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Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Loud, hot, failed at 10 months, won't honor warrantee

Written by WJ from WEST TOPSHAM

20/02/2009

I bought two of their 1TB drives. They are both loud. Then the fans turn on and they get a lot louder. Intolerably loud. I would never buy them again for that reason alone. But it gets worse.

One of the drives started to fail after about 10 months. I managed to get my data off. Reformat. The drive failed again. The warrantee is one year. I contacted Iomega via their web site, typed in the drive serial number and it said my drive was not covered by a warrantee. What! I contacted Iomega and provided them with the emailed receipts from Amazon. Iomega wrote me back saying that was insufficient proof of purchase and they would not honor the warrantee.

Do not buy their drives.
Do not buy from Iomega.
If I could I would give them zero stars.
Beware of Iomega.

10 of 11 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

This is OUTRAGEOUS!

Written by ST from KØBENHAVN N

29/01/2009

Of course the product works fine, it actually does what one expect from it.
Pretty loud though.
It's the second time I buy a desktop hardrive from iomega to use as a backup with time machine. So no need to tell you that the disk never move.
Yet, both died a couple of weeks after the garanty was over. And for the final touch my girlfriend bought a portable drive from iomega as well, about 6 months ago and it's already having problems.
I wouldn' recommend this product to anyone.
As SH from London, I also have a Lacie 200GB for 5 years now and it still working.

8 of 10 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Absolutely Terrible

Written by MM from Gilbert

19/01/2009

AVOID TIS DRIVE LIKE THE PLAGUE!

After 11.5 months, drive acted strange and died. There is no number support unless you pay. Couldn't chat to tech support at first because my drive showed out of warranty. Was able to chat with someone by clicking Chat under the products section (not support). They first directed me to fax in a receipt. After a week or so I got an email saying that indeed they would be able to help me via chat now.

I wanted them to send a replacement drive. They sent me a power adapter instead. Then after that did not work they setup an RMA. A week later I realized they hadn't sent the drive because they want me to send back my drive first. - HOLD ON -

Simple logic: I bought a drive to safeguard sensitive data. If the drive has an issue you would think they would do 1 of 2 things for their customers, 1) Send you a drive, let you swap the drives to recover your own data, 2) perform data recovery for you after you send away your drive. THEY DO NEITHER - ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS

DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE

They obviously have designed their support system to be as difficult and non-customer friendly as possible showing they have no respect for you or your data. Nice to know before you buy a RAID system.

AGAIN, Look at all of these reviews of countless people who have suffered through Iomega's UltraMax product. If you have this drive and are happy, get a replacement put in place now before your data is gone forever.

2 of 2 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Power supply is the weakest link

Written by JG from London

14/01/2009

I bought two of these. The first started struggling to start up after about a year, traceable to the external power brick no longer supplying enough power. It finally started refusing to start up at all, and a warranty replacement from Iomega is now on the way (can't fault them for the zero-hassle replacement.)

Now my second power supply has also failed, so whilst I wait for the replacement I'm without access to either disk and I shall now have to arrange for a second one!

13 of 15 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Good, while it lasted

Written by SH from London

14/01/2009

I bought my 1Tb Iomega over a year ago, and used it as my TimeMachine drive. For almost all of that time it worked well, and I only used about 40% of the drive with my year's worth of backup. However, then it went wrong, and started to hang, or would disappear from the OS X desktop. Since it was just a TimeMachine backup, I could reformat and try again, but by this time the drive was too bad, and I can't even write any more to it without it hanging Finder. I would put this down to just bad luck, but my friend is now on his 2nd 1Tb Iomega, with his first having failed just after a year. I really can't recommend this drive, unless you buy another drive as well (from a different manufacturer!) to backup to. In comparison, I have 2 Lacie drives which have been running for about 3 years, and they get a lot more work (Aperture and iTunes libraries).

8 of 10 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

It is really hard to rate this product - great when working, but...

Written by KN from Smørum

7/01/2009

I have during the last 6 months bought 4 of the UltraMax drives. I have so far been very happy about the design, the quality and performance, despite that the fans are a bit noisy compared to my very silent iMac and the blue light is a bit to powerfull during the dark hours.

