I just posted the following to Amazon after a few hours tinkering with the new toy. The iomega iConnect is a “wireless data station” that’s designed to allow you to share up to four USB drives (maybe more with hubs attached – not tried) or printers. The main reason for us buying it was to stream media to the Xbox in the front room and to two laptops (gran and daughter) elsewhere in the house.
The ideal situation would be to keep “mature audience” films separate from the “whole family” ones. This is do-able if the films are accessed by users over laptops, but not via the Xbox. Details in the bumph below.
It’s not a bad device, but it’s a shame it builds itself up with a load of features that don’t live up to the hype.
OK, this is a nice idea but as other reviews have stated the device fails on the little extras that make it so appealing in the first place – and due to some hidden charges.First up, the interface is slow and clunky in the way that too many web-based front ends are. It can be a pain finding sections you’re after.The claim that you can secure certain “folders” is incorrect in as much as the system calls any volume (i.e. hard drive partition) attached a folder. You can only restrict user access to each of these, not to the *actual* folders underneath. If you need to do this, look elsewhere (like a file server).To stream media to an XBox or PS3, you tell the system to make all media available for streaming on a per-folder/partition basis. This means that if you have kids in the house, you’ll have to store your “mature audiences” films on a separate drive and log into the interface to enable/disable media streaming as and when you require it via the console. This is also the only way to block them from the content using the “security”.Torrent download is a complete waste of time. Only one torrent at a time, and the speed is ridiculously slow. I attempted a couple of downloads. On a PC attached to the same network I was getting 250+Kb/s. On the iConnect, I peaked at 3Kb/s. THREE. Estimated time to completion was over a week. Just forget this feature – it’s pointless.The ability to access the device from outside the home seems fine, though when you enable it you find that after 12 months, you have to cough up each year to keep it working. The system employs a 3rd party web service which checks your external IP address and logs it on a web site with a personalised URL. You go there and it redirects to your iConnect. This helps get around the issue of dynamic IPs as usually issued by home ISPs.There *may* be  way round this by using a service such as no-ip.org. Keep a machine on at home running their service (free) and check the IP address when you need it by pinging your no-ip address. Then use the URL https://YOUR-IP/index.html?t=1This may not work if the iConnect itself decides to disable the system after 12 months. I have no idea if it will or not and won’t for 364 more days!I’ve also set the system to email me with any faults that occur. This seems to work fine, but it worries me that it’s mailing so often – usually claiming it can’t access the remote server that stores the external IP address.Oh, the available volumes frequently vanish from the supplied management client software meaning that you can’t manage them using it. Having said that, you can get round this by going to the iConnect’s static IP address (make sure you give it such an address on your router!) directly. This issue doesn’t seem to affect the volumes being displayed and accessed through your Explorer – you just can’t administer anything.Overall, nice idea but let down by rubbish unreliable software. Having said that, it (sort of) accomplishes the main task we had for it which was to stream media to the XBox and kids’ laptops. A shame the security wasn’t better on it so that we could restrict things more easily although I recognise that due to the fact that the Xbox can’t “log in” as such, the media either streams or doesn’t. Just a good job we have a little girl who’s trustworthy!OK, this is a nice idea but as other reviews have stated the device fails on the little extras that make it so appealing in the first place – and due to some hidden charges.
First up, the interface is slow and clunky in the way that too many web-based front ends are. It can be a pain finding sections you’re after.
The claim that you can secure certain “folders” is incorrect in as much as the system calls any volume (i.e. hard drive partition) attached a folder. You can only restrict user access to each of these, not to the *actual* folders underneath. If you need to do this, look elsewhere (like a file server).
To stream media to an XBox or PS3, you tell the system to make all media available for streaming on a per-folder/partition basis. This means that if you have kids in the house, you’ll have to store your “mature audiences” films on a separate drive and log into the interface to enable/disable media streaming as and when you require it via the console. This is also the only way to block them from the content using the “security”.
Torrent download is a complete waste of time. Only one torrent at a time, and the speed is ridiculously slow. I attempted a couple of downloads. On a PC attached to the same network I was getting 250+Kb/s. On the iConnect, I peaked at 3Kb/s. THREE. Estimated time to completion was over a week. Just forget this feature – it’s pointless.
The ability to access the device from outside the home seems fine, though when you enable it you find that after 12 months, you have to cough up each year to keep it working. The system employs a 3rd party web service which checks your external IP address and logs it on a web site with a personalised URL. You go there and it redirects to your iConnect. This helps get around the issue of dynamic IPs as usually issued by home ISPs.
There *may* be  way round this by using a service such as no-ip.org. Keep a machine on at home running their service (free) and check the IP address when you need it by pinging your no-ip address. Then use the URL https://YOUR-IP/index.html?t=1
This may not work if the iConnect itself decides to disable the system after 12 months. I have no idea if it will or not and won’t for 364 more days!
I’ve also set the system to email me with any faults that occur. This seems to work fine, but it worries me that it’s mailing so often – usually claiming it can’t access the remote server that stores the external IP address.
Oh, the available volumes frequently vanish from the supplied management client software meaning that you can’t manage them using it. Having said that, you can get round this by going to the iConnect’s static IP address (make sure you give it such an address on your router!) directly. This issue doesn’t seem to affect the volumes being displayed and accessed through your Explorer – you just can’t administer anything.
Overall, nice idea but let down by rubbish, unreliable software. Having said that, it (sort of) accomplishes the main task we had for it which was to stream media to the Xbox and kids’ laptops. A shame the security wasn’t better on it so that we could restrict things more easily although I recognise that due to the fact that the Xbox can’t “log in” as such, the media either streams or doesn’t. Just a good job we have a little girl who’s trustworthy!
