Iomega External Desktop Hard Drive 120 GB Reviews

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Good Points: Very Portable, Easy to Use

Bad Points: Extra plug socket needed

General comments: Having two seperate office locations, my company got fed up of having to burn CD's to transfer large amounts of data from one place to another.

This worked out OK for a while, but with a CD only being able to store up to 700MB, we were spending quite a lot of time burning the disks, so an external HDD was in order.

We had used external SCSI disks in the past, but there were a few disadvantages involved, namely having to physically shut the computer down to remove the device and then having to shut down the second machine to attach the disk at the second place. The price for SCSI disks are still a bit expensive as well.

We got hold of this external drive, and our work methods were transformed overnight.

No more restarting machines or burning cd's, just plug it in and copy as if it was an internal disk.

Installation was very straight forward, involving just taking the unit out of the box and plugging it in. The PC found it straight away on my XP machine, though an Installation disk is included (for other operating systems probably).

There is also a CD of the Iomega Backup software, which is a very powerful program, which allows you to mirror any Hard Drive, Partition or even Folder and File on to the External.

This software is so useful that we have now purchased another 4 of these units and use them as our main means of Data Backup for both Offices.

The drives that we have are connected using the USB ports, but they can also be connected through a Firewire port, with both cables included with the unit.

One thing to be aware of though, is that if you connect it using a USB 1.1 port, the drives are quite slow, with a supposed transfer rate of 12 MB/s, which can take a long time to transfer large amounts of data. However, if you connect through a USB 2.0 port, things are dramatically different, transfering data at 60 MB/s, making it behave virtually like a normal internal disk.

As to the physical size of the thing, it measures 28.45 x 21.59 x 25.40 cm, so we have all of ours just sat on top of the computers Base units. It weighs only 3.4 kg, but actually feels lighter than this, so transporting it around isn't a problem at all.

There is a bright blue light on the top of the unit, which flashes when data is being accessed or written, which, sad though it may sound, I personally find very reassuring.

The case is a very stylish design, with two shades of Grey/Black(ish) so fits in very well with all the modern types of computers available today.

They are available from lots of places, from the Internet to most local computer shops, with a price of approx £140.

There are several different sizes available ranging from 40GB to 250GB, but I personally think the 120GB is a great compromise of size and price.

We have not had a single problem with any of these units since we have had them, so can only say that they are very reliable.

This is one of those occasions where "it does exactly what it says on the tin", and I would recommend this device without a seconds hesitation.