I have used a lot of other Iomega products and really bin happy about these products, including 2 external 500 MB network drives. When I saw the specifications - especially the firewire connections with different speeds etc. there was therefore no doubt in my mind what I wanted to buy.

Unfortunately today the first UltraMax is sounding in away where there is absolutely no doubt about that one of the hard disks is very very sick and close to breaking down - each time there is a head movement it sounds awful. Luckily I have been able to transfer all my date from the drive to another of the UltraMax drives - but now I start to really worry about my other drives!!

I will keep you updated about the 'lifetime' and behavior of my other UltraMax drives, but I'm now already very worried about all my data...

2 of 3 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Annoyingly Disappointing!

Written by MH from Ilford

2/01/2009

I bout this hard drive over many others mainly because of its size, features and obviously the looks.

But it was not worth it, as it just died within 8 months. I mean, it wont start up, I really don't know what's wrong with it. If anyone can suggest a guide then please do tell but for those who are considering on purchasing this, please, don't.

4 of 5 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Mine lasted a full 14 months!

Written by RM from SOLIHULL

1/01/2009

Like the others here say - don't but this one. I began to trust mine after 12 months with no issues - big mistake! When it died (intermittent flashing power light - the drive went as lumpy as a big block, performance cammed V8 firing on 6.)
I took the thing apart and hit it with the board with a screwdriver (because I'm technical like that!) at the power supply area to get it to live long enough to retrieve my data.
You know if i'd sent it back - the bloke at the store would have said "computer says no" and I'd have lost the lot!

7 of 8 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

No problems at all

Written by RL from Malvern

19/12/2008

Had one of these for almost 12 months. It is configured with one drive running Time Machine and the other used for storing music and photographs. It is connected via Firewire 800. Works brilliantly. Considering purchasing another!

6 of 9 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

If you value your data... DO NOT BUY this piece of junk

Written by AT from London

11/12/2008

I have bought 2 - both of which died within a year of purchase. Both times it was the control board which is junk as so many other contributors have found. I do not know why I keep going back to Iomega who are the purveyors of really rubbish products - I am always confounded but it is my own fault.
Please take my advice and never buy anything from this company.
Iomega - bad, LaCie - good - it is that simple.

19 of 23 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Great industrial design, junk firmware

Written by DP from LONDON

30/11/2008

I bought the UltraMax for two reasons: the cheap RAID and the looks. The caddy is strong, well built and very handsome. However after just 3 months as a Time Machine drive (turned on once a week for a few hours) the HDD1 failure light began to come on intermittently. One day it came on and stayed on. Eventually after a few more power-on attempts the red light did not come on any more but from then on both HDD1 and HDD2 repeatedly froze after a few minutes connected to the Mac.

Two hard drives failing simultaneously? I think not. I dismantled the UltraMax and found a pair of unremarkable but serviceable Seagate Barracuda SATA drives inside, which are now installed in my Mac Pro and working perfectly.

Sadly it seems the drive control firmware in the UltraMax is junk. Of course I could have arranged for a replacement under warranty and you can too if it happens to you... but what is the point of a backup drive if I cannot have confidence in it?

17 of 18 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Died after less than a year

Written by NG from Milton Keynes

25/11/2008

Iomega will replace it under warranty, but won't cover the cost of data recovery. It looks good, and I like the interfaces, but it can't be recommended, especially at the price - there are other 1TB drives out there much cheaper.

When it works, it's fine, and FW800 is good to have. So is Raid, except that it makes data recovery a *lot* more expensive when the thing fails!!!

7 of 9 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

1TB external hard drive - works flawlessly

Written by CM from Rayleigh

25/11/2008

I've been so impressed with this product that I now have 2 sitting besides my laptop and a third under consideration.

I use 1 for Time Machine & my extensive photo library (2 paritions) and 1 for my video library. I may soon buy a 3rd drive so that I can 1 for photos, 1 for Time Machine and 1 for vidoe.

