Customer Reviews

Iomega Prestige 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 34808

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

In my stubbornness, I have only ever built my own external drives by placing internal drives inside external enclosures. This has served me well over the years but the benefits of a DIY external drive have greatly diminished mainly due to a drop in prices, nearly comparable warranties, and attractive yet durable enclosures. The Iomega Prestige Compact hard drive is the first pre-built external drive I've ever owned.

PROS:

- Attractive and compact design

- Drop Shock protection

- Good Seagate ST9500325AS drive inside (500GB model)

- No external power supply required

- 3 Year warranty w/registration

CONS:

- Might be more expensive than the competition

- Ho hum software bundle

Honestly, I still think of Iomega as the Zip Drive company who's claim to fame were faulty drives and their "click of deaths." Still, I owned three of their Zip drives over the years and hadn't really paid attention to their products since flash memory made Zip, obsolete. Apparently EMC now owns Iomega and they have a large selection of external hard disk solutions as well as a hodge podge of other products. The Iomega Prestige USB external hard drive is one of their more compelling offerings.

DESIGN

There is no question that the enclosure is attractive with the brushed metal and slim profile. The most noteworthy design element of the drive is it's size. It is probably smaller than most other portable drives on the market. The soft white glow of the power/activity LED works well in the overall appearance of the drive without being blinding or annoying. Oddly, the USB connector is on the left side of the drive, rather than in the rear. There are no rubber feet on the bottom of the drive so it doesn't stay in place that well. The instructions state that one of the 2 USB connectors is the aux power but I only needed the primary connector to power up the drive on my Dell laptop. Also, the photos make the drive look almost black, but it is more of a carbon or gunmetal gray.

PERFORMANCE

Needless to say, most portable and desktop external drives are of the 5400RPM and slower variety. This is optimal mainly to reduce heat, which then allows more flexibility in creating a sleek, portable enclosure without the use of bulky fans. The trade-off is obviously performance. Still, if you are not regularly dumping hundreds of GB of data back and forth at the same time on a regular basis, you shouldn't notice too much of a difference. I copied 1.5GB of data (2 files) in 1 minute and 21 seconds. Not too shabby. The following are benchmark results using HDTunePro for the internal version of the Seagate ST9500325AS (500GB) drive and the Iomega USB version. I found the internal SATA benchmarks on the Internet and I performed the USB benchmark using the Iomega drive on my Dell laptop.

Read transfer rate INTERNAL SATA

Transfer Rate Minimum : 38.7 MB/sec

Transfer Rate Maximum : 80.1 MB/sec

Transfer Rate Average : 63.3 MB/sec

Access Time : 19.0 ms

Burst Rate : 51.7 MB/sec

CPU Usage : 8.3%

Read transfer rate EXTERNAL USB2.0

Transfer Rate Minimum: 26.3 MB/s

Transfer Rate Maximum: 30.7 MB/s

Transfer Rate Average: 27.8 MB/s

Access Time: 24.7 ms

Burst Rate: 27.6 MB/s

CPU Usage: -1.0%

The Prestige drives have a "feature" called Drop Shock protection. "Feature" is really a misnomer because it's really just an internal standard that Iomega created for their drives being able to withstand a 36" drop on industrial carpet. This is of course, while the drive is not running. There is no internal cushioning for shock protection, though some of their other drives have it for 51" and 84" drop protection. My desk is about 30" high and on low pile carpet, so it IS reassuring that the drive is at least rated for drops from my own desk.

The 500GB drive comes pre-formatted in NTFS with 465GB of available space. There are some devices that require FAT formatted drives to be able to see them so if you have problems with your device seeing the drive, that might be the issue. Mac users will need to reformat it.

SOFTWARE

I did not install any of the software applications that are available with the Iomega Prestige Compact Hard Disk. They do not come on the drive, which I actually appreciated. They are available to download on Iomega's website and the licenses for the EMC Retrospect app is included in the box. I don't find any of the apps especially useful. I personally use TrueImage and SyncToy for my backups.

