Iomega StorCenter ix2 Network Storage Server 1TB

Pros: I loved this little guy for the time it was working. I used the integrated torrent utility and the media streaming features several times a week.

Cons: Customer support. Beware of the 1 year warranty. It will cost you $50 just to troubleshoot any higher-level technical issues after your year is up.

Other Thoughts: I initially noticed a loud fan at about 11 months into my 1 year warranty. To my chagrin, I ignored it and had a drive fail on me due to overheating. Partly my fault? Of course. I simply refuse to put my future money towards troubleshooting where I could use it to build my own little server and provide myself a little expandability at the same time.

This is the last Iomega item on which I'll spend good money.

Pros: Mirrored drives, Gb connectivity. Great for storage & backups. Very easy to use.

Cons: No real cons, except that this device is VMWare certified, & the VMs run slow from this NAS.

Other Thoughts: I bought this NAS to work with my VMWare Esxi server. It works OK, but there is too much lag, even over the Gb network & jumbo frames. The VMs are sluggish while on this NAS. I wish I had spent the extra $50 and bought the ix2-200, which has the iSCSI support. The VMs would work great then.

Pros: Simple interface. In terms of features, realistically does pretty much all it promises. Media center functionality works cleanly with a PS3. Haven't played with the web access yet, but adding a local USB printer to it was a total snap. Email notification actually works, too. Small enough to drop into a fireproof safe when on extended absences from home. What this box does right keeps it out of the 1-Egg rating basket.

Cons: Slowest network interface on the planet. Period. Backup up a PC to this NAS? Better start Friday night if you want to see completion sometime Sunday. I threw a few GB of digital photos on it to be able to browse to them over my (gigabit) network, and I could just about stitch a needlepoint of the desired photograph in the time it takes the IX2 to deliver one over the LAN. Laughably sloth-like, I just don't get it, Iomega. The claim of GB ethernet on this box is either an outright fib, or something that needs addressing via the next firmware (if there is one).

Also mine had a DOA cooling fan (realized only after running it for 3 days and finding the case uncomfortably warm), so I ate the warranty frog and popped it open and replaced the exhaust fan with a low-acoustic job for about $10. Runs cool and quiet. Slow, but quiet. Performance prevents this NAS from ever glimpsing higher than the 2-Egg rating basket.

Other Thoughts: Don't abandon this box on the firmware front, Iomega. This thing actually shows great promise. Best size and shape for the capacity. Get your NIC stuff straight, because the ghastly LAN performance is the deal breaker preventing me from telling everyone I know to buy this unit.

Manufacturer Response:

We are sorry for the inconvenience that you've experienced with this device. I'm genuinely surprised that you are experiencing this level of network performance. And, yes, the Ethernet connection onboard is Gigabit, however, it can be limited by the speed of the processor running the onboard Ethernet controller.

Depending on how many tasks your ix2 is doing, it may be dividing it computing resources and giving you lower performance. If you are running BitTorrents, media services or other functionality that may draw away CPU resources, you may wish to turn a few of those services off temporarily to maximize network throughput.

Our latest devices have been designed with these processing limitations in mind and are considerably more powerful to accommodate those who wish to perform many tasks on these devices.

Pros: Good management interface. Easy to setup. Lots of useful protocols.

Cons: Painfully slow network transfer rates. Very long reboot time.

Other Thoughts: Had to move 800GB off this to my PC. Tried NFS and CIFS. It took 15 hours either way. Then moved that data from my PC to another PC in 2.5 hours. All connections were full Gigabit at all times. This thing is turdly.

Pros: - small form factor, very compact
- easy to use for basic file sharing
- good for your average consumer / home user

Cons: - very whinny loud fan
- very poor network throughput performance, about 12-14MBps max
- disks are loud when accessing
- DLNA would not work with my DirecTV DVR
- RAID 1 went into a rebuild mode on second day of use
- not for your power users that use as a video/movie file server

Other Thoughts: The fan was too loud and annoying and would not throttle down. The disks are noisy. The performance is not acceptable, it takes hours to copy a few movies/videos.

