Iomega Desktop Hard Drive - 33654 - Please go to Buy.com SKU 208646551 to get this deal!!
500GB - 7200rpm - External

I am very please with this product. It's my second usb drive this one by far is the best.
 
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The drive is simple and works. It doesn't have any unneeded bells and whistles. It's not pre-loaded with useless software or ads. You just plug it in and you have a fresh, pre-formated 465GB of empty space waiting for you. (Yes, 465GB is normal for a "500GB" drive.) It is also fairly quiet and looks pretty solid. Highly recommended so far.
 
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Easy and quick to use. No problems. I like that it can be positioned horizontal or vertical.
 
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This external hard drive was so easy to set up-even I could do it! Just plug and play. The performance has been great with very fast writes and reads. It is very quiet and I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a great drive at a very reasonable price.
 
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Great service from buy.com also
 
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Used on a Windows XP computer and on a VISTA computer. Both were plug and play. Extremely easy!
 
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This hard drive performs well. The only problem is if you leave it on to long it gets real hot. Be careful what you set next to it. I will not buy another hard drive like this one again.
 
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First of all, Iomega has a good reputation of producing outstanding products. I have had a Zip Drive that for the most part functioned as described. I have no doubt that this external drive will me serve me well.
 
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Easy to install, use... great capacity with 500 gb. The activity light is quite bright (blue). Happy with the purchase.
 
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good drive. works great and no problem at all.
 
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Easy installation and works well. Had to reformat drive, and utilized online manual to complete steps. The manual explained the procedure very clearly. Worth the money.
 
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After having a Western Digital 500GB completely crash on me, being 90% full, I was not willing to risk the same mistake a second time. I took a chance based on other reviews of the Iomega, and I have now bought two of these drives. I have never had a problem with the drive being recognized by Vista, XP, or Win2K (I have connected it to three of my machines), nor have I had any problems transferring data to it. Reads and Writes are very fast, even when copying multiple files from multiple places and downloading music and movies from the Internet, all at the same time. I would highly recommend this drive for its value (thanks to Buy.com) and its performance. You probably know this, but just in case...make sure you format using NTFS rather than FAT32.
 
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Just plug it in and go. How easy is that for setup? It's fast, relatively quiet, gives me great peace of mind knowing I've got everything backed up.
 
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I purchased this to add space to our Dish Network HD DVR. The old external hard drive was only 125GB. Adding this 500GB drive is a huge improvement. We've only had the drive for one day but I know that I will be putting it to good use. Time will only tell if it'll stand up to the wear and tear of video recording.<p><p> The unit is easy to set up and isn't too hot (so far). I'm not thrilled with the blinding blue LED on the front. I'll end up covering that up in the next day or so.<p><p> For the cost, it can't be beat. Stock up if you can.<p><p>
 
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Plug and Play. Good price and value, but lacks extra USB ports. Replacing a Western Digital 250 Gb USB/Firewire that crapped out at just over a year. So far so good.
 
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I purchased this product for the express purpose of managing backups and it works GREAT. This was my first purchase from Buy.com and I could not have been happier.
 
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It came as promised, performs great, I've had no problems and it has so much space it'll probably out live my new computer!
 
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I bought this product to transfer data from a Mac OS X 10.2.4 to a Windows Vista home edition. The device works fine, but the incompatibility with the MacOS 10.2.4 gave me many problems. The Mac was not able to recognice the preformat FAT32 so I used a Windows XP to make 4 partitions: 3 FAT32 under 30 GB and 1 NTFS with the rest of memory. Under these conditions the Mac recognices only the FAT32 partitions of the device and it will be possible to transport the data to Windows, what represent a total available memory of 90 GB. You can transfer these data later to the NTFS partition with Windows and return to the Mac if you have still data to transfer. The backups work very slowlly from the Mac to the Hard Drive, but at a good speed from the device to Windows. It is not a problem of the Iomega, I tried several other devices (Lacie, etc). It is a question of technical incompatibilities. Iomega helped me with their 24h chat service. And it has allways good products. If you plane to transport data from Mac to windows this could be the product to use, it will probably work better with newer versions of Macs (the 10.2.4 is an exeption with many problems). IMPORTANT: Make sure that none of the files you are transfering from Mac are named with characters that wont be recogniced on the FAT32 format (? / ( ~ < ) > \ ! ) because your backup will crash. By other part, Buy.com was great. Cheap, Fast and serious. Great service. Thank you!
 
