by George Heymann
I recently made the move from a desktop to a laptop as my main personal computer. One of the compromises I had to make when moving to an ultraportable laptop with SSD drive was storage space.
My first impulse was to purchase an external hard drive (HD). All I needed to do was decided between buying a USB 2.0/3.0 drive now or waiting for a reasonably priced Thunderbolt capable external drive later.
After weighing my options, I came across a solution I hadn’t initially considered, a network-attached storage drive (NAS). The NAS drive commonly referred to as Cloud Storage drives operates as a secure file server on your home or office network.
I did a little research and decided on the Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition. My decision was based on other favorable reviews, price, Mac/PC compatibility and previous experience with Iomega products.
The basic installation is simple and straightforward, you attach the ethernet cable between the NAS drive and your router, plug in the drive, power on and install the included software from the CD.
Setting up the cloud aspect (file sharing) of the Iomega Home Media Network device proved to be a little more challenging.
To summarize when I tried to share the drive on my network, I received a “port forwarding” error on the NAS drive. Unless your an ‘IT’ specialist (I’m not), being greeted by a cryptic message like that can be a little daunting.
The solution involved logging in as administrator on the router, determining what ports were needed by the NAS drive and then forwarding the specific ports requested. (For more information on port forwarding click here)
Once that was done I could successfully share the drive on my network. Everything worked as advertised with the PCs on my network until I tried to do a Time Machine backup from my Mac Laptop utilizing OS X Lion.
Photo courtesy: Iomega
There was a software compatibility issue between Mac OS X Lion and the Iomega NAS drive. To be fair to Iomega, Lion had just been released days earlier and even Apple had issues that needed to be resolved after the Lion release. To their credit, Iomega released a firmware update V 3.1.12 shortly after the release that resolved the issue.
Unfortunately, updating the firmware on the NAS drive was also a multi-step process. First, log in to the Home Media Network Drive manager software and determine the version of the firmware currently installed on the drive. Then download the updated firmware file to your computer. Within the Software Manager software upload the updated firmware file to the NAS drive. Once the file is successfully uploaded then execute and install the updated firmware on your drive. Depending on the version present on your NAS drive you may have to update in steps before updating to latest version of the firmware. The procedure is explained in greater detail on the Iomega site.
With a little patience and perseverance, the drive is now working perfectly and I’m completely satisfied with my purchase. The performance of the drive has exceeded my expectations, although be aware that throughput will largely depend on the speed of your network.
The Iomega Home Media Network Drive even has an option to remotely link two or more NAS drives. You can then remotely backup your onsite data to alternate location, providing the ideal disaster recovery plan should the worse happen.
My only concern with the Iomega NAS drives is that they may be to complex to set up for the average home user.
The Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition are available in 1TB/2TB/3TB capacity for $169.99/$$209.99/$299.99 retail respectively. With a little searching you can find them on sale starting at $99 for the 1 TB version.
System Requirements
- Available 10/100/1000 Mbps network Ethernet port (required)
- Internet connection for remote access or cloud feature
- Internet Explorer 7, Firefox® 3.x, Safari 3 or later browser
- CD or DVD drive to install software (can optionally be installed from the Web)
- PC Users: Microsoft® Windows® XP or newer
- Mac® Users: Mac OS 10.6 or newer to administer, 10.4 or new to connect
- Linux® Users: Redhat 9, Enterprise 4/5, Gentoo, Mandrake 10, Devian 4, FedoraCore 6/5, OpenSUSE 10.3
Package Contents
- Iomega® Home Media Drive – Cloud Edition
- Stand to help save desktop space
- Ethernet cable
- Power supply
- Printed Quick Start Guide
- Solutions CD with: StorCenter Manager software
- User Help Documentation
- 3-year limited warranty (with registration)
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Filed under: Apple, Hardware, Review, Services, Software, Windows, Apple OS X, Cloud, Cloud services, Cloud storage, DVD drive, external networked hard drive, external storage drive, Hard disk drive, Hard Drive, Home Media Network device, Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Ediition, how to port forward router, Iomega, Iomega Home Media Drive, iomega nas format in mac osx 10.7, iomega® 3tb home media network hard drive cloud edition reviews, iomega® home media network hard drive cloud edition, Iomege Home Media Drive Cloud Edition, IT specialist, ITunes, Lion, lion mac recovery, Mac OS 10.6, Mac OS 10.7, Mac OS X Lion (10.7), NAS, NAS Drive, Network-attached storage, OpenSUSE, OS X Lion, PCs, port forwarding, port forwarding router, SSD drive, Storage, StorCenter Manager Software, Universal Plug and Play, Universal Serial Bus
I have the same problem with my drive with my recent upgrade to Lion. I downloaded and installed the latest firmware that I could find from Iomega (v2.064) and still have issues. Can you post the link to the firmware that you installed to fix this issue?
Thanks!
Hi Garrett,
The latest version of the Home Media Network Hard Drive, Cloud Edition Firmware is 3.1.12. Here is the link
https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/26791 . Read the instructions carefully. As I mention in my article you may have to upgrade in steps depending on the version already installed on your NAS drive. I’m not sure about V2.064.
They have detailed instructions at the link I provided. Once I flashed 3.1.12 the drive worked perfectly with Lion.
Good Luck and please share our links with your social group.
Thanks for some quality points there. I am kind of new to online , so I printed this off to put in my file, any better way to go about keeping track of it then printing?
ED: If it’s something you want to refer back to, why not bookmark it in you browser. It will be easy to go back to and you will save some trees
If you have multiple items on different websites you want to refer back to try a program like Evernote. It makes it very easy to organize articles that you want to refer to and they offer mobile apps for your smartphone as well.
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WARNING ANDROID USERS!!! – many advertisments for Iomega NAS devices refer to an Android app allowing users to access this NAS remotely being on the roadmap. Unfortunately, many months later, there is still no sign of any development in this area (despite the ios app being available now!). All you can get from Iomega is that there is no date yet.
Given the lack of information, many are concluding that the claims of an Android app are false and it is less a case of roadmap and more a case of roadblock!
I will be returning mine and purchasing an Android ready NAS.
You’ve been warned.
That´s so wrong! I purchased this NAS because I was purchasing and Android phone!