[John151]

As the HD in my Mini was reaching capacity, I ordered an iomega "MiniMax" 705G drive.  This thing looks great, and fits neatly beneath the Mac Mini, for a very OEM looking solution.  The drive installed w/o any issues - pure plug and play. 

Once the drive was installed, I started copying over the 88Gb of Apple Lossless files from the Internal drive to the iomega. Everything worked fine for the first 10 minutes or so, then the iomega basically went offline, which the Mac did not seem to find to it's liking.  I separated the two devices for cooling reasons, but to no avail.  I then put both units on the floor (in the basement), and that seemed to help, but did not solve the problem.  I then opened the window, to let the 5 degree (F) air in, and then and only then could I copy over all 88Gb w/o a failure.  Thus, I believe the  problem involves cooling. 

Now I am up and running with the iTunes database on the iomega, but I can't seem to RIP an entire CD w/o the drive going South on me.  I could live with the challenge for bulk copies, but not being able to rip a CD is not going to cut it for me.  BTW - the two units are now side by side on a desk (in the basement) with nothing immediately above, or adjacent, so they should have ample cooling.

I really want this unit to work out, and would like to find a solution to this problem.  Any thoughts?   

[Crimson]

Unfortunately, it sounds like your HD is heading south. You could try using a USB-powered cooling fan, but I wouldn't rely on it.

[John151]

I think you are correct about the outcome as  I had to reformat the drive a little bit ago as the Mac could not read it.    Time to send it back to iomega!     The drive is supposed to have a variable speed fan, but I am not sure that the fan is even operating. 

The next question is should I bother with a replacement, or go with a more typical external drive (I have been very happy with the Seagate I have tethered to my PC). 

[Crimson]

The next question is should I bother with a replacement, or go with a more typical external drive (I have been very happy with the Seagate I have tethered to my PC). 

Can't say. I've never had absolutely no issues with any particular manufacturer's external drives (I use NAS for storage and backup), and treat them simply as conveniences. I've been through Maxtors, Seagates, and Lacies, and am currently using an OWC firewire portable which seems to be pretty robust.

[Philistine]

If its any consolation I had an external Iomega HD that failed twice - first the USB port failed and then the drive crashed, on both occasions the customer service/support/repair/return shipping was fast and effortless.
Are Iomega profucts poor quality? Or am I accident prone    Maybe more the second option.

[Bemopti123]

I have purchased 3 external HD in order to backup or increase space on my overtaxed Mac Mini G4 computer.  The first was a Iomega 250 with USB 2.0...It was a little bit noisy, but it never failed to backup as in your case. 
The second was an OWC Microstack v2 with 500 GB.  I use firewire with that one and the first sample I got had a defect in the fan that made it sound like a jet getting ready to take off (no exaggeration.)  I sent it back and got it back within 1 week...Issues resolved.  I am using this HD as my boot HD, because it is fast and obviously has more capacity than enough to spare.  Only firewire HD can be used for backup.  Asides from the small hiccup I mentioned, it has been fast and quite quiet. 
The last HD I ordered was a OWC Mercury with 500 GB which is Raid compliant...Raid 2?  More complicated than necessary, if you ask my opinion, but still, it provides a solution in case something happens to my Microstack. 
Had I known before, I would have purchased the Drobo robot HD dock...While expensive in the beginning, it allows you to swap HD as capacities go up and prices drop.  The only drawback... no firewire connections, therefore, cannot be used as a boot able HD. 
LaCie HD seem to have very spotty reliability, especially those from a couple of years back, but they do have the coolest form.  The newer ones look very decent. 
If I were you, I would get a large reliable HD with firewire so you can boot from it and later add another HD to it as a backup. 

[Panelman]

I've had very good luck with my two LaCie drives. The 500 GB is stackable with  Mini. They are a little more expensive but at least for me the extra cost has been worth is because they work and they are formatted for Macs so one less step.

[John151]

I picked up a 750 Gb Seagate FreeAgent from Costco today for $199.  Had to format it for the Mac, which is very easy to do.  So far, it is working great - very quiet, small foot print, wifes says it looks cool, and I was able to copy over nearly 100Gb from the Mac in about an hour w/o errors. 

Sending the iomega back tomorrow.

[JohnR]

Too bad about the MiniMax. I haven't had problems with mine but it's only a 160G.

Are you connecting with Firewire or USB? (Just curious)

[PhilNYC]

Way back when (10+ years ago), I had used a bunch of IoMega ZIP drives, and they kept dying on me...must have gone through 4-5 of them, and none of them lasted more than a year.  As a result, I have a very poor impression of IoMega's quality control.  Have also had extremely bad experiences with Maxtor external hard drives, with 3 of them dying in a span of 5 years.

For my Mac, I now use OWC Mercury Elite Classic external hard drives (available at http://www.macsales.com) with great results.  I have three of them connected to my iMac...one holds my music, one is purely for music backup, and the third is used to backup my iMac internal drive via Leopard's Time Capsule backup software.

[John151]

Too bad about the MiniMax. I haven't had problems with mine but it's only a 160G.

Are you connecting with Firewire or USB? (Just curious)

I used the Fire Wire connection.