Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive
Solutions of external or portable hard drives barely deserve a second glance, and surely do not lure high degrees of exhilaration. All the same, what it can attain you is unquestionably a grin on your face. The Iomega eGo portable hard drive have a touch of elegant style and are a “ready to go” portable hard drive solution, which makes you not look completely swot.
Design:
Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive Resembles a Flask:
The Iomega eGo portable hard drive is featured with a fashionable appearance and compact size. It is available in various series and various memory capacities.(Check specification table below for complete details). Its exterior enclosure is in sheen red colour and it surely possesses an impressive look and feel. The Iomega eGo Hard Drive resembles a flask with an anodised- aluminium and polished-steel case, and you will find yourself desiring to grab it incessantly. But we all know for sure that the performance of the hard drive is more significant rather than the looks, so let us not be completely carried away by its good looks. Here we have discussed about the looks of the ruby red coloured model, but this portable hard drive is also available in silver, blue and black colours.
Only the Ruby Red model without PS has a very curvy facia. But the other models with the PS and eGo blackbelt have a flat facia with a rectangular shape and slightly curved edges. And they look quite different from the ruby red model. When it comes to the style factor, the ruby red model wins the race.
Said that, the new Iomega eGo device does not disappoint you in that aspect also, it performs extremely well, to complement its looks.
Portable and Pocketed Hard Drive:
The drive has a very compact size, which measures height of 0.5 inches, width of 3.5 inches and depth of 5.6 inches. It is small enough to be flipped inside a pocket and just forgotten. It is very easy to carry around Iomega eGo portable hard drive as it just weighs 220 grams. It can be easily fit in your hand, and also would not increase the weight of your laptop bag or purse.
DropGuard:
To protect the device against sudden fall downs, Iomega eGo uses the Iomega’s DropGuard feature, which provides a cushioning around the device and makes it feel stalwart. Because of this it is tough enough to resist 4.25 foot drop onto industrial carpet over concrete even without a scratch. This feature protects the drive when dropped from 1.3m which is about 40% above the industrial average. The Iomega eGo’s black Iomega Power Grip band not only looks cool, but also provides desktop stability and extra durability.
Cherry Red Coloured with Silver Accents:
Iomega has triumphed in giving a great look to its eGo external hard drive by adding cherry red colour with silver emphases and mixing the device with a sleek design. The red coloured hard drive has a professional and sleek look. You should keep a wiping cloth handy as the glossy paint is capable of smudging the finger prints, which is the default curse that comes with every attractive and glossy finished product.
Rounded Edges and Chrome Ended Caps:
There may be only small change in the design from its predecessor, like with the rounded edges and chrome ended cap. But these small changes have given the device a more posh look which is far better than the draggy old rectangle shaped design.
USB Cable with Twin USB Heads:
The necessity of transferring big quantities of data from one drive to other is a highly lowball job, in the digital age, where all the music, videos, movies, photos and documents are measured in 1s and 0s. There is no need of choking up Iomega eGo to powerful power supply around, as it is totally powered via USB.
Features:
Installation:
Installation of Iomega eGo 2.5″ Portable hard drive is very easy and both Windows XP machine and MacBook Pro recognised the device instantly. There is just one software that you have to download and we have discussed about this in detail in the following paragraph.
Capacities available:
In this review we have discussed about the 350GB and 500GB models. But Iomega eGo is also available in 160GB and 250GB capacities. All these capacities are not available for you with all the colours. The following list gives you the colours of the Iomega eGo Portable hard drive along with their respective capacities that are available. The tag “PS” refers to the protective suite that we had mentioned above.
- ego Ruby Red PS: 320GB and 500GB
- ego Silver PS: 320GB and 500GB
- ego Blue PS: 320GB and 500GB
- ego Blackbelt: 500GB
- ego Ruby Red: 250GB, 320GB and 500GB
EMC Retrospect HD Backup Software:
Except for the USB cable, nothing else is needed to start powering the drive in to action. No software needs to be installed and no drivers are required. Whenever you feel like using the drive just plug in and start copying data into it. But we must admit that fact that we are disappointed with the lack of an included CD containing electronic user’s guide and EMC Retrospect HD backup software. You will need to download it from the internet; a paper which suggests downloading the software from a website is also included in the package. And this sheet of paper provides you with the licence to the EMC Retrospect HD backup software.
Once the downloading of the software as per the instructions is over, you will be pleased with the performance of the software that has features such as, full or partial drive backups, make a duplicate image, and also creates a bootable recovery CD. This software permits you schedule backups of predefined folders with data, and provides great security to significant data. The drive lacks encryption tools, though the scheduled backup of data into drive is set up successfully.
Protection Suite:
The Iomega Protection Suite software that is available for download from Iomega’s website. This protection suite includes software like McAfee® VirusScan Plus, EMC® Retrospect® Express Backup software, Iomega QuikProtect, and MozyHome™ Online Backup service. The McAfee® VirusScan Plus offers you with the essential security for your PC and helps keep you safe online, protecting you from viruses, spyware and hackers. The Iomega QuikProtect offers you with simple file level backup with easy drag and drop restore functionality. We have discussed about the EMC® Retrospect® Express Backup software earlier and the MozyHome™ Online Backup service allows you to have access and restore your most important data from any computer at any location. This also gives you with 2GB free online storage for both PC and Mac systems.