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I bought this product about 2 days ago and the first thing i did was to open it and look at the actual harddrive that was inside. As it turns out it's a Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm, 8MB cache (ST3200830AS) which makes it a fairly decent drive for the price. After putting it back together i plugged it in and windows xp recognised it right away and installed it without any issues. So far so good. Next i decided to put it through a bit of a torture test, so i started by formatting it to NTFS which took a round 2.5 hrs. After that i transferred around 400gb of video files to it which took around 6 hrs, right after that i leave it run all night (around 7 hrs) doing a complete diagnostic test and after that i defraged it. All in all it was running straight for about 20hrs. Now for my observations. This drive get's a little loud when seeking and writing data, twice as loud actually than most regular harddrives (the fact that it's out in the open and not closed in a tower only makes that worse) but that is within the specifications of the manufacturer. I also found that the drive gets pretty hot. I think that 8 small holes on each side of an otherwise sealed container is inadequate for cooling, but if you're only using it for backup storage i don't think that should be an issue, in an idle state it stays relatively cool, and keeping it in the vertical position should help even more. The blue led is a little bright but shouldn't be an issue unless it's directly infront of you. All in all a good product which i would recommend.
 
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This product is highly recommended for its value. Very satisfied.
 
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This hard drive has been operating as a backup for a couple of months. It doesn't get hot, and even though it's the loudest peripheral in my system, it's not objectionably loud. Just one minor shortcoming: my system won't boot with the drive running. But the computer recognizes it quickly after bootup, once the drive is turned back on. I'm glad that I bought it.
 
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Worked right out of the box, plug and chug. Not much more I could ask for, especially for the price tag.
 
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Easy to hook up and works fine on my MAC.
 
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I purchased this drive on 2/20/08 from buy.com at the best price I could find with free shipping & no sales tax & it arrived on 2/22/08. I placed the drive in a flat position & set a small USB laptop cooling fan in an exhaust position on top of the drive to hopefully make it last longer. I formatted the Iomega to NTFS & ran a full disk check & found no bad sectors. I plan to use it for extra storage & backups. I already have a 3 yr. old 120GB Maxtor & I added the Iomega to create backups with Norton Ghost for C drives on 2 XP PCs. I will alternate backing up with these 2 external drives weekly to provide a 2nd level of backup archives. My plan is to have to go back only 2 weeks to recover if one of the drives fail. I have only used the Iomega for 3 weeks with no problems so far. So time will tell.
 
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As the headline says, it is just that, easy to use! The product is plug and play, priced right and has a cool blue light!! Overall, I am pleased with my purchase from Buy.com
 
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When I received this hard drive all I had to do was plug to the USB port on my laptop and start moving files. It was very easy and I have taken it to a friends to transfer some pictures and it connected to her computer with no issues as well. The space available is definitely enough for what I was looking for and I would recommend this to anyone!
 
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Received quickly as described. Very happy with performance.
 
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This device is used to backup multiple computers, some running Ubuntu Linux and others WinXP Home. I use a free third party disk cloning software to backup entire drives to this Iomega device. So far, so good. The backups work, but I haven't tried to restore a backup yet, although I am confident that will also work. The only flaw I found with the device is that a specific disto of Linux (PING- Part Image is Not Ghost) does not recognize the drive. Not a deal breaker, I used a different cloner to back up the machine. Remember, the Iomega does work perfectly with Ubuntu and my hardware. Ubuntu even found the drive when I plugged it in after the system had booted.
 
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I re-formated the drive in ext3 and it's working flawlessly with Ubuntu Linux.
 
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Received this only a few days aftering ordering, even with free shipping option. Brand new in box, plug and play right away. I formatted the drive first thing, don't know if I really had to. I had an 80GB IOMEGA drive that didn't last very long, this one, visually anyway, seems much better made. So far, it's been great. Would have given it a 5 on value too, but I DID have to pay for it.
 
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Excellent service, arrived very fast... item performs perfectly, just plug & play. Thank you!
 
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Love this product. It's my back up. I did have to get help online from Iomega to get it to run properly but that was due to the format of my computer not the product.
 
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The product looks good. No problems so far
 
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I have owned two different external hard-drives prior to this purchase, with which I've been very pleased. This drive is solid, if somewhat clumsy in design and noise. The blue LED is by no means subtle and will light up a dark room when left on. Not a bad thing necessarily, however the drive is a bit louder than what I'm accustomed to...upon access or file transfer it whirs into action, but does so quickly. No major complaints; highly recommended.
 
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Fast drive speed, seems to transfer faster when formatted as NTFS system under WinXP. Overall, very pleased!
 
