Here's a crucial detail I couldn't find in other reviews before I went ahead and bought one:
Yes, my Mac (Mac Mini, vintage 2009, running Leopard OS 10.5.8) recognizes this drive as bootable, and I confirmed that I could actually boot from this drive, after cloning my original harddrive to this Iomega drive. I did not have to prepare the Iomega drive at all. I just used the free Carbon Copy Cloner software to copy my entire Mac's hard drive to the Iomega drive. No partitioning or formatting necessary.
However, there's a trick to booting from the Iomega drive: You have to keep holding down the Option key while your Mac starts up longer than you think you ought to. Keep holding it down even after you see your Mac's boot menu appear, which at first will only offer you your built-in original hard drive as the only option to boot from. Keep holding it down a few more seconds, until your Iomega drive pops up next to your original hard drive.
Why does this matter? In my case I wanted a total copy of my Mac before I attempted upgrading to Snow Leopard. To do that, in case Snow Leopard (or whatever experiment you're about to do on your Mac) hoses your Mac, you need to be able to boot up from your backup copy on your external hard drive, and then you can clone everything right back to your hard drive to restore everything the way it was. Iomega eGo 2 TB USB 2.0 FireWire 800 Desktop External Hard Drive Mac Edition - 34796
First, I'd like to start by saying I usually buy LaCie drives, and would have this time, if the one I was going to get, did not say it would ship in 1-4 months. So I looked again and found this Iomega drive.
Initial impression: It looks really nice and matches my MacBook Pro aesthetically, also worked seamlessly out of the box. I have both the LaCe Porsche drives, and the Poulton drives too, in various storage capacities. Comparison physically, this drive is thinner in height, shallower in depth, and slightly wider. The connection cables are white, which I find a refreshing change. If they really wanted to be different they could have gone w/ grey for the power supply and cord over the standard black.
Function wise: I never use USB, but it's nice that its there incase. Used the FW400 to transfer 187 GB folder in 159 minutes. Then used FW800, transferred 53 GB folder in 36 min. So far everything looks and works great. It has a 3 year warranty and thats a plus, hope I don't have to use it. Oh, and its quiet. I hear the computer over this thing.
Only knock I have about the product is minor in my opinion and for others might be a plus. The light indicator, is a tiny vertical blue sliver, which is cool and all, but its located near the back end of the drive in the middle, as you can see in the images of the product. It flashes when in use which is great, but if I decide to buy another one and stack them, how will I know its On at a glance or flashing when its toiling, if I can't see it. A minor design flaw if you ask me, it should be at the front.
Also, when positioned vertically on the stand, the power cord is near the top at the rear. I thought that it was usually positioned near the bottom on devices to reduce tension on the cord. This too, is a design flaw in my opinion as well, but not worth deducting a star for.
Got it here online for a good price, and the shipping was timely. Since I just received it, I can't address longevity or reliability. Maybe a year or two from now I will update this review, or if or when an issue arises, I will be sure to let all of you know.
Ultimately I am satisfied (usually very picky) so far and fortunate I feel to have discovered this item.
Ciao...
In my experience, Iomega drives are reliable and this one is no exception. For working with Adobe Lightroom2 I use this 2-TB external model with an iMac and a FireWire800 connection for external storage of all my original photo files. I have had it for about two months and so far it has worked exactly as it should. My single minor complaint is that the push-button power switch is quite hard to reach in its location at the very bottom rear of the drive's housing.
I bought this to run backups and Time Macine for my new iMac with a 1TB SATA drive. The 200GB drive I had been using with my old Mac Mini just wasn't going to cut it. This drive is nice and fast, comes with great connectivity options (FireWire 800, USB 2.0, and FireWire 400->800 cables), is formatted for Mac out of the box (not that Disk Utility is hard to use), and is quiet. It's even the same color as the aluminum on my new iMac and keyboard. Very pleased with this drive.
*****
IMPORTANT:
If you ARE having problems with your Mac not mounting external devices, or recognizing them via System Profiler or Disc Utilities, then try an SMC reset. Just do a search on Apple's site and you will find instructions on how to do it and/or updated the firmware. (The reset procedures are different for iMacs and Macbooks/Macbook Pro's.) Once you've reset (or updated) your system management controller (SMC) then it may resolve any issues for you. Unfortunately, the Seagate and Iomega drives were just junk straight out of the box.
After you've reset the SMC, and start to reboot your Mac, I recommend you empty your system's memory (PRAM/NVRAM). As soon as your turn on your Mac, hold down CMD + OPTIONS + P + R and HOLD that; you hear the Mac chime but keep the keys pressed until the system restarts and do not release until the Mac chime sounds on the reboot. Doing this has resolved a lot of quirky behavioral issues that Macs tend to inherit over time.