WARRANTY

Hard disk manufacturers keep changing their warranties around so it's always a good thing to check before buying. And everyone knows that hard disks can and will go bad at some point so having a good warranty is important. Iomega will warranty their drives for 3 years as long as you register the drive. I don't have personal experience in their RMA process so I don't know how good they are at replacing faulty drives. I've RMA'd with most of the major disk manufacturers and always got good support.

SUMMARY

I like the Iomega Prestige Compact Hard Disk for the size and attractive enclosure. It does not have any other differentiating features and might cost more than other drives of the same capacity, but if you want a good portable drive(Seagate) that really is portable, then the Prestige is the drive for you.

There's not a lot to say about this product: it simply works, unobtrusively and according to spec. I have a number of other USB hard drives from various vendors, and they all perform pretty much the same. The Iomega includes a cable with two USB connectors, so that if the USB port on your computer doesn't produce enough power, you can get some extra juice from another port. I never needed the extra amps in my Mac Mini. The drive also ships with some bonus software pre-installed on it, but since I planned to use it with my Mac the first thing I did was reformat the drive, So, no comments on the bonus software.

I did try some simple performance tests, copying around 75GB of data between the various hard drives attached to my system (built-in, USB, and FireWire). The Iomega produced the same numbers as the other USB drives, suggesting that perhaps the USB bus is the limiting factor.

The vendors may not like this, but today these items have become commodities. Avoid lemons, buy on price. The Iomega is as good as any other. (And who would have thought a couple of years ago that one could slip half a terabyte into a shirt pocket. We may take it for granted, but it's pretty cool.)

This product is for people that need more storage than a reasonably priced thumb drive contains, but still need that data to be portable. Having lugged standard-sized external hard drives to and from work many times, I can really appreciate this product. It is a bit difficult to get your head around the size, and it may be a bit bigger than you are expecting. Think of a typical wallet size, but much taller. It is pocketable, but you probably wouldn't want to do that, both because it is too big to be comfortable and because it might not last long with that abuse. This is simply a hard drive in an enclosure, after all. However, this is the perfect size for a messenger bag or purse. Keeping it with the laptop or netbook is easy if you want to carry pictures or movies with you. Also, this is perfect for making regular system backups and carrying them to a different location in case of emergency, such as a house fire.

For a hard drive, this looks surprisingly sleek, primarily because of its brushed-metal exterior. Build quality feels good. I was skeptical of the Iomega brand, but this seems like a good option. The speed was typical for a standard laptop-style hard drive. It does take two USB plugs, which is to give ample power to the drive without requiring an AC adapter.

Presuming the price for this drive remains competitive, I recommend it. It is stylish and does exactly what it is supposed to.

I purchased this Iomega external hard drive because of the convenience of having that much storage in such a small space. But it had to work like a thumb drive -- easily portable and transferable. Initially, it did not work as advertised, and I thought I had a defective unit. Amazon was its usual terrific self about replacements, and I received a new one quickly. This one, too, did not sync-up with any of the computers I use at work and home. Rather than send it back, I contacted Iomega support (who were quick and helpful), which walked me through a very complicated -- and not specified in the manual -- procedure involving having to name and partition the drive unit through "My Computer," which took, literally, six hours to complete. This is unacceptable. Iomega needs to set these drives up as plug-and-play, otherwise they are virtually useless. Now that it is re-formatted, however, the drive is working like a charm. But it was a pain in the neck for a while. So, be ready for the extra and unnecessary work. It is 2010; this should not be a difficult thing to do, Iomega.

I've bought & distributed dozens of small storage devices like this to employees where I work. This one has been, by far, the best designed and has the best performance of all that I've tried. It does have two USB connections to achieve that speed, stays cool, and the USB cable plugs into the rear side instead of the rear. Other than where the cable plugs, I am completely satisfied and in love with the Prestige line from Iomega. Completely recommended. I put it in the same category as all of the Prestige drives.

*update*

Well I come back with bad news... I bought a 1TB capacity model of this drive, did a huge backup to the drive, and during the process the speed of copy just got slower, and slower, and slower. It never stopped, and the drive never even got warm. That being said, a few days later trying to access the drive greeted me with some "drive has not been formatted, would you like to format it?" That's a telltale sign that a drive is about to go bad. I tried from multiple computers and got the same message.

