Review: Iomega StorCenter Network Hard Drive

Shared storage is becoming very popular among home-office and small-business users — especially considering the number of image, audio, and other multimedia files we're all accumulating. One way for a hard drive manufacturer to make its new product stand out from an increasingly crowded line-up is to improve the feature set. That’s the path Iomega has chosen for its StorCenter series of desktop network-attached storage drives.

Iomega’s StorCenter consists of a 260GB hard disk with an 8MB cache, making it a competent external drive unit (cutting-edge would require 16MB). Its 7200rpm spin rate is the current standard; it includes one 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port and two USB 2.0 ports.

Despite the “network” part of its name, this is probably one of the easiest installations you’ll encounter. In fact, it’s so simple that it’s practically hands-free — just run the software CD and then attach the drive to your network hub (the cable is included) through the Ethernet port. When your computer reboots, you’re left with the tough task of clicking “OK” a few times and you’re done.

The installation puts a management console application on your PC. This program allows you to encrypt the StorCenter's contents and set password protection — all the usual security features that are used with external disks. You’ll also find that StorCenter appears in the “My Network Places” section of all computers on your network. If you want to use the StorCenter from another computer on your network just use Windows Tools to attach the drive and you're done.While you can drag and drop files to the StorCenter, that’s only a small part of what it can do. Iomega offers automated backup facilities — both on the file and the system level — as part of its software bundle. File transfer speeds are about what you’d expect from a network drive: Data files race quick as greased lightning; compressed media files stroll across at a leisurely pace.

Wireless Multimedia
Iomega markets the StorCenter as a multimedia storage device and one of its major selling points is the inclusion of wireless Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) capability. UPnP effectively turns the StorCenter into a media hub from which you can wirelessly stream music and video to your television or media center . This is a nifty idea — but you can't simply yank the StorCenter out of its box, plop it on your network, copy some movie files over to it, abandon your digital cave, and head for the open environs of your living room. You will need a UPnP-compliant Digital Media Adapter (DMA) to complete the connection to your entertainment equipment, which will set you back another $100.

The StorCenter’s LAN network interface, and the drive itself, are fast enough for easy streaming of audio or video among network nodes. It worked flawlessly over a less than pristine WiFi link. But the same applies to almost any lesser-priced USB-based hard drive. Meanwhile, the StorCenter's 250GB capacity is very yesterday for a network drive, especially one that prides itself on photos, music, and video content being among its targeted files.

You can attach additional drives to the StorCenter’s USB ports via a USB hub (and even use it as an attachment point for a networked USB printer). However, the StorCenter is stuck on the older FAT directory structure, if you attach an NTFS formatted drive, it will be recognized as a read-only device. In addition, the StorCenter lacks the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of such alternatives as NetGear’s Storage Center SC101, a hollow (network-capable) box that, for about $87 more than the StorCenter's $289.95 price, you can fill with a pair of 320GB hard drives, a total of 640GB of storage.

Sharing Over The 'Net
Another feature than seems better in the thought than the reality is Iomega’s FolderShare. On the surface, this is an incredibly cool concept that lets you synchronize and share files and folders from a remote secure P2P network so they can be accessed no matter where you might be., While this means Grandma can easily access the baby's pictures by logging in from her own system, this might not be practical for many. If a bank, or the Department of Defense, can be hacked, then hanging your sensitive data out on the World Wide Web is probably not the smartest of ideas, no matter what levels of security are promised.The only true flaw I found with the drive is its fan. The little one-inch whizzer does not run all the time — it spools up to speed as needed to keep the internals cool and then shuts down. The constant on and off, on and off, on and off, starts to become annoying in a quiet room.

The bottom line here is that the StorCenter is a practical network drive solution only if you need all of the features — storage, media hub, print server — that it offers. Other network hard drives with more cost-effective expansion options (as well as third-party UPnP and print server modules) are already available. It’s one of those rare times when a one-trick pony may be a better choice than the StorCenter and its expansive repertoire.