Iomega Professional External Hard Drive review

Reliable?

I had an Iomega external HD once. It was great, while it worked.

By Lacrobat on 19 Aug 2009

Always great!

I have always used IOMega drives - never had a problem at all with reliability (never consider speed etc... not important really!).

By JamesMitch on 19 Aug 2009

IOmega products

I took an oath never ever to touch an Iomega product again after my experience of the "Click of Death" with their !Click drive. I lost a load of valuable photos while their support denied a widespread problem. So however attractive the ads, I have kept my vows.

By zmail on 20 Aug 2009

Iomega: gone & clearly forgotten. . .

It really does beggar belief that a publication as reputable as PC Pro could feature Iomega on its A List.

Iomega was at the centre of a world-wide 'click of death' scandal which even necessitated Steve Gibson having to come to the rescue.

Iomega persistently denied any problem with its products, yet those product persistently failed.

It seems the PC Pro reviewing team have had no experience of this company or its products in the past -- or its customer treatment.

For the many of us who have, an Iomega product goes on the Z List -- not the A List.

By globerad on 28 Aug 2009

@globerad

1. This is an external hard disk, not a jazz or a zip drive, so the click of death was specific to that family of products.

2. Steve Gibson is a self serving scaremonger who makes mountains out of molehills in order to sell himself and wares

3. The problems you describe about Iomega are at least a decade old

4. PCPRO's history goes way back and recognises the technology and companies CHANGE.

5. If PCPRO think that THIS product is good enough to be on the A-LIST then I believe that faulty products from 10 years ago shouldn't affect it.

By jonty on 6 Sep 2009

Prices below are inconsistent

I just thought I'd mention, having clicked on some of the 6 supplier links below, that as of today (11.9.09) these prices are not consistent with each other. The DELL for business price excludes VAT & delivery. Some of the other prices include VAT, some include VAT & delivery. Therefore the first one on the list is not actually the cheapest.

By joebww on 11 Sep 2009

NeverDown can be NeverUP

Recently purchased the Iomega 1TB esata external hard drive principally because of the recommendation of the NeverDown back-up software.
In my case it was never up as I couldn't obtain a single complete back-up.
Iomega support are aware that there is an issue, at least with their Vista 64bit version which they haven't fixed and aren't going to fix apparently because they are not developing the software further. I hope noone else buys the drive for the reasons I did.

By jrpfence on 24 Sep 2009

NeilS

Ordered one from Dell. Plugged it inot 3 machines (4 year old dell, Lenovo T61 and Samsung NC10)via USB none recognised it. Contacted Iomega who diagnosed it DOA. They wanted me to ship it to the Netherlands to get replacement. COntacted Dell who shipped a new one. Same result. Am I doing something worng, did Dell get a bad batch or should I just give it up as a lost cause.

By NeilS on 5 Nov 2009

Win 7 Drivers

Please note that this product is not (yet?) got a Win & 64 bit driver. There is a lot of anger on the IOMEGA user group site directed to Iomega's slow response to producing Win & drivers

By Harringd on 4 Dec 2009

No longer available?

The current Latest Prices link does not work (dell), morecomputers.com no longer seem to list it

By steverendell on 24 Jan 2010

Latest prices

@steverendell - Those links appear to be working, so it may have only been a temporary problem. Thanks for letting us know, though.

Tim Danton
Editor, PC Pro

By TimDanton on 26 Jan 2010

Never Down software does not work

I have had one of these drives for two weeks and so far all is well - in fact the performance is as described in the review.

If however you are intending buying this because of the bundled Never Down software, then think again. When I tried to use this to take an image of my laptop it fell over because a filename was too long and gave me an incomprehensible error message. I was unable to find a file that even vaguely matched the filename it complained about, so I had no way to address the issue.

However, worst of all was the inability of the Iomega support to answer even basic questions like "What is the filename length limit?".

So, after a number of less than illuminating exchanges with the Iomega support team the bootom line is that:

1. There are known issues with the NeverDown software, but Iomega are no longer developing or fixing the software and hence the support is non-existent.

2. They will ask you to wait for the release of their vClone software, which is machine virtualisation software, but by their own admission is neither backup nor disaster recovery software as you need to have a working machine to use it.

3. For plain old backups you will need to use Retrospect Express 7.6, which they provide free of charge, but is a rather limited and kludgy backup system.

In summary, (so far) a good drive, but don't buy for the software.

By Graar on 1 Feb 2010

Once Bitten Twice Shy

Bought the Iomega 1TB external hard drive on the 1 March 2010 - it died 20 May 2010

I'll see whether Iomega stand over their product. I would prefer my cash back but will reluctantly accept a replacement. Once bitten twice shy

By kah22 on 23 May 2010

EvilDr

Bought this drive a month ago. It worked perfectly on Win7x64 for two weeks, then died completely. Won't be touching Iomega products again.

By daveclough on 13 Oct 2010

Iomega Rocks!

It is a no-problem harddrive. Contrary to those that have been into grave within weeks, these have worked smooth for years. My vote is for Iomega

By BrysonW on 21 Oct 2010

Poor Service when Failed

The drive failed and IOMEGA demanded that I pay to return it to Holland. I bought it from the Official UK website from "IOMEGA SHOP UK" and yet they said it was my problem to return it. The three year warranty isn't worth much.

By RTLEE1 on 19 Mar 2011