I cannot recommend this product. I returned it for a Buffalo Link Station Pro Duo, and I like that product better, the fans are quiet, interface/software is better, but the performance is just as bad. So I will return the Linkstation Pro Duo also and go for the new Buffalo LS-XHL which has a new chip and very high performance in the 40-50MBps range, although it is a single drive product, no RAID.

Pros: I am not an Iomega employee. I want to correct some things that previous reviewers have said.
1. The ix2 DOES have HTTP access. I tested it and it works.
2. FTP users are able to see the existence of other users' folder, but cannot view the contents.
3. If you install the SSL certificate, you don't have to look at the warnings anymore. Durr.
4. It is not FTP only. I've used HTTPS, NFS, and SMB (\\storcenter\folder) as well as FTP. Very versatile.
5. E-mail notification works fine. Perhaps the reviewer's ISP blocks port 25?
6. The disks ARE user-replaceable, it's just not easy. See "Other Thoughts".
7. The Seagate drives are 7200 RPM SATA 3.0. I guess that's "lower end" when compared to 15K SAS disks, but then the price would have to go up with faster disks. The bottleneck is the networking, not the hard disks.

Cons: It is not EASY to replace the hard disks, but it can be done, if you took a disk image of a healthy one before the failure, or if you have one good disk left in it.
The small fan in the back is noisy, but easy to replace.

Other Thoughts: Here is the procedure to replace the hard disks:
1. Have a disk image of a good disk from the StorCenter handy. I used Acronis True Image Home version 11 to back up and restore the disk image.
2. Remove the existing disks from the unit. That means removing a lot of screws and connectors, and loosening the mainboard to squeeze the disks out. If you're not good with hardware, stop.
3. Use disk imaging software to put the images on both disks. You might only need one but I didn't bother figuring out which.
4. Use a partition editing software (Windows disk manager?) to remove the large partition from each disk, leaving the small one.
5. Reassemble the StorCenter, boot it, and authorize it to rebuild the mirror set.

Pros: Admitedly, it has been a robust file backup/server. Interface is intuitive and easy to use. Fast access. Automatically comes setup with RAID 1 as opposed to stripped config (other brands all come striped).

Cons: About a month into the usage, I see 5 major problems:

Interface only allows https, and the certificate is invalid - so you must click past the warning each time. iOmega absolutely must fix this in their next update.

The "Media Server" only integrates with iTunes - extremely short sighted for those users who don't actually use iTunes but other media players (winamp, windows media, VLC, etc)

BIG Problem: after removing a printer, tech support stated that the only way to remove the "offline" printer is to reset the box. Do what?! Actually clicking on the delete icon doesn't remove the printer from the box.

Users can FTP into the box and see any/all folders even though they only may have access to a few. Users should only see the folders they have access to!

Tech support is not knowledgable about the product and offered little in the way of help when trying to fix the printer removal problem.

Other Thoughts: Like it says in the title, I'm updating my review after settling for the iOmega NAS. I say settled for because after trying several other brands, the iOmega NAS was more intuitive in the storage of files.

It can handle long file names, and doesn't force all folders into a base folder on the NAS.

While iOmega simply MUST address the problems I listed, the box is still useable and hasn't had any problems yet. so far, I'm using about 120Gb out of a 500Gb RAID 1 setup, and it's gone smoothly.

iOmega - PLEASE fix these major issues, and you'll have an excellent NAS!

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your feedback on this device. You will see a few of the issues you have mentioned disappear with our next firmware update.

Regarding your concerns:
The Media Server is iTunes compatible. With minimal configuration, iTunes will automatically pick up the music shared on your ix2. UPnP compatible media players can also take advantage of this functionality. If you enable UPnP detection on your computer, you will see the ix2 show up in My Network Places.

