Our initial impressions of the Iomega 1TB
Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition were very positive, as it looks
like a lovely piece of hardware. The model name is clearly ridiculous and is
about as sensible as a new model of Toyota called the ’Going down the road on
wheels to collect shopping vehicle'. Technically accurate, perhaps, but
undeniably daft.
In this case we're looking at a 1TB hard
drive in a caddy with a network connection on the rear. Iomega has added all
manner of NAS features such as Flickr, YouTube and Facebook active share folders,
as well as a BitTorrent client.
We'll come to those features in a moment,
but first we have to address the aesthetics of the Iomega, as it looks
absolutely stunning. The casing is made from matt black brushed aluminium with
a perforated front panel that carries a handful of discreet pale white activity
LEDs. There is one USB 2.0 port on the front panel for connecting an extra
drive with a second USB 2.0 port on the rear, along with the gigabit Ethernet
port and power jack.
The casing looks absolutely gorgeous.
However, we cannot claim that many people will be fussed about the appearance
of their NAS. In all likelihood the device will spend its life on a shelf next
to the wireless router where it is out of sight and out of mind.
This is something of a shame as we consider
the appearance of the Home Media Network Hard Drive to be one of its major
strengths.
The other point in its favour is the price,
as you cannot sneeze at a 1TB NAS that sells for less than $160. However,
things are not quite what they seem. There are three models in the range with
Iomega list prices of $324.8 for 1TB, $382.4 for 2TB and $523.2 for 3TB. You
can find the drives on sale for $156.8, $240 and $368 respectively which is a
discount of $160 in each case. That's a hefty percentage and a huge amount of
money but honestly, we cannot see anyone paying the full whack for a NAS even
if it the prettiest thing in the store. And no, we don’t think the Apple Time
Capsule looks especially stylish or interesting.
As it happens we were sent the 2TB NAS on
the strict understanding that we promised to pretend that it is the 1TB to
comply with the price ceiling for this group. Happy to oblige.
Once we had finished admiring the looks of
the Iomega we plugged it in and immediately hit a problem as the power supply
made a Phhffttt noise and died on the spot. Happily enough the WD power adapter
worked in its place but honestly, that's not a good start. The Iomega is quite
noisy and we assumed at first there was a cooling fan humming away inside the
casing. We dismantled the casing and found no fan so the noise must come from
the Seagate Barracuda LP hard drive, and is presumably amplified by the metal
casing.
When the time comes to download software
for your Home Media Network Hard Drive you'll find that Iomega has an annoyance
in store as you have to register with them before you can access the support
site. Then, each time you perform a download, you’ll get an email from Iomega.
During the course of this review that was four emails, one for new firmware,
one for a manual, one for Iomega Storage Manager and one for Iomega Home
Storage Manager.
The configuration screen for the Iomega is
browser based and we found the Windows firewall shouted a lot about violations
and disabled an alarming amount of security.
Please don't think that the Iomega is a bad
NAS - it isn’t -but there is undoubtedly plenty of room for improvement with
this model.
Details
Price: $156.8
Manufacturer: Iomega
Website: go.lomega.com
Required spec: Windows XP or Mac OS X
10.5 onwards
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