Short Version: A good value for a NAS drive thanks to nice extras like a built-in print server, easy setup, and a straightforward interface. The Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive would be right at home in a small office or a multi-user household.
Features (according to Iomega):
- Simple to use—Three step set-up – simply plug into your router, power on, and install the software CD. Friendly web screens for easy management.
- Sharing—Access files from any networked Windows PC or Apple computer for easy file sharing.
- High Performance—Gigabit Ethernet connectivity combined with a high performance processor.
- UPnP AV Media Server—Compatible with DLNA certified media players, able to stream photos, audio content and videos to a variety of media devices like game consoles, audio bridges, DMAs (digital media adapters), picture frames and more.
- iTunes™ Server—Store your audio content in one central location and share it across your iTunes players.
- Network File Protocols Supported—CIFS/SMB (Microsoft), AFP (Apple), HTTP 1.1
- Expandability—Add storage capacity by connecting external USB Hard Disk Drives. Supports FAT32 and NTFS formatted hard drives.
- Network Discovery—Automatic network discovery by Apple Bonjour and Microsoft Windows Rally devices.
- Data Protection—Touch-free professional-level backup for all your critical data with EMC® Retrospect HD backup software. Effortlessly back up files on a pre-set schedule.
- Print Server—Intelligent network print sharing capability for one USB printer directly attached to the HomeMedia drive
MSRP: $159.99 for the 500GB version, $229.99 for the 1TB version
Setting up and using the drive
Believe it or not, this NAS drive is ridiculously easy to set up. You power up the drive, plug it into your router, and install the software on your computer. When the installation’s all done, a window pops open with five default drives: Music, Movies, Backups, Public, and Photos.
They’re all accessible using Iomega’s interface or as separate networked hard drives inside your operating system. Notice that, again, they appear as five distinct drives.
There’s a pretty straightforward web-based interface for creating new drives and tweaking various settings. As you can see, I created some extra essential drive-spaces: Bucketlist, Dreams, Enemies, Fashion, Hopes, Hotpants, Raffle, and Recipes.
Unfortunately, I meant for “Raffles” to be “ROFLs” – a place to store hilarious jokes and whatnot but I wasn’t able to easily change the name from Raffles to ROFLs, so I just deleted it and made a new drive. Also, each drive name has to be all one word without any spaces. I would have liked to have “Bucket List” and “Hot Pants” but, alas, t’was not allowed. Any new drives that you create will appear as network drives in your operating system as well.
Once everything is set up, you can add users and dole out various levels of access, or just keep everything open to everyone. This drive would work really well in a small office or in a family where the parents are into some weird voodoo that they don’t want their kids to see.
Nice extras
The drive comes with EMC Retrospect, which is automated backup software. It’s easy to use and lets you set a schedule for backing up important files. The getup also comes with 2GB of free Mozy online backup service. You can get 2GB free from Mozy no matter who you are or what drives you own, though, so it’s mostly just a little extra fluff.
From a hardware standpoint, there’s a USB port on the back of the drive that can be used to hook up a second external hard drive or as a print server. That’s a great little feature that I think adds a fair amount of value to this thing. You can just place your printer and your backup drive next to your router and be done with it.
The drive also works seamlessly with iTunes, Xbox 360, PS3, and various other network-enabled devices. My Xbox 360 picked the Iomega up as a networked hard drive and streamed an HD movie file (Ethernet to Ethernet) with ease.
Noise and heat
The drive doesn’t get too hot thanks to a built-in fan, but it’s that same fan that emanates a dull whine all the live-long day. I had this drive sitting right next to me on my desk and I’d have to turn the whole thing off after about an hour. It’s not loud, so it’s possible that the noise could easily be drowned out if you work around other people or listen to music all day but I prefer to work with as few distractions as possible, so I could definitely hear the drive. If I were to use this drive as my own, it’d be in a drawer or on the other side of the room for sure.
Here’s an audio file: Iomega.mp3
As you can hear, it’s not that bad at all. It’s just that dull whine bobbing up and down every so often that gets agitating after a while.
Transfer speed
The internal drive has a 7,200 spindle speed but most of the bottleneck is going to occur at your router. I transferred a 3.64GB file wirelessly (802.11g) from my laptop to the drive and it took just under a half hour. Naturally, hard-wired speeds will be much faster but keep in mind how you usually access your network and plan accordingly.
Conclusion:
The Iomega Home Media Network Drive is an easy-to-use, affordable solution if you need a backup solution that multiple computers can access. The included print server and user management features make it a great option for any small business or medium-to-large family.
