iomega StorCenter: Storage-tastic
The iomega StorCenter lets you store up to one terabyte of data and access it wirelessly from anywhere in your house -- but it's pricey compared to other storage solutions
With more and more devices going digital, the need for digital storage has never been greater. If you own an MP3 player, digital camera, mobile phone or laptop, then you should think about backing up your data before it's too late. As Confucius said, the stultifying dullness of backing up is infinitely preferable to the nightmare of losing all your tracks.
iomega thinks it has the solution with its one terabyte StorCenter Wireless Network Storage device. That's 1,024GB of storage space, enough for a few hundred thousand MP3s or over a thousand movies. It offers a zippy transfer rate of up to 1Gbps. Once transferred, you can access your data wirelessly with your laptop or PDA.
This storage device is mighty useful, but at a cool £550, we're unlikely to be rushing out to buy one ourselves. You can pick up 500GB hard drives for around £100, so this is definitely a more expensive option. However, the advantage of this over a hard drive is that it can easily be accessed, so, if you live with several different people, you won't need to bother the person whose computer is linked to the hard drive to access the shared data.
Alternatively, you can check out the cheaper iomega REV drive that uses removable disks, similar to Zip disks. A REV disk can hold up to 70GB of data, making it far more spacious than a Zip disk. It's not as cheap as we might have liked, costing £340, and the disks aren't cheap either -- a five-disk pack costs around £200. Overall, these are useful products, but the price tag is too high for us to take them seriously yet. - AL