 Sturdy Construction |
| Review Date: March 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Allan F. Leighton, MN |
| This product seems like it is made well. So far, it has worked great - even though my cat knocked it and another hard drive on the floor when he got tangled in the cords. The other drive actually died and this one kept on working. |
The best thing since sliced bread!
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| Review Date: March 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: John Wilson, I'm with Gilligan and the Captain and the Professor |
| The size is perfect - the way it sits on my counter is perfect - the way it works is fast and perfect and if I need more storage I'll purchase another one! It is so nice to finally have enough room for all my recorded TV shows and movies all in one spot. I like the way it has it's own power source and doesn't add that draw to my computer. As far as I am concerned it's the greatest thing since sliced bread - everyone should own at least one of them....oh...and Amazon.com delivered it fast no problem! |
Mac users, be careful...
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| Review Date: March 9, 2010 |
| Reviewer: j, |
Running Mac OSX 10.5.8 (Leopard without the snow) on a Mac Mini with a 1.66 Ghz Intel Core Duo processor.
Possible pros:
Followed directions to use the partition tab of Mac's disk utility to format the drive as Mac OS extended (journaled), selecting the GUID partition table option. Drive formatted quickly. Verify Disk (under First Aid in Disk Utility) showed the volume "appears to be okay."
Moved 20 Gb from an overstuffed Mac Mini drive to the Iomega. That operation seemed flawless. Access seems much faster than with the Iomega Minimax drive (as "About This Mac" says, "Up to 480 Mb/sec" versus up to 400 Mb/sec for the Minimax).
Cons for this Mac user:
This drive's noise pattern is much different than the Iomega Minimax drive, which sits under our Mac Mini. When formatted for the Mac, the Prestige drive made a loud click, grinding sound on startup and when ejected. Accessing files also generated noise (clicks and/or clunks) sometimes, but it was mostly quiet between activities, except for some clicks and clunking sounds. The intermittent clicking destroyed my faith in the reliability of this drive and power supply.
Equally disturbing, the drive seemed to interfere with the Mac's power management, as the Mac Mini would not sleep during inactivity when the drive was attached.
Strangely enough, when I reformatted the drive for a PC, its strange noise behavior improved. But I bought the drive to run with my Mac, as Iomega advertises it is capable of doing.
Bye, bye, Prestige drive...
Thanks to everyone who reviewed this drive, positive and negative. Looking at the distribution of five-star and one-star reviews, you might say this drive exhibits a modified bathtub curve for reliability. I don't trust my data to a drive made by a company more interested in squeezing the profit margin than in continuous quality improvement.
Based on the drive's no-star performance under OSX, I returned it to the always 10-star Amazon. It took more than 50 hours to erase (and zero out) the drive.
It appears that there are known issues with the power supply. The troubleshooting section in the user's manual (which should be available as a PDF download rather than HTML) gives clues with the following statements: "The problem is probably due to a non-compliant USB or FireWire controller chip or other devices on your computer system... Do not connect or disconnect other USB devices while the Iomega Hard Drive is transferring information."
For reference: Prestige 1.5T Drive: UPC label serial number TJA0070BD5 assembled in Thailand, job number 530378, date 02-09-10. Power Supply: Ultra Energy made in China, UL file number E323619. |
Only had it a short time, but...
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| Review Date: March 9, 2010 |
| Reviewer: B. Jones, Claremore, OK/Washington, DC |
| Everthing seems to be going well. Very quiet, and lots of space for the price paid. It also looks pretty. |
Iomega External Hard Drive
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| Review Date: March 9, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Kristina Leigh Markman, Columbia, MD USA |
| I've been really happy so far with the external hard drive. I never needed to use any instructions for it, it's totally self explanatory, and the MAC does everything for you anyway. Right before Christmas, my hard drive on the Macbook Pro crashed, it was a manufacturers error or something, but I lost my entire graphic design portfolio since the data recovery center wasn't able to do anything about it. So I needed a hard drive so it wouldn't happen again. This was the very best deal, it was rated the most favorably, and it was the most cost effective. It's 500G for only about 70 dollars, and it works great. The only problem that I could see with it is it's not exactly portable....I mean obviously you can transport it around but its a bit big to carry around all the time to and from class or work or something. That's OK with me though, I just leave it on my desk and plug it in to back up my work in the evenings. |
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