*****
I realize that most people who read a 1-Star rating generally dismiss it, thinking that the person is off his rocker... and usually that is the case. Most people who issue low ratings, it's usually because they didn't know how to operate the device, didn't read the instructions clearly, didn't look online for help or call tech support, or they rated it low simply because of some unrelated issue (i.e. FedEx didn't deliver the item on time). I would never rate an item this low unless I feel it truly warrants it and I hope this review is helpful to some of you. (Please forgive any typos.)
I have an iMac (2009, Snow Leopard) and a Macbook Pro (2010, Leopard) and I've been using a WD My Book 1TB drive for my Time Machine; however, after 3 years of moderately good use, they drive is beginning to fail. It's reached a point that it often doesn't mount and I can't find the drive using Disc Utilities. Therefore, I started researching online to find a strong, solid external drive to replace the WD. The WD drive was a little outdated anyway, because it only has Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 (which is extremely slow). I wanted to upgrade to a drive that offers Fireware 800, to take full advantage of what my Macs both offer (up to 800mb/sec instead of maxing out at 400mb/sec).
I first turned to the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Home 2TB - STAM2000100 (Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Home 2 TB STAM2000100), because of its claim to be both Mac and PC compatible and it claimed to be a solid drive for network storage and backups. The idea is great, similar to what Time Capsule offers; I would be able to use this drive via my wireless FiOS router to backup my Macs. Right for PCs - WRONG for Macs! Here is why:
(1) The drive, like MOST all drives that claim they are Mac and PC compatible, was not HFS+ formatted, and my Macs would not even see it in the Disc Utilities or System Profiler, much less mount it.
(2) I had to hardwire it to a PC running Windows XP (Win 7 could not initialize the disc). Once there, I could go into Administrative Tools to initialize the drive.
(3) Finally, once everything was set up, the Macs would ONLY mount the drive if it was hardwired via Firewire 400 or 800, but it would NOT communicate well with the Macs via the network as advertised. It truly was hit or miss, and very unreliable! (I should mention that I had to order a replacement BASE for this drive, one that offers Firewire 800 connections. The standard base that comes with the unit only supports USB 2.0. Also VERY noteworthy, the base has a standard USB female input, as does most every computer manufactured in the last 20 years; therefore, to hardwire this drive using USB, you WILL need an extremely hard-to-find cable that has MALE USB connectors at both ends (one for your computer and the other for the drive's base).
(4) Tech support for Seagate is like going to Wal-Mart to find anything American made....non-existent.
At any case, the Iomega eGo 2TB drive Mac Edition (Iomega eGo 2 TB USB 2.0 FireWire 800 Desktop External Hard Drive Mac Edition - 34796) was not what I expected. Out of the box, it would not mount to either Mac; I tried to connect it via USB and Firewire800. I checked my System Profiler to ensure there were no issues and didn't see anything! I have 2 other drives that use USB 2.0 and Firewire 800, both of those drive mount just fine (using the same cables), so I was able to deduce that the problem was not my cables or either of my Macs. I plugged the device into my PC, only to discover that the same case was true for the Iomega drive as it was for the Seagate one.
I searched Iomega's site for help and tried to contact tech support for guidance but BEWARE, they charge a whopping $25 PER INCIDENT to ALL non-commercial consumers, regardless of whether the device is new and in still in warranty. I was; however, able to chat online with someone who claimed to be from tech support. I should point out, though without trying to be disrespectful, that English was not this person's first, second or third language. The conversation ended when "Michael" told me that he could replace the device at MY expense. He said that there would be a "convenience fee of ONLY $29.99 plus additional shipping." I asked why I have to pay that and his answer was posted IMMEDIATELY (there was NO time for him to have typed all this), almost as though he was ready for me to ask and he had copied and pasted it into the chat window, "Since the price of shipment has been increasing, and in an effort to keep the price our devices low in this competitive market, we are no longer able to provide free shipping both ways for our products. If shipping was included in the price of the device then price of the drive would be increased. We do still use an Advanced shipping method through UPS to send the device to you. We always use the UPS ground shipping, which is 3-5 days unless you want the express for the Next Day."
I have since returned this device to Amazon. Thank you, Amazon, for allowing speedy returns! I then purchased the "LaCie Hard Disk Quadra 2 TB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 301882U" (LaCie Hard Disk Quadra 2 TB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 301882U). It comes with ALL the cables you will ever need to connect it and after only a few issues with reformatting the drive to HFS+, it works like a CHARM! I've been able to set it up for Time Machine and was able to back up over 320GB (using Fireware 800) in just a couple hours.
The LaCie drive (LaCie Hard Disk Quadra 2 TB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 301882U) has worked well, right out the box, and looks great cosmetically! I also love the blue LED light that displays when the drive is powered on. You can visually tell when the drive is being accessed because the light blinks softly and best of all, the drive is SUPER quiet! I highly recommend the LaCie drive! Having worked with Macs and PC's equally for over 20 years, I recommend NOT buying the Iomega drive and instead buying the LaCie mentioned above. Lastly, if you do need help, or want to find additional downloads for your drive, LaCie's site is much easier to navigate. - Mac - Firewire 800 - Fw800 - 2tb'
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