The drive comes with an extremely easy to use RAID capability that requires no technical knowledge or expertise. There are 2 500Gb drives inside each enclosure and jumper switches on the back determine either RAID0 (concatenation - 1Tb) or RAID1 (mirror - 500gb) configuration. Both my units are set to RAID1, which means that I effectively have 500Gb external drives. However, it also means that all my data is mirrored. In the event of a hard-disk failure, I would loose nothing and my system would carry on as normal. Having said that, I don't know what would happen in the event of a hard disk failure and what the procedure would ned to be to recover from it. If I drop a replacement 500Gb drive back into the box, I don't know if the unit will then automagically re-sync the data to the new drive.

I have my 2 enclosures daisy-chained to the FW800 slot on my Macbook Pro and can report no problems with them after more than a year of usage.

The power LEDs on the front panel are far too bright (I've stuck a bit of tape over them to reduce the glare) - a particular problem after sunset since they are in my front room and watching TV was difficult with those lights.

The disks seem to spin up and down all the time. This is due to the unit taking itself offline after innactivity and spinning the disks down. The laptop subsequently produces activity (for example because an open dialogue has been activated or something wants to access a volume in the background) from time to time causing them to spin up again. After the disks have spun down, it can be a bit annoying having to wait those few seconds for the disks to spin up again before open dialoges and other OS activities can then proceed again. Even if the laptop is awake but I'm not using it, the OS still seems to do something every now and then that causes the disks to spin up again. Annoying but not necessarily a problem with the drive itself. Sometimes I dismount the drives and unplug them - but that then prevents Time Machine backups from working.

I have had no problems with disk failures and can willingly recommend the drive. It could be a bit cheaper for the amount of disk space but there aren't a lot of ready-to-use RAID1 capable drives out there that are much cheaper.

9 of 10 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

It worked well when it worked...

Written by AD from Birmingham

24/11/2008

It's been a matter of months, and it's now just clicking - unusable. Doesn't even load up on the computer.

4 of 4 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Died after about 6 months when used for Time Machine

Written by PS from Muswellbrook

8/11/2008

The first I knew about trouble was when Time Machine put up a notice stating the computer had not been backed up for 10 days.

It is showing lights on the front panel and it stops and starts with the power button. There is no sound of internal activity, cooling fan or drive mechanism whirring. It will not mount and neither Disk Utlity or TechTool Pro see it.

I seem to be incurring similar unreliability many others are reporting. I am disappointed that this drive is still being marketed.

Do not buy this HDD.

2 of 2 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Mine died after 10 months..

Written by EW from Täby

1/11/2008

..which seems fairly typical, from reading other reviews here. Clearly, this is not a quality product - buy it at your own peril!!!

The drive has been switched off most of the time, never left the desk, and died without warning.

8 of 11 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

640GB version clicking on Startup, and having problems after just 1 year!

Written by AK from Ballymakeera

23/09/2008

Bought this mainly for the firewire 800 plus the large capacity. I was very happy with the drive until last week, when for some reason, the drive wouldn't boot up and kept making a clicking noise. After some fiddling around, it appeared that when the ac-dc converter box for the unit heated up after being plugged in, the drive was able to start up.

I've still had no luck from a "cold" plug-in start. Could it be a possible power unit problem?

In any event, I've only had this drive for a year and have taken very good care of it, so there really is no excuse for it to be giving me problems after just 1 year!

In conclusion, when this drive works, it works great, but reliability could be an issue.

22 of 24 people found this useful

Iomega 1TB UltraMax Hard Drive with Triple Interface + USB/FireWire Hub

Poorly designed and unreliable drive.

Written by EK from Birmingham

21/09/2008

This has got to be the worst computer product I've ever bought.

Generally you buy an external hard drive to use as a back-up device. Well if that's the plan:

DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE!

In fact if you want an external drive for any purpose:

DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE!

I bought this accursed drive to do backups using TimeMachine. All was well until I needed to do a restore when the drive fails: the dreaded click of death. Doing a quick Google it turns out these drives are notorious for failing. Notorious, they fail all the time after just a few months.

DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE!

I really can't over emphasise this: walk past it and buy something else.

You'd be better off not doing backups at all rather than buying this drive: at least you'd still have the £200 cost of this in your pocket and you'd know you weren't backed up.

DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE!

21 of 28 people found this useful