Review: Iomega’s StorCenter Network Drive Is Great For Backups and Bittorrent
11:59 pm, October 22nd, 2009, Leander Kahney
You can never be rich enough or thin enough, and you can never have enough storage.
I’ve been playing with Iomega’s brand new StorCenter ix2-200, a 4TB network-attached storage/home server that totally kicks NAS!
Not only is it a nice big target for Time Machine backups, it’s also an iTunes server and a Bittorrent machine. It plays nice with the Mac, and is dead easy to set up and use.
Full review after the jump.
Company: Iomega
Model: StorCenter ix2-200
List Price: 1TB=$270; 2TB=$370; 4TB=$700
Compatible: All Macs. Also supports Windows, Linux, network TVs, Apple TV, game consoles and Bluetooth-equipped smartphones.
Buy Now: The StorCenter ix2-200 will be available shortly.
Aimed at small business and home users, Iomega’s StorCenter ix2-200 offers cheap network storage AND a media server. It’s a killer combo: you get a big roomy drive for Time Machine and a no-setup server for storing gobs of music and movies. Your media is accessible by any Mac or PC on your home network — as well as the Apple TV and the kids’ Xbox. Your files are also accessible over the internet.
Best yet, it’s a torrent machine, able to download and store torrents in the background. You just double-click on the torrent jobs you want downloading, and the ix2-200 does the rest. It’s fast and doesn’t clog your internet connection like a lot of Mac clients. Plus you don’t have to leave your machine on while you wait for the torrents to finish downloading. There’s also a built-in video player so you can watch downloaded torrents through the ix2’s browser interface. It plays video encoded in popular formats like .avi and divx, so no need to download VLC or Perian.
The ix2-200 is available in 1TB to 4TB capacities. Starting at $270 for the 1TB model, it costs $370 for the 2TB version and $700 for the 4TB version (two 2TB drives are still pretty expensive). That might sound pricey, but a comparable Hewlett Packard MediaSmart Home Server also costs $700 but offers only 1.5TB of storage. Yeah, the HP offers more performance, but it’s probably overkill in a typical home setting. According to Iomega, the ix2-200 can serve five simultaneous HD video streams at the same time, and support about 20 users at the same time.
It serves up media not just to Macs, Windows and Linux PCs, but UPnP devices like networked TVs and game consoles, including the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It’s preconfigured to share through iTunes and automatically shows up in iTunes as a shared device.
Setup was a breeze. I plugged it into the wall and home/office router, then ran the setup utility on my Mac. A few clicks later, and there it was in the Finder as a shared drive. Open Time Machine, and it’s available for backups. Dead easy. Another NAS appliance I’m reviewing wasn’t nearly as easy to set up.
The ix2-200 is configured through a browser interface, which is very intuitive (also unlike the other NAS appliance). Easy to add users, shared folders, set storage quotas and setup an FTP server.
The only problem I’ve had is with the browser interface, which is a little glitchy. Sometimes it jumps to a “configure network settings” screen, which disappears if you hit the Home link. It’s annoying, but not a deal breaker.
It’s got a gigabit connection and two drive bays. Drives are user replaceable, and it’s easy to add extra storage — just plug external drives into the three USB ports (one in front; two in the back).
Iomega says the ix2-200 is pretty green. It uses new green drives and automatically spins them down when not in use.
It also supports Bluetooth for backup and storage for smartphones, but alas not the iPhone until Apple adds for support for Bluetooth file sharing. It will work with jailbroken iPhones though. Requires a separate Bluetooth adapter (price TBD).
There’s a front panel “quick transfer” button for automatically copying files to and from USB thumb drives, flash memory cards and external USB drives. It can also initiate pre-set network copy jobs, which is useful for things like offsite backups.
There’s a bunch of other features for business users I’ll likely never use — like iSCSI for fast data transfers and support for up to five networked security cams.
But that’s all good. The iX2-200 is a great, full-featured package that’s not just a dumb hard drive but a capable addition to any home or office network. Recommended.
Posted by Leander Kahney in Hardware, Reviews | Comment on this article
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Good Review! Im very interested in something like this… after your review I think ill try out the 1TB model. Any places you guys recommend buying this from?
Chris
Chris Jarmon, on October 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 am
@Chris, I wrote Iomega a note asking about availability. Here’s what they said:
“The Iomega ix2-200 is shipping now and will very shortly be available from all the etailers such as Amazon, Buy.com, Newegg, and Iomega direct (www.iomega.com). It will also be available at Fry’s on the West Coast, as well as other select retailers.”
Hope that helps.
Leander Kahney, on October 23rd, 2009 at 10:06 am
What makes this better than Thecus’, Synology’s or Qnap’s offerings?
Or you just don’t know these?
I’ll bet Iomega is the slowest…
toke lahti, on October 23rd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
How do you you access your files on the Iomega from the net? Do they provide dyndns service or do you have to get it yourself and command line into it?
I doubt I’d choose this over my Buffalo Linkstation. =\
Church of Apple, on October 23rd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I’ve never used Time Machine myself, but my understanding (based partly on helping someone else use it) is that, under OS X 10.5 at least, Time Machine insists on taking over and using an entire drive. Partitions aren’t recognized, since it reformats the entire drive the first time you use it. Has that behavior changed in Time Machine under Snow Leopard? If not, then I don’t understand how this NAS drive can be used for that and anything else, i.e., how you “get a big roomy drive for Time Machine and a no-setup server for storing gobs of music and movies.” (BTW, that’s my gripe about Time Machine, not about this drive, which sounds just about perfect.)
John Branch, on October 23rd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
i had an iomega 1tb external that came with two 500 gb drives. it lasted less than two years before one of the drives died. it was even plugged into a ups. no more iomega for me.
firesign3000, on October 23rd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Just hooked it up to 4 computers in my home with no hassles at all.
Not one problem, freaking easy to use. iTunes saw it immediately without having to configure anything.
I got mine at Frys but they had a newer version, and it was only $189 for the 1TB StorCenter.
Chris
Chris Jarmon, on October 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Ahhhh, I just bought D-Link DNS-323 not even a month yet and this thing came out
Jakk, on October 27th, 2009 at 10:33 am
@ John Branch,
I use Time Machine to backup my 12″ PB running 10.5.8 on a partitioned drive and I haven’t had any problems. I have three partitions: a small boot partition, a time machine partition and a movies/pictures/large data files partition. Time machine never tried to takeover the entire drive…
Cheers, John
John Fluvog, on October 28th, 2009 at 2:05 am
If you go to the following url you can purchase our new ix2-200 Iomega ix2 network storage
Iomega, on October 28th, 2009 at 9:59 am