Home > Consumer Reviews > Iomega Desktop Hard Drive 500 GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - 33654

This is a GREAT external hard drive. It's fast (7200 RPM), can stream a movie straight off it and simultaneously backup a movie with very few lag spikes. It's quiet, only hear it every once in a while when it's doing some heavy duty writing/reading. It's Reliable, haven't had a single problem with it yet.

Best of all, the price is right. I wholeheartedly recommend this external drive to everyone.

Just plug the usb cable and plug in the ac/adapter and you're ready to roll. In fact, I'm going to go get another one myself.

I bought this because it said it worked with OSX. I know USB is supposed to be a universal thing, but of course all us Mac junkies have had our issues here and there - even with hardware that's SUPPOSED to work. Well, no such problems here. I plugged it in, booted my computer, and the mount point appeared within 30 seconds in the Finder. The aesthetics of the product are nice - it's small, and you can stand it up so it doesn't take up much space. It's very very quiet, only a bit of 'chik chik chik' if you're moving gigabytes back and forth. And the price is oh-so-right for this much space. So if you're a Mac user and looking for some add-on storage, this is the one for you.

I didn't buy this hard drive on amazon, but thought i'd write the review.
Set up is really easy, just plug the usb and the ac adapter and you are ready to go.
It has a great design, a stainless steel look and a blue light in the middle that looks kind of cool.
You can put it standing up or flat.
Doesn't take much space.
File transfer is fast. I'm not really an expert and I don't count the nanoseconds or anything, but it works for me.
No problem playing video or audio from the unit.
I have noticed that when I leave it on for long periods of time, it does get a little hot, but since I only use to back up files from time to time it's not really a problem.
All in all, I'd say this is a good product.

The drive looks well-built and sturdy with a brushed aluminum case. The backside, however - where all the cables are plugged in - seems to be made from extremely thin plastic which immediately gives when only touched slightly.

It is true plug-and-play, the drive was immediately and quickly recognized, no problems there. I reformatted from FAT32 to NTFS which took a while but nothing out of the ordinary given that it had to format almost 500 GB.

From what I can tell, the drive is very fast which makes it a pleasure to use when having to work with huge files.

The bad part: This drive is noisy. It is by far the noisiest of my external hard drives which are all Western Digital (60 GB & 80 GB Passport drives, 250 GB My Book). No fun sitting at my desk and listening to this "morse code noise" for hours. I have used my Western Digital drives, even the small portable Passport drives, for months as my regular drives (not just for occasional jobs!) and all are performing extremely quietly - not this Iomega drive. I read where other reviewers said it ran quietly but not the one I got. This one is LOUD and is already getting on my nerves to the point where I have decided to make it the backup drive and not expose myself to these sounds every day.

Another thing: It gets very hot. I have it sitting in the stand on my desk with plenty of airflow around it but it is almost too hot to touch. Again nothing that I have ever experienced with my WD drives which get warm but not hot.

All in all, I am not very impressed and will probably stick with WD drives in the future.

I've been using this hard drive for over a month and I've done my best to really put it to the test. As of today, all I can say is that it works as advertised and that the price paid is way below what I would've expected. Here's my 2 cents:

DESIGN
The overall design is pretty slick and the brushed aluminum gives it a very futuristic look. It's very slim and will fit almost anywhere. You can use it vertically (stand included) but I'd rather use it horizontally.

HEAT
The hard drive WILL heat up around 40 minutes of use, at least in my case. The aluminum case will not help at all in dispersing the heat, on the contrary, it will sting a bit if you try to lift it while hot. I find that it gets less hot if used vertically.

NOISE
As for the noise factor, other reviews have deemed the hard drive to be noisy and that it makes clunking noises. It will make some noise, obviously, while working but I find it to be noisier if vertical. So there's a trade-off between noise and heat based on what I just wrote in the heat factor.

PERFORMANCE
The hard drive is a total workhorse and I love to beat the hell out of it. I've had files going to and from the hard drive while watching a 600+MB .avi movie and while burning a DVD with files from the hard drive. The movie plays without a hiccup and in my case it makes me wonder how much abuse this baby can take! I'm simply excited to have this toy in my arsenal and I fully recommend it to everyone out there.

MAC EXPERIENCE
I bought the hard drive to use it with Time Machine and I'm happy to say that I made the right move. TMachine will only use a sector of the HD and will let you upload and download files without any hassle to the rest of the HD... BUT once it has been formatted to be used with a Mac, you won't be able to use it with Windows. Oh, XP will detect it all right but that's as far as you'll get. Luckily I'm less PC-dependent as days go by and don't rely on the HD to move around files from PC to PC or from PC to Macs for that matter.