after reading rave reviews of this product, and so many varying reviews of other well regarded hard drives, i thought for sure i had found a great purchase.
The initial set up went quite well, but as i attempted to load bootcamp on my imac, having used the Minimax as a Time Machine backup site, the Minimax completely crashed. Two days old. That's when i found out
iomega charges customers for phone support. Tech guy i chatted with was knowledgeable, although managing multiple cases simultaneously i presume. We went through various fix-it routines, none of which helped. He then informed me that my warranty stipulated i would have to pay to return ship, and they would send me a refurb. I was floored. Two days old and babied, and they were gonna to charge me and downgrade. I protested and received a slightly better deal. They would send me out a unit (still a refurb) and i could mail them my unit back in the box, which i was under the impression would be their cost, since they sent me a link through UPS to print a return label. Unfortunately, the page to print the label was fraught with bugs, and i have chatted twice with iomega about the issue, and both times was told they would talk with their support group and get back with me. Their reply was two emails detailing our chat, one with the warning that i had two weeks to return the old drive or be charged the full price of the replacement. I wonder if my refurb will cost as much as a new unit? Will not support iomega again. Iomega MiniMax FireWire 800/USB 2.0 1TB Desktop External Hard Drive 34937 (White)
It has been the best purchase for a hard drive I've ever had. The main reason why I wanted to go for minimax is because I wanted a stackable hd for my Apple Minimac. Moreover I have a huge library of music and video files which I have been collecting for several years. Thankfully I havenot lost any of it. I did come across a few options from Seagate and Western Digital and also used them earlier. I wanted to try out the Iomega hard drive because some of my gadget-crazy friends had this. They do not select a hometheater or a flash drive or a hard drive in a frenzy. So on their recommendation, I went in for iomega minimax hard drive. I am happy that I am enjoying the huge space of 1 TB available to store all my media files. And it looks good than it does in the images. To begin with, I dint even have an initializing trouble - it installed easy and far quieter compared to most other hard drives I have ever used. That's indeed some relief to my ears and to those in the same room! With 3 USB ports I cant ask for more. Even as I use two of them at a time, I still have one left. With Firewire 800, the speeds are just right for a 1 TB version. Because of additional space, am also using it to store some professional data which I may need for quick reference when working from my home. The icing on the cake is the price. I am extremely happy that it comes with an easy cost tag. I mean I doubt if I can get a lower price with these functionalities intact!
Don't believe what you read either here or on the iomega site.
Here is a quote from the iomega customer service site, "The drive can be used as a hub as long as a USB and/or a FireWire cable is connected to both the drive and the computer. A USB cable must be connected to use the USB ports and a FireWire cable must be connected to use the FireWire ports."
Now from the included documentation, "Avoid connecting the MiniMax to more than one interface on the computer at the same time."
If like me you bought this drive because you wanted to take advantage of the included USB hub and use the MiniMax FireWire 800 for Time Machine backup, there is a list included of the 7 steps you must go through to "Change The Interface Connection Used by the MiniMax Drive"
So! You must reconfigure your new drive every time the Time Machine wants to do a backup.
p.s. Lorenzo at iomega help chat could not see a contradiction or a problem here. Have I asked for too much?
Great Drive. Has done exactly what I wanted. I have a new Mac Mini and have had this IOMega drive on it for a month. The only issue I see is heat. It gets warm which is contrary to the cool and energy efficient nature of the Mac Mini. 4 stars for great performance and cannot give 5 due to heat.
I purchased 3 Minimax drives just barely over a year ago. They are all 3 now dead or dying. It didn't take long for them to start being flaky. I reformatted and they would work for a little while before refusing to mount on one of the interfaces and then the other. Finally they just click ten or eleven times as they start up and then nothing. The warranty is crap unless you register immediately after you receive them. I found this out the hard way. If you want support they will make you pay to talk to someone. If you want to use free chat then good luck because it doesn't work. I expected a better product and hope that at least someone will not waste their money on these. I'm pissed and they are no help. Buyer Beware. - 1tb - Mac Compatible - External Drive - Firewire Drive'
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