You can also play directly from the network share by browsing to your music files and dragging them into your media player's playlist.

Also, if your printer has been disconnected without clicking on the Safe Removal icon in Web Administration the entry may not automatically update. If you click the remove icon once or twice, it should detect that the USB device has been removed update accordingly. If this does not remove the entry, plug the USB printer in, click on the Safe Remove icon, then disconnect the device.

Pros: Excellent management interface, Easy setup, Fast

Cons: No web acces. Did I mention NO web access? Oh, and the "media server" just plain stinks.

Other Thoughts: I was told by a sales rep at a local store that the iOmega ix2 had a web interface - the box did state that is had a media server - so I bought it.

The set up is easy, quick, and it runs very well. I was put off by the fact that the management interface forces HTTPS, so you get a certificate error when loading the management screen - EVERY time.

FTP access is blazing fast, but that's all the access you'll get. The "media server" is not actually any kind of streaming service; it simply sets a media folder.

Then there's the web access. For some unforseen reason, iOmega simply didn't include an HTTP server on this box. This means that any access to files, photos, audio, etc is FTP only. So forget about sharing your media and content with friends and family!

I'm giving the iOmega ix2 one egg only because the most basic NAS for home use absolutely MUST have HTTP access.

Manufacturer Response:

We regret your negative experience with this product. We understand your concern and we are considering a more complete remote access solution for the future.

Also, regarding the Media Server service, you may wish to review the following FAQ: https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_na_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=20468

The Media Server works with iTunes to allow automatic discovery and integration interface from the ix2's media folder. This FAQ will show you how to set this up for this purpose.

Pros: Good value, two drive system. RAID. USB expansion ports can act as print server or you can add additional external usb drives. Small footprint. Fairly quiet, but drives are "clicky." Decent performance. Runs cool. Low power consumption. American based technical support. Friendly user interface. Multimedia potential.

Cons: Have had some software problems (bugs) and problems with back-ups. The lower end Seagate drives are not user replaceable. No drive access over the internet. E-mail notification not working (drive problems are supposed to be automatically sent to your e-mail account), but I haven't been able to get this to work. Short warranty period.

Other Thoughts: Purchased this NAS to safeguard personal photos etc. Setup to Raid 1. Nice user friendly interface for persons less technically inclined. Installed easy. Retrospect 2.0 back-up software didn't work and kept giving errors. American based tech support was helpful and upgraded me to Retrospect 7.0 which works but sometimes doesn't fully complete the back-up. Also, I can't get the e-mail notification to work. Drives are not user replaceable which may limit business use. No drive access over the internet, this is uncommon for NAS. Considering such limitations the cost is about one half what you would pay for a similar setup. The drive has a lot of potential but Iomega needs to clean up some software bugs, and add internet drive access. I can live without being able to swap drives but I'm sure this is a deterrent to many. Performance is good, on most benchmarks about mid-pack for NAS. Reading performance is better than writing.

Pros: I like this one, it's really small and pretty quiet. I stuck it under a desk and plugged it into a UPS, it was pretty easy to configure with the included software. It's not an enterprise level server but runs perfectly with the dozen or so systems in the small office where I installed it. It met my zero reading standards too, no manual needed, just plugged it in, stuck in the CD, and everything was easy to figure out.

Cons: Would be cool if it was wireless instead of cabled, and even more cool if it had it's own wireless router integrated into it, also accessable drives would be nice, but all in all I like it.

Other Thoughts: I checked arround and chose this over simple shared storage as I have a dozen (More with laptops in house) systems connecting and using multiple shares, and many of the NAS setups are for very small groups, Iomegas phone support was helpfull and assured me this one could handle 25-30 systems no problem. My setup was pretty basic, just a workgroup environment with shared connections, but microsofts workgroup connections couldn't handle the traffic and kept failing even after running tcp fix for max10 connection, and I didn't want to drop hundreds into server software. This little box did the trick. I'd buy it again!