Product Page [Iomega]
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yeah it was working very fine for me ,recently i bought a 1 Tb iomega ruby red one for $103 from “truehotdeals”, dont you think the price is very economical,now the price has raised to $120
sometimes i usually dont unplug my drive,it goes on working through out the night, but i dont feel that much heat produced from it. its cooling fan is very effective.
Can you connect to it from Linux?
Yes but it does not happen right out of the box (at least not for me).
you can either use smbclient for ad-hoc access
or, if you want it accessible all the time (most likely)
you mount them as CIFS type filesystems. Add an entry like this to your fstab:
/// -t cifs …blah blah blah
each directory in the root path (photos, backups, public, etc) is a separate share.
i picked up this drive. works like a champ. easily moved my itunes library and photos to the drive. the drive was instantly detected by my ps3 and was watching videos/photos over my home network w/out a problem.
i think backups and simple file transfers would work over over 802.11g,n — may think about plugging into the router for initial massive file transfers.
noise is a dull whine, but my router/gigabit switch setup is in another room so it doesn’t affect me as much.
can the hard drive be accessed from outside the house (or anywhere in the world) via ftp or some other console?
No, I doesn’t have FTP or any other server. Iomega is working on solution to access the drive from the internet but you will have to do it trough your computer so it’s pretty much defeats the purpose since you will have to make sure that your computer is on.
I just contacted Iomega but they had no record of any plans to uprade to include FTP. Where did you get this info?
It would be great if they did provide this, seems to be a missing feature that would finish this product off nicely :)
Linux, especially Ubuntu, is fast becoming quite widely used. It’s not just on servers but is also great for desktop machines now.
It was curious to see that both the drive and a computer both have to be separately plugged into the router and that while the computer could quite happily ftp the drive could only do so if another machine on the network was on? This really seems odd. The data from the drive would pass through the router, into the computer and then back to the router in order to reach the outside world?!!? lol
It seems as though the drive I bought in the UK is rather different. Still worthwhile, but missing a couple of features. Or is it an earlier model?
It does look as if Iomega are another company that puts “linux” on the packaging, with minimal support offered. Still, if I can get reliable file sharing though my netbook, I maybe don’t need all the bells and whistles.
With the latest firmware version 2.038 it adds ftp and torrent support that can be enabled from the configuration page. You can also enable remote access from internet, and it seems from reading the documentation that the disk will try to help configure network settings.
https://iomega-eu-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_eu_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=21149&p_created=1231204221&p_sid=YXmKZeCj&p_accessibility=&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0yMCwyMCZwX3Byb2RzPTEwMzEsMTA0MyZwX2NhdHM9NzMmcF9wdj0yLjEwNDMmcF9jdj0xLjczJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1
I think Roy hit a big feature on the head- remote access. PC Remote Access allows you to access data in many different locations without worrying about storage, security, or multiple user editing. This firmware is a great optino for a building block to any business or home network.
is it possible to plug the drive directly into a computer via the USB connection and access the files if ones network goes down?
I bought Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive 1TB in october 2009. I have Windows Vista premium. When I try to install de software one little window said me in french : une operation non prise en charge a été tentée. I never install the program. Help me please!
(I have difficulty with my english …)
Bonjour, j’ai le meme probleme que vous
lorque je veux installer le CD
une opération non prise en charge a été tentée
Que faire???, merci
Hello Guys, I would not recommend this drive to anyone. I was rather impressed when I bought it as it fulfilled everything I needed on my home network tho it is slow copying items to it.
However I recently upgraded the software and it has stopped working, I can’t access my drives or my personal data. I have been in contact with Iomega Technical Support and they haven’t resolved the problem and said they will replace it . . . This is totally unsatisfactory as I will loose the contents which are valuable . . . DO NOT buy this device as it may just stop working and there is no support. . .If you check the Iomega Forums many people have the same problem and there is no solution.
A very bad buy and if you already have one, DO NOT UPGRADE the firmware.
I just bought this 1Tb Iomega drive, hooked it up to the D-link router. When I transfer files from my Laptop at Wlan N standard I only manage to get 2-3Mb/s. It means it will take me hours to transfer 5Gb to the Iomega HDD. Is this the top speed I can expect? I relly want to send it back to the shop if this is the case. Any suggestions to increase the transferspeed?
This drive really sucks. The specs look greath, and it does what is does but the noise is ridiculous. It makes more noise then my pc, it is really very extremely enoying. Perhaps it works if you can put it in the basement, but if it is in a place where you need to work: forget it. Second big issue is that the security settings are very poor. you can define users, but users have full access, so you cannot specify read or write access. very disapointing. I’m going to return it, and surely would not recommend it!!!