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Other than having to go through the format process twice, which may not be related to the drive - but my Vista desktop, it is working well. It is a slightly larger case than my LaCie drive, but they stack fine. I needed more space for recorded TV, and it seems to be working well for that. I appreciate the slightly longer power cord because my UPS is on the far side of the desk.
 
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Great for backups. Easy to use (just plug and play). Great deal for this amount of storage. It's big enough to back up all three of my computers. Have used it on Vista, XP and ME without problems.
 
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Very nice buy. Took a few minutes and formatted to MAC, plugged into my XBox and away I go. I would recommend this product
 
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Up and running in seconds. Hooked to a MAC for backup. Works perfectly. Only downside is usb cable is a little short. Easy fix for that.
 
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A 500GB external HD for $115? I needed something to backup my system and using DVDs was getting tedious as it was taking over 10 to do the job, so I ordered this drive. It came two days later. WOW, two days, and that was with the free shipping! I pulled out the drive and was surprised at how solid the case felt. It came with a USB cable, so I didn't have to fish around in the miscellaneous cable drawer to find one. I plugged it in and my system immediately recognized it (Win2000 Pro) and loaded the needed drivers. The drive comes formatted as FAT32, but I wanted NTFS, so I reformatted it. This took a while, but considering the size of the drive that was to be expected. After formatting was done I conducted a few tests by copying some large files to the drive and then back again. Performance was about what I expected across the USB2 interface. The drive itself was quiet and after all that formatting and file copying it was barely warm to the touch. Next I fired up my backup software and made a complete backup of both my internal HDs. I encountered no problems at all. I only intend to power up and attach this drive to my system about once a week or so to backup up the internal HDs, so hopefully I'll get a long service life out of it. Time will tell of course, but so far I'm very happy with it.
 
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Within the last 9 months I have purchased my third Iomega drive and I have had no problems. Over the past two years I've bought 4 or 5 of the cheaper drives (Cavary and Fatom) and I've gotten a 50% failure rate. I tried to return my 500G calvary for replacement and I've gotten no response. They have a second party warranty system through some other company that does not reply to their givin procedures for return. If I had the time I would contine the chase but I've decided to make it as much their lost as mine. I'll stick to brand name and spend a few dollars more.
 
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Plugged it in and it worked without any problems. It is quiet and easy to format. I would buy it again.
 
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Have been using the drive for 3 weeks now. Use it for daily back-up. So far extremely happy. Installation was easy and delivery free and quick. I replaced a 250GB external drive. this one looks much nicer. Drive does not come with back-up software. I use Dantz Retrospect that I already owned and it works flawless.
 
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Bought this after my VISTA computer somehow corrupted the only administrator profile and I was terrified that I had lost my photos and documents (luckily I was albe to restore settings in safe mode). the unit seems to work well - easy to set up. I have an automatic backup of my files set up to perform every day. But the only thing I don't like is it's difficult to get info on the Iomega website - I don't know if I am backing up only my files, or all user profile files on the computer
 
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The price is more than right. It came promptly. It is rather attractive and has a bright blue pilot/activity light. I plugged and it played. It runs cool. It holds a lot. What more can I say with only two weeks or so of experience with it.
 
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Worked easily right out of box. Solid performance so far. Only complaint is that it "hums" and vibrates when it runds. I placed a spare mouse pad under it and that seems to absorb the sound. Otherwise would be annoying if it sits on a hard surface. As a result of the humming / vibration I knocked satisfacation score down to a "3."
 
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I received the drive quickly and it worked right out of the box.
 
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Seems to be a very solid enclosure and it was just a matter of pluging in the power, pluging in the usb and then turning it on. With in a few seconds on my Vista Ultimate computer it came right up. I reformated it to NTFS using the direction from the online manual and it only took maybe 2 minutes tops as I followed the directions. Only downside as in most drives the 500gigs turns into 465 gigs after formatting.
 
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Needed a HD to replace another one that was imminently failing, decided to get this bigger 500 GB drive for good price. Plugged it into my Mac, turned it on, a few clicks later up and running, copied over everything from the other drive. Now also use it for general back-up. Only minor issue is that when I re-start the Mac, it sometimes takes an extra minute or two for the drive to show up on the desktop.
 
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The hard drive installation and usage was easy and worked as promised. Just wanted to note that after it, next time I tried to boot the computer, it tried to boot from that drive sending a "NO Operating System" message and I almost though I had lost my PC hard drive. If that happens to you, remove the drive, bott the PC, and reconnect. This problem happened to me in 2 different PCs, one running Windows XP Pro and another with Windows Advanced Server 2000.
 
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works as advertised. great value.
 
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