Iomega Desktop Hard Drive 500 GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - 33654

I've had this external hard disk for about 3 months now and have had no problems. I don't use it as primary storage, only for backup, so I don't leave it on constantly. What I do is every night, I run a little backup script that copies all the files on my laptop onto the Iomega drive. I don't recommend people use this as a primary storage device, because of the potential for the disk to fail.

I've had my hard drive for about a month now and it has been working perfectly so far. It is small and very quiet but that blue light is pretty bright but you can easily put a piece of tape over it. I transferred my music and movies over with no problems at all. I would definitely recommend this!

So quiet you wouldn't even know it was on if it never had the blue light. Starts up instantly no long delay. Easily recognised and vista ready.

I have owned both these Iomega drives and the SimpleTech drives, and I am convinced that the Omega drives do indeed last longer, meaning that they don't develop disk errors as quickly as the SimpleTechs. With that said, these drives are not perfect, but there are 2 things you can do to avoid problems: (1) purchase a small table fan to blow air over your drive(s). The metal exterior of these drives, will become quite hot to the touch during extended operation; this is normal and is meant to radiate the heat outward away from the inside to protect that actual drive, and a fan can certainly help this process. Secondly, I have found that the power switch and/or power plug hole (they are connected) of the Iomega drives in particular are not very durable. Try NOT to unplug/replug the power cable over and over again; instead, leave the power plug connected to the drive, leave the power switched on, and simply unplug from the wall. Finally, whatever you do, don't ever drop these drives! Even a short drop from ~ 4 ft off of a desk or table can be a fatal blow to your data. My advice: keep the drives low, close to the ground, on a lower shelf or short stand (with a separate small table fan for cooling!).

This item is exactly as described and reviewed on the Amazon site and has fit our need perfectly. It is dependable and easy to use.