10/100 Ethernet ports. Copying files on this maxes out at 2mb. Sad but true. I spent nearly 8 consecutive hours transferring my 400 gbs of videos to this drive via Ethernet, not wireless. (I shudder thinking about doing it over Wireless G)
When streaming videos to my PS3 very often the video would start to stutter and I'd have to pause the video so it could buffer for a few minutes. To stop this I would have to remove all devices from the network except the PS3 and NAS so the devices would have optimal bandwidth.
[Update, the stuttering issue is directly related to my PS3. Most other devices stream fine except when the network is bogged down with too many appliances reading from/writing to it.]
The iomega drive itself is running the Twonky UPNP media server. This is good; why? because the Twonky, unlike the(Windows Media Player 11) WMP 11 UPNP server is faster, handles a tonne of formats, and can even stream the album art off of music files stored on the ID3 tags to devices such as the PS3 which the WMP 11 UPNP server cannot do.
The WebPage for the device is convenient and well laid out. You can even adjust the brightness of the LED there. You can only add new shared folders through that webpage and you can set them to be shared via DLNA or itunes music server or both. There is no way to directly connect this drive to your computer other than the ethernet cable. To do this you would have to assign a static IP address to the NIC on your PC and set the IP address acquisition on the NAS to automatic; If that doesn't work set a static IP address to the NAS as well. Then just plug the Ethernet cable in and the drive should turn up in "Network"
The extra USB port in the back cannot be used with a USB hub sadly. I attached my HP printer fine. NTFS drives cannot be read by it despite the specifications say that it can. FAT32 reads fine. All these features can be used without the included software. The only real reason to use the software is to secure the drive on the network.
The power adapter is designed so when plugged into a power strip, it doesn't block any other power outlets. It has a power off button and it can also be turned off via its web page or restarted there as well.
If the hard drive in the casing dies the drive is not user replaceable/upgradable. The included drive is somehow tied to the casing. You have to send it back to iomega to get the drive replaced.
If you really desperate this will work pretty well, however i recommend spending a little more like 400 and getting a NAS with multiple drive bays and is capable of RAID 1 and has user replaceable drives. The HP and Linksys options are much better.
Peace out peeps.
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I bought my first one of these, and the fan was very, very noise since it was rubbing on the fan housing (slowly eating itself alive). I contacted Iomega, and they said they would replace the unit...with a refurbished unit. I also would have to pay to ship the unit back to Iomega. I just sent it back to Amazon for a replacement...Amazon is really fantastic!
My second (replacement) unit from Amazon had another fan problem right out of the box. The fan would not run, ever. The unit gets hot and I'm worried the hard drive will be toast, so I'm sending it back as well. I contacted Iomega, and they first said the unit did not have a fan, so it's OK...hard to believe they don't even know their product.
Anyhow, Iomega has really poor quality control, awful customer service and replacement policies. On the other hand, Amazon has great replacement policies so this hasn't been a stressful event.
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I have been using this Network Drive for the past 2 weeks. Here are my initial impressions.
Appearance-
Clean lines. Looks like a good quality product.
The drive is much smaller than regular NAS storage drives. In fact it is only as big as a regular external USB drive. Of course the appearance and size of a NAS drive shouldn't matter as you can put a NAS drive anywhere in the house unlike a USB drive. Nevertheless, the small size is a convenience if you need to take your drive to your friend's place to share some files :-)
Initial Setup-
I must say the initial setup of the drive was not a very smooth experience. As per the instructions I tried to install the drive detection software on a Vista machine. I was running as a standard user and entered the admin password when the installer prompted for it. However, the installer could not complete the installation. I logged in again as the admin user. This time, the installation completed. However, the drive detection software could not find my network drive even after several attempts.
Fortunately I had an XP machine also on the network. I installed the software on the XP machine as an admin user. The installation went smooth and the drive detection software found the drive almost instantanously. It also created mapped drives for the shared folders.
In short, when the setup software works, it works very well. Else it is a totally useless, as in the case of my first attempt on the Vista machine. I don't know if this is an issue with all vista machines.
After I accessed the network drive from my XP machine, I realized there is nothing wrong with the network drive. In fact you don't even need the setup software if you can find out the IP address of the network drive.( Searching by machine name did not work for me). Just enter the IP address in windows explorer like \\192.168.0.101 in my case and you can access all the shared folders on the network drive.
The web interface to access the network drive settings is very simple and user friendly.
I havn't tried out the backup software yet.
Performance-
In spite of this initial setup issues, I would rank this drive very highly. After I figured out how to access the shared folders I have had absolutely no issues. File transfers are fast and reliable.
One crucial feature that has not been mentioned in the documentation is that you can attach this drive directly to a computer through the ethernet port and transfer the files. This was mentioned by one of the earlier reviewers and is surely a great feature that allows you to use this like a regular external drive if you do not have a router or do not want to connect your drive to the network.
Overrall the drive has met my expectations of a home network drive.
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This drive doesn't work under OSX 10.6. The Home Storage Manager software doesn't detect the drive on the network. The support page says it will never be supported due to "architectural changes".
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This is a rewritten review. Downgrade the rating to 3 stars (it won't let me change it).
I bought the Iomega 1TB Home Media Network Hard Drive in mid-February of 2009. I wanted to set up common storage on my home network so that everyone can work on whatever files they need to, regardless of what computer they are on (and the price seemed reasonable). I was also attracted to the feature that the hard drive has a USB port that is available to plug in another external drive or a printer. I was interested in using it to put my printer on the network (an HP Officejet 6210).
The setup instructions basically tell you to "plug it in, turn it on, and it will work." That's great if things work, not so great if they don't.
There is an Iomega utility that sits in the system tray (notification area). It looks out on the network and finds the drive. It also provides access to configuration pages. Web page access to the configuration is also possible.
I tested speeds across my network. I have a Dell Dimension 8400 running XP SP3. I use a Linksys WRT54G2 (upgraded after the drive wouldn't work with my old router). I left this web page open in the background during the tests, but no other applications were up. I had no other machines on the network at the time. The PC was wired to the router along with the Home Media Network Hard Drive, and the internet connection was on.
Test file size: a modest video file (.avi) 1.013 GB size indicated under Windows Explorer
PC --> Prestige: 42 sec.
Prestige --> PC: 34 sec.
PC --> Home Media Network: 128 sec.
Home Media Network --> PC: 112 sec.
I'll let you construct GB/s, Mb/s, or whatever units you would like from those numbers. Longer files may be a bit better, but the status bar seemed to settle into a regular progress rather quickly, so the gains may be small.
Treat these times as ballpark estimates. No attempt was made to explore their sensitivity to various factors. They represent what I experienced if I simply sat down and started using the drive under typical circumstances.
I was unsuccessful getting the print server function to work through the router, even after time with both Iomega and Linksys support. Everything about printer setup seems to work, up until I click the "print" button from an application and nothing happens. I got it to work work when the unit was plugged directly into the computer ethernet port, which demonstrates I am able to correctly set up the printer.
Because of the printer problem, along with the disappointing speeds from my tests, I decided to network my Iomega Prestige 1TB Drive and printer through my desktop PC using the ability within the XP operating system. If you don't know how, a book like Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual (2nd Edition) explains it very well. Everything works great now, but I have to have the desktop on. The Iomega Media Network Hard Drive was sent back.
Note the user manual, specs, and quick start guide may be found at the Iomega website. Amazon deletes the link if I add it here.
In response to a comment, I checked to see the drive comes formatted NTFS.
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