Iomega eGo 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 34836 (Jet Black)

I decided to test this hard drive by using it as the primary hard drive for my PVR/media center PC. Allowing me to free up some space from my internal hard drive while also putting the iomega through its paces.
The pros and cons of my experience with the drive are below:

PRO:
1. Minimalist design and square housing make the drive easy to stack with other components and won't negatively affect the aesthetic of your home theater or office.

2. The LED to indicate the device is on which is unusually bright, is situated toward the back of the drive making it less glaring in a dark room.

3. At 1 to 2 TB this drive is perfect for media use. Windows media center claims the 1TB drive, which I tested should hold 721.5 hours of standard def TV or 109.5 hours of HD TV. Or I assume, 50 hi-def movies (without extras).

4. When copying files to the drive, while recording TV, playback of TV stuttered initially, but then proceeded...Read more

Overall, this is a great product. My frequent overseas travels has made me very nervous about data storage and some required redundancy. Plus, all the travels is also keeping my digital cameras quite busy. eGo not only provides excellent storage, but operates with minimal noise, never has displayed a tendency to "overheat", and the file transfers are quite fast. To me, it is also very critical that my storage device can be taken on my travels without having to worry about power transformers. eGO fits that bill as well - it supports 100-240V input (you may still need a plug adapter, though).

Though the transfer speeds are good, it would have been great if the eGO supported the eSATA interface also. A very minor complaint is that I wish the base 'holder' that comes along with it covered more length than what it does now...perhaps they designed it to be able to hold vertically as well.

A prudent shopper should keep monitoring the prices - it sometimes...Read more

Unlike many external hard drives, this one has a feature that is a must -- an on/off power switch. Other externals I've tried, while reliable are a pain if you don't want them running all the time. Since they are generally used as backup drives, they wouldn't need to run all the time. Therefore you'd have to unplug the hard drive, either from the wall or on the back of the drive, which could be inconvenient if your workspace has limited room.

This one is also the quietest drives I've also used. Others would make clicking noises as data was being copied (not the click of death that signals a hard drive failure), but all noises with this one are very subtle.

Out of the box, the drive seems reliable, but that's something I won't know for sure until several months down the road. However, like with all external hard drives, don't store your data on them and have them as the only source as they can fail suddenly. Always backup to CD/DVD/BluRay media as a...Read more