I was able to get my data off the drive, and Amazon offered to happily replace it for me, but this is a dent in my opinion of the 1TB capacity model. I've had and distributed 10+ of these at work to people who need them, and none of those have ever skipped a beat, so I'm hoping this one was just a fluke in the 1TB model. I'll update again after I get the replacement tomorrow.

I love this little portable HDD. It's beautiful, it's sturdy, and it's spacious. Unlike one of the reviewers said (that it uses a Seagate inside), mine uses a Toshiba inside, which is less trust worthy than Seagate or WD, IMO.

I'd give it a five star rating but one thing that bothers me is the USB cable. Apparently, the USB connector on the HD itself sits way deep inside the enclosure that IOMEGA created a special USB cable that has a longer plug, a normal USB cable will not work reliably, i.e. unless you push it in and hold it tight, the drive will not work. I'm against any products that use proprietary accessories, when standard ones are available. My guess is either IOMEGA mechanical engineer screwed up in designing the case, or they did this on purpose so that if you lose your cable, you have to pay to get a special IOMEGA USB cable.

I'm guessing I could take a standard USB cable and cut off some of the rubber on the connector to allow the cable to go in deeper, but that's just pain, I should not have to do this.

I picked up one at Amazon about 6 months ago based on the ratings and price with a rebate although I did wait too long to turn in my rebate.

The original drive worked fine until I must have come to a damaged area on the drive. It then started making a bad chattering sound and I could no longer write to it. I deleted my backup files and after I recreated them I ran into the same problem at the same spot on the drive.

I called customer service and he wanted me to go through what I assume to be a set of trouble-shooting steps they ask all customers to do no matter what the symptoms are. I told him it was nonsense and a waste of both our times to do this. I could not even format the drive.

He then gave me three options for returning the drive. All three options cost money to send me a refurbished replacement. The cheapest option was to ship back the original and after they received it they would ship the refurbished drive.

I expressed extreme displeasure that it would cost me time and money to return a drive that was less than a week old. He asked his boss and they made arrangements to ship me a refurbished drive if I would let them put a $1 charge on my card until I returned the original. I consented to this although I told them I did not much care for getting a refurbished drive to replace a brand new one. He assured me they test the refurbished drives more thoroughly than they do the new ones. If they would run the new ones through the same battery of tests, I probably would not have had to contact them to begin with.

The refurbished drive works great. It stays cool and I can barely hear it.

I am assuming the majority of the new drives work fine. If you do have to call customer support, be prepared to stand up for what is right and they will probably take care of you. The customer service representative has to run everything by their manager that goes against their standard procedures.

BTW, I missed my rebate return date because I was going to watch the drive a couple of weeks before I accepted it as a replacement. I was not aware of the 30 day period for filing for the rebate.

I note from reviews of various disks, portable and not, that some of them simply fail. I took a chance on this one and got burned. It periodically "disappeared" from the computer. It would come back if I plugged/unplugged the UBS cable. This went on for awhile before I just gave up. I used it with Apple's Time Machine and as my only backup, unreliability was totally unacceptable. It did come back enough for me to clear contents but not long enough for me to overwrite with junk.

Amazon is outstanding regarding returns; it goes back. Will look at a Western Digital next.

I always wanted an easy-to-carry hard drive but past experiences made me skeptical if this would ever happen. By chance I noticed the Prestige Portable Hard Drive 34808 online and wondered if this is the right choice. Since it was priced well below the $100 mark, I decided to give it a try. And there is no regretting this decision.

What amazed me is that my Prestige Portable Hard Drive 34808 does not need external power supply. So I just had to plug it on and it went on.

For someone ham-fisted like me, this is a great device because it has the drop shock feature. Pleased that my data is safe and am fine without the additional fittings like the removable and optical storage on my hard drive.

I finally took action to protect myself against hard drive failure. Somebody else's infomercial got me shopping, warning of the consequences of not backing up externally. I settled on this Iomega unit based on price, features, and its generally positive reviews. This is really simple plug & play. I'm running a complete backup every week and consider myself pretty well protected should the worst happen. The small price makes peace of mind truly affordable.