Iomega StorCenter 1Tb 150d woes

Piggy on the railway track
Picking up stones,
Along came an engine
And broke piggy's bones.
"Oh," said Piggy,
"That's not fair!"
"Ha!" said the engine driver,
"I don't care!"

A tiny little user research company's bones are broken - again! The Iomega StoreCenter 1Tb storage on the network died one more time, breaking Kern's bones once again. And when Kern cried "That's not fair;" "Ha! Ha" said Iomega, "I don't care!" Oh, this is not the first time Iomega India said "I don't care!" They have said it earlier too!

Kern bought a wireless 1Tb StorCenter about a year and half back from the neighborhood Iomega retailer. Kern was happy! Now we could store all the projects backups as well as the prized photos and videos too. The happiness was shortlived! The NAS stopped serving files one fine day -- just 6 months after it was purchased.

The local support guys Neoteric were called. They promptly came and picked up the device on a bicycle and dropped the device on the way to the support center -- the already broken device was now beyond repair!

Many mails to the CEO Paras Shah, screams to the engineer Srinivas, persuasions, cajoling, heart burns, and 2 full months later, Neoteric agreed to replace the device with a new one. But, here comes the catch, they tried to upsell me the newer version 150d -- we refused. Then magically one day they dumped the new 150d in our office (with no box, no documentation, no nothing -- just the box).

All our data was back, thought the little piggy! But the data was not to be seen. The piece was fresh and without our data. Kern had lost ALL its data. Many years of data had to be found again.

Kern slowly picked up the stones and moved ahead. The new box found its place on the network and people started using it again. Another 11 months passed, Ashim cried one day "can't find the network storage!" And, since then no one could find it.

Along came an engine
And broke piggy's bones.

I went to www.iomega.com and tried to find out the local support numbers. The website is designed for people not to find support numbers, but my persistence paid off. I found the number after full 10 minutes of trial and error (and BTW we usability test websites... we usually find things faster than others!)-- a 800 number -- a toll free number, wow! Hey, the toll free number is a farce -- only people with BSNL phones can dial the number. There was no phone number that anyone can dial -- kudos to Iomega India. Thank you Iomega for being unreachable -- don't expect people to subscribe to BSNL service or run to a BSNL phone booth just to contact you.

"Oh," said Piggy,
"That's not fair!"

Neoteric engineer was called up and he shrugged off his responsibility by giving out Iomega's number -- some Mr. Annamalai in Chennai. His phone number seemed a VIP number, I assume he is a "high ranking official". I promptly called the gentleman.

Here are some excellent responses from Iomega:

a. "We sell thousands of boxes of NAS, why do we only hear Kern's complaints?" Mr. Annamalai, you hear Kern's complaints because they are the only one who could somehow find you. They are the only micro business who had the courage to buy NAS. They are just one of the companies without an IT guy who will magically "get around" things without contacting you.

b. "Kern does not want to call the call center not do they want to use online chat" Iomega must supply a BSNL phone line to all its customers to call them free with each product. Iomega US-centric people please understand that India is not US -- no one needs a toll free number! People need a number that ALL operator people can call. And, how on earth can one get to the online chat? Only PhDs can do it, I suppose.

c. "Your drive died because you idiots (didn't say but made me feel like a big idiot!) did not update the firmware" Sorry Sir! Like all small businesses around the world, we have a battalion of IT people to take care of firmware updates of each and every device on earth. Sir, we are sorry that we bought an IT product without hiring an IT guy first. Now Iomega will drive the way we do business. Next time we buy an EPABX, we will first hire a telecom engineer -- my promise.

d. "The firmware update will erase all your data, that's the way!" Yes, Iomega behave exactly the way it was designed. But some companies design it slightly differently: when the Cisco-Linksys router that runs our network silently updates the firmware, we do not loose network settings. When our Indian EPABX updates the firmware, the phonebook is not lost. Yes, but I think Iomega is highly advanced -- it starts from a clean slate each time. Mr. Iomega, please understand, micro businesses like ours use the drive as backup as we can only afford this -- and if you expect to loose all data with each firmware update -- you can go and jump! We will find a better solution, thank you.

e. "This product has a three year warranty" Oh that's a sexy thing to say! If you cant get my data back, any warranty is a hog wash. Anyway, you are not honoring your three year warranty for us. You are still honoring the one-year of the previous one.

f. "I am calling to tell you that I can't do anything" Ya, my pop will do it, if you can't! He will come with his plumbing tools -- probably that will work.

g. "Why don't you back up all your data on another drive and leave it through the night?"
Good idea Mr. Iomega. Let me run to the neighbourhood chai shop, buy another Iomega 1Tb box, back up all my data on it by sitting through the night (actually longer for my more than 500 GB of data) and then do the upgrade. And, do this everytime Iomega thinks that the firmware needs to be upgraded. If I don't do it, you know what, the box will die down as it did.

h. "We have given USB ports, just connect your computer and the problem is solved"
If my memory serves me right, I bought a NAS -- which to my limited brain power means that the box is designed to be on the network -- this one refuses to be on the network. Do you think my peanut-sized brain is missing something?

"Ha!" said the engine driver,
"I don't care!"