tim57064

I was wondering if anyone out there has used this drive. The Iomega 35538 EZ 1TB Media & Backup Cener 1TB NAS Network Hard Drive. I am looking at purchasing one for $80.00 and would like to know if it is worth the investment or am I throwing money to the wind. Appreciate all advice, Tim

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

I use an external drive for all my images. In fact, I have my system set up to bypass the hard drive on my computer completely when acquiring images from my cameras. This way if something should happen to my computers hard drive or operating system all my files are safe. I even back up my music files to that drive. The drive you are considering is a network drive so you can use it to safeguard your data from all devices connected to your network. Whereas, I have multiple individual USB connected drives on each of our computers. These wallet sized drives hold 750mb and are easy to take if evacuation becomes necessary due to weather. (We live in Miami, east of US 1.)

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

Bypass the PC drive. WHY?

You seem to assume that only PC hard drives fail. I copy mine from the camera to my PC, process my RAW files to jpg, then back up all the images to another on-board drive, and an external drive.

I suffered a crash some years ago, had very few of my images backed up. After considerable time and expense, I was able to recover all my images. Did I learn my lesson? Oh heck no! One month later my brand new drive failed too! Once more I nearly lost everything, but my data recovery software pulled everything from the failed drive. I then bought a hard drive drawer that has a slot in the PC for a drawer containing another hard drive, I started backing up all my photos to that drive, then placing it into a fireproof box, and that into my fireproof safe.

Paranoid? Maybe but I learned after 2 near misses to not trust a hard drive of any age. I now also have a USB HD sitting on the desk that I use for all my backups, including the photo files. I therefore have 3 sets of my photos I think I'm safe now. I don't necessarily advocate this extreme, but I would strongly advise anyone to keep more than a single location.

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

By not using the same drive that stores the operating system and program files there is less chance of either the operating system (software) or computer hardware failure causing file loss. All of our files are redundant on our network there is no risk of loss and the hard drives that operate the workstations don't work as hard. In fact, as soon as a 500gb SSD breaks the $200 price point I will be replacing all the hard drives in the desktops and laptops we own. An SSD drive boots faster has no moving parts and requires less energy to operate.

ph0t0bug

I have a friend who knows a photographer who buys a new 1 terabyte ex. hard drive every year weather his is full or not. Another friend leaves his on high number memory cards.
I was told at Staples that the ex. drives can crash too. I keep all important info and photos on those. Whould it be too much wear & tear to uplug and plug it up when needed? I shoot hundreds of photos daily so it would be a lot of plugging & unplugging.

papakatz45 Loc: South Florida-West Palm Beach

I would add in addition to using external hard drives, also use a Cloud service such as Carbonite.

RTFM

I, personally, go for 500GB usb drives. Cheaper than the 3.5" drives and easier to store.

LaughBrian Loc: Tn

make sure you get one with a fast drive speed the low ones are very slow when you get alot of stuff on them 7200 or 10k is best

ted45 Loc: Delaware

You are right about the SSD drives. A standard SATA hard drive has a predicted life of 5 years under normal office usage. The current SSD drives are predicted to last 50 years under normal office usage. The predicted 50 year life span makes the higher price worth it.

I saw a video once where an SSD was placed under a car and was run over twice. It still worked, although the appearence suffered a bit.

LaughBrian Loc: Tn

my laptop has 1tb hard drive 2 500gb. would love to upgrade them both to the ssd. I priced it out @ $760 lol hope we see a price drop soon. the newer laptops come with 1 ssd and the other is old style 7200 but this adds $450 to what i paid for my asus g74

HOHIMER

Here is my experience with a SSD.
I installed a new Kingston 120 GB SSD (Solid State Drive) in my laptop in June of 2012; replacing a 80 GB mechanical drive.
It was very fast and I really enjoyed the way it worked. Sadly it failed just last week.
(Failure to read). I have returned it to the manufacturer for replacement under warranty.

I also use 2 large external hard drives via the USB connections. I have them plugged into USB ports all the time, however, I do not plug in their power supplies unless I am going to use them during a given computer session, to save ware and tear.
The only drives I use, that are powered via the USB port, are Flash Drives and SD cards, which take very little power.

I also back up on Google Drive, just in case!

Tomain Loc: Calgary

Here is my theory on backup. You can spend a lot of money on RAID systems and large volume Hard Drives to back up your photo's . Or spend a few dollars on 1 Large volume HD and a yearly subscription to an on-line backup Service.

I currently use a 2 TB external Hard Drive and a service called Carbonite. All my photo's are updated in real time to the service. In the case of a fire, theft, HD crash etc. my files are safe on Carbonite. Also I can access my photo's from the Internet.

I have no affiliation with Carbonite but have been a user for 6 years and I am happy with the service.

digitalzen Loc: Southeast Florida

What happens if the backup drive fails? Then you don't have the files on your desktop. Sounds like one's just as dangerous as the other if you bypass the redundancy.

Trust me; it happens. I've had a new Iomega fail at less than 6 months. I've also had two drive failures on the desktop. But all were saved because I had two copies in all three cases.

OK. I see I misread. But why have multiple exterior drives when you can have one on the desktop (or laptop) and one external? I don't get the advantage of having two externals and bypassing the desktop. Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds unnecessarily complicated to me.

digitalzen Loc: Southeast Florida

With regard to RAID, it's finicky, old technology. We used to use it on our gate access systems (I run a security company). Now we use a standard PC with automated backup to a second internal drive once a day. Entirely adequate, less stress on the backup drive, less power use and strain on the power supply, fans and CPU.

If a RAID system fails, you have to set up the whole system again. If one HDD fails, all you do is replace it and either backup or restore, depending on which drive died. Don't overcomplicate the setup. The simpler the better.

ph0t0bug

I use 2 ex. drives so one has important info and the other photos. If one fails I haven't lost everything. I guess the "cloud" type system is probably smartest, but with the kind of craziness that happens on internet I'm a bit leary about it. I guess I really don't understand it.