Photo: Iomega

Iomega has announced that its external USB 2.0 will soon get the USB 3.0 treatment! And, though you likely still don’t have a USB 3.0-enabled computer – you will eventually – it never killed to be future proof, right? Right!

It’s good for the eGo

Iomega will be replacing every single one of its current USB 2.1 external hard drives with models fitted for the whiz-fast USB 3.0 interface. This will start first with the company’s 500GB eGo drive and its 1TB eGo drive getting the treatment this October. Once the eGotisticals are sorted (sorry, I just can’t help it!) all the other Iomega external hard drives will start receiving attention in the first three months of next year.

Umm, so what will this cost you?

Here’s the unsettling part – Iomega has been non-committal on how it will price these hard drives because the tech firm is unsure how much hard drives will cost come October. Now that you’re a little unsettled, you may settle down once more, with the company promising that you will not be charged a premium for the speed boost. Whew!

What else you should know?

Photo: Iomega

If you’re sitting on the fence about getting any USB 3.0 external drive you may like, get off the fence. Buy it. Why? Well, because USB 2.1 drives support the new standard, only with reduced speeds, of course. Iomega drives are solid, in general, so from a manufacturer profile, they’re worth backing if the external drive has specs that catch your eye.

Iomega drives in general

We were fortunate enough to get a hands-on with the Iomega eGo 500GB USB 3.0 external hard drive. We liked the aesthetic and build quality of the device, but were somewhat surprised that the company opted for a 5400rpm drive in lieu of the faster 7200rpm drive. You can read the full review right here.

Established in the 1980s, the Iomega company is a producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Till date it has sold more than 400 million digital storage drives and disks. This article will give you an idea about the features of some of the portable external hard drives that are manufactured by Iomega.

The Iomega UltraMax Plus Hard Drive has an external FireWire hard disk, an external USB hard disk and an external eSATA hard disk. Over all it has a capacity of 1000 GB, thus providing a high capacity storage facility to your computer. The HFS+ formatted external hard drive includes RAID 0 that is meant to provide higher data throughput and RAID 1 to provide data security. In addition, an expanded storage facility is provided by the three port USB hub and the FireWire ports. It can be connected to any computer that is equipped with FireWire800 or Hi-Speed USB 2.0. The dimensions of UltraMax Plus are 200 x 128 x 79 mm and the overall weight is 2700g.

Another product of this category is the Iomega Prestige that has a sturdy aluminium construction. It has a stylish dark silver finish and is ideal for home and office usage. It is a high-capacity travel companion owing to the 500 GB memory and the simple USB 2.0 interface. The eGo portable hard drive from Iomega is provided with a stylish design and is also perfect for travel environments. It can withstand a fall from up to 130 cm due to the Drop Guard feature included in its design. There is an extra FireWire port provided in this portable hard drive that gives you the expansion facility.

Tags for this article: external hard drive, portable hard drive, firewire

The Iomega eGo BlackBelt drive is a USB powered hard disk drive that according to the company is the most advanced and safest of all the portable HDDs available in the market. It looks like a hip flask and has a very stylish feel. The best part of this safe drive is that unlike other portable HDDs it has got an X-shaped rubber girdle called Power Grip, which not only keeps the HDD away from any sort of physical damage, but also prevents data corruption. The Power Grip is fixed via hard rubber at the corners.

According to the company, the eGo BlackBelt drive can endure a hard fall from heights of up to 7 feet. Drop Guard Extreme is the underlying technology which allows the drive to offer such exceptional performance, and the same cannot be said for other Iomega hard drives, like the Iomega eGo Portable USB hard drive. However, the mini-USB port as well as the DC output is not protected by the casing. Yes, the eGo BlackBelt drive also has an integrated DC out which can be used to supply power to it via an adapter in case the USB is not functioning. Under its hard attractive casing the eGo BlackBelt drive contains a 250GB HDD running at 5400 rpm.

Along with this version Iomega has also released another drive called eGo Encrypt which has 320GB of storage space and uses the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard. The form factor of both the drives is same as well. The normal one supports Mac OS X 10.1 or later and Windows 2000/XP/Vista but the encrypted HDD is meant only for Windows.

Tags for this article: drive, iomega