<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Functional but LOUD
Review: Good: Easy setup, fast, sturdy
Bad: Power switch is non-functional (must disconnect drive from PC before the power switch will work); no idle power-down
Ugly: Incredibly loud fan
This device is by far the noisiest thing in my office. I had intended to use it to store my large mp3 collection which means that it needs to run continuously. It is so noisy that it is not suitable for this purpose. I kept it anyway but will use it only as a backup device.
If backups are your intended use, it's fine. If it needs to run all the time, look elsewhere. By the way, I also own the 120 GB model. It is very quiet (except for the well-known "cat meow" sound it makes ocassionally) and has proven to be very reliable.
Rating:
Summary: Caveats for potential buyers
Review: I have two caveats for potential buyers of this product. First, the fan in the external hard drive is rather loud and can be annoying. I had read about this in advance and purchased the drive anyway because I do not intend to have the drive "online" all the time.
The second was a major disappointment. The drive comes bundled with Norton Ghost 2003. I have been using various versions of Ghost for several years now and have always liked the program. But I am unable to use Ghost with this USB drive. I tried numerous work-arounds and combed the Symantec knowledge base for over a week and have concluded that on my machine, the drive can only be used at USB 1.1 speeds. That means 9 gigs of data that could be backed up in 50 minutes under USB 2.0 required 5 hours in USB 1.1 mode. (If you want to run a verify on that image, it's another 5 hours.) Symptoms: under USB 2.0, the backup phase completes normally but the resulting image is either not readable or the DOS-based Ghost program just hangs when you try to work with it.
The Iomega drive works perfectly well in Windows XP at USB 2.0 speeds - - it is only the DOS-based Ghost backup program that is unstable. I did try the program on a much newer machine (6 months old) and everything worked fine. I also succeeded in making a "full disk" backup to the Iomega drive. But then you lose the benefits of this very large drive when you can only store a single copy of a smaller disk drive on it.
So I can't fault the hard drive itself but if you are buying this package specifically for the purpose of using the Iomega/Ghost backup scheme, be prepared to test it out and return the drive if you can't make it work on your machine.
Rating: 
Summary: Good drive
Review: Pros:
* Setup was extremely easy: plug it in, wait a minute, start using it. No software needed to be installed, no Windows disks were required.
* Both firewire and USB work great, no problems on XP nor Windows 2000.
* Drive is reasonably fastCons:
* Drive is a little noisy -- not read/write sounds, but the hard disk spinning or maybe an internal fan.
* Power connector could be better. It's not especially easy to plug in, and the connection isn't very firm (feels like it would fall out easily).
Rating: 
Summary: The noise that won't stop!
Review: This Iomega HDD 250gb drive is a nice little drive that has both FireWire and USB connectors, and is sold at a good price. It works fine, and I'm sure these minimal design goals were chosen so as to look good in magazine checkbox chart reviews, and upon cursory examination of the box by shoppers in stores. But here's something the box and reviews don't say: This unit has NO POWER SWITCH but it does have a NOISY FAN. Take your choice: a constant whirring din, or physically pulling the plug when you don't want to use the drive and plugging it back in when you do want it. NO POWER SWITCH??!?!? What was Iomega THINKING?
Rating:
Summary: The noise that won't stop!
Review: This Iomega HDD 250gb drive is a nice little drive that has both FireWire and USB connectors, and is sold at a good price. It works fine, and I'm sure these minimal design goals were chosen so as to look good in magazine checkbox chart reviews, and upon cursory examination of the box by shoppers in stores. But here's something the box and reviews don't say: This unit has NO POWER SWITCH but it does have a NOISY FAN. Take your choice: a constant whirring din, or physically pulling the plug when you don't want to use the drive and plugging it back in when you do want it. NO POWER SWITCH??!?!? What was Iomega THINKING?
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good drive.
Review: We use this drive at work and i've just ordered it's replacement. The device constantly disapeers and you have to unplug the power and/or firewire cable to get windows to recognize it again (this has occurs on various computers). It is also loud. The fan has now cratered and it sounds horrible. I have fixed it several times by blowing it out and applying oil, but eventually it goes back to sounding horrible. The only thing good about this drive in my view is the backup software that comes with it. What I have done, and what I suggest, would be ordering an external enclosure and a regular internal drive to go in it. That way if the fan breaks or the HD goes back you only have to replace one item. It also comes out being quite a bit cheaper.
<< 1 >>
| 