Omission OF Password Protection Software:
The omission of password protection software from the drive, is taking it out of the market for the business people who travel with highly important data.
Drive with Easy Format Options:
By default the drive is formatted to Fat32, but we can easily reformat it to NTSC in order to make it easily handle large files. Though the device is externally rugged, it provides great security in protecting physical data, but there is a deficiency of internal data protection road warrior execs which is mandatory for a portable external hard drive.
Interfaces and the LED Display in Rear:
The drive gets its power from either Firewall 400 or mini USB ports. If enough power is not provided by your Mac’s USB port, (for instance, ports on Mac laptop will not provide), the Iomega can draw power from a second USB port through an included USB cable. The only squabble is that mostly for all the hard drives the LED display is provided on front of the device but unlike other drives, Iomega eGo is provided with LED on rear side of the case nearer to connectors.
Note that, the firewall 400 port is available only eGo Red ruby drive.
Compatible with PC and Mac:
The Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive is compatible with PC and Mac with either USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 connectivity.
Windows PC Requirements:
The requirements of Windows PC which are compatible for the drive are as follows: Pentium II-class or equivalent processor or higher, Built-in USB connection, USB 2.0 interface connection, Built-in USB or FireWire connection OR FireWire adapter card installed which is not included in the package, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional / XP Home / XP Professional / Windows Vista™ (all versions) and 256MB RAM or higher.
Performance:
Iomega eGo Read/Write Speeds:
The Iomega eGo has been proved as the fastest hard drives through the tests performed with it. It is capable of writing 10GB folder of mixed file types within 9 minutes and 54 seconds. The same folder of size 10 GB was written within 10 minutes and 33 seconds by Seagate FreeAgent Go. The new Iomega eGo read back the same folder of different file types to the test bed drive in 8 minutes and 11 seconds, whilst the FreeAgent portable hard drive took a few more seconds to complete the same job. It took 175 seconds or around 23 Mbps to copy 4.12GB data from the device to a PC. Reading data back from the PC to the drive took 259 sec or about 16MBps, as we know read speeds are much higher than the write speeds.
HD Tach Test Results are Excellent:
Some other tests of the device and proved that it takes 1 minute and 46 seconds to transfer a 2 GB full file of music, video and pictures at a rate of 19.3 Mbps. It made it better than earlier Iomega’s 14.6 Mbps reported writing speed. The reported reading speed of 28 Mbps is also found to be true with a very slight difference; the drive took 87 seconds to read a 2 GB file at 23.5 Mbps. When a HD Tach test, which is a software that tests read speeds of the drive, is done on the drive, it achieved a read speed of 31.5 Mbps.
Service and Support:
A limited warranty of 3 years is provided by Iomega to its new eGo Hard Drive. Pay-per-incident phone support ($25) is provided along with the new device. The timings between which the service is provided are in weekdays, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET. Iomega site includes live one-on-one Web chat, forums, FAQs, software downloads, product documentation, and how-to videos.
Contents in the Box:
The Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive comes in a box which comprises of Iomega eGo Hard Drive, USB cable, Backup software information page and warranty information.
Verdict:
Iomega eGo portable hard drive is a simple device with great utility. This hard drive is of great pick if you are waiting for a stylish, flashy hard drive with very fast write/read speeds. You cannot go wrong with a portable drive solution when you are habituated to an ever growing media library which needs regular backups or frequent plain needs for transfer of large data from place to place. Then the new device is a reasonably affordable and excellent choice.
The classy features of the drive include, a very stylish external casing, bus powered, excellent read/write speeds and includes backup software for windows users. Though it does not provide backup software for Mac users and requires two ports for powering it, they are really not more concerned when it comes to its price, performance and appearance. The Iomega eGo hard drive is a stylish with excellent performance and affordability. This is best suit for students and media gigs who need a stylish additional storage solution.
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Iomega eGo Portable External Hard Drive - Technical Specification Details
| Manufacturer | Iomega Corporation |
| Model Name | Iomega eGo portable hard drive |
| Model Number | ego Ruby Red PS 320GB: 34619 ego Ruby Red PS 500GB: 34615 ego Silver PS 320GB: 34616 ego Silver PS 500GB: 34620 ego Blue PS 320GB: 34618 ego Blue PS 500GB: 34622 ego Blackbelt 500GB: 34621 ego Ruby Red: 34423 |
| Colours available | Ruby red, silver, blue and black |
| Form factor | 2.5″ |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) | 0.7 x 3.5 x 5.2 in |
| Weight | 165 grams |
| Capacity | 160GB, 250GB, 320GB and 500GB |
| Interface Type | High Speed USB
FireWire 400- eGo Rubyred only |
| Interface Transfer Rate | 480 Mbps |
| Connectivity Interface | 1 x Hi-Speed USB-4 pin USB Type A |
| Compatible Bays | None |
| External Hard Drive Power Source | USB Bus and FireWall 400 |
| Buffer size | 8MB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 rpm |
| Security feature | Drop guard |
| Data transfer rate | 480 mbps |
| Software Type | EMC Retrospect HD backup software |
| Min Operating system | Apple MacOS X 10.1.5 or later, Microsoft Windows Vista / 2000 / XP |
| System Requirements | Windows 2000/XP/Vista - Pentium II - RAM 256 MB, MacOS X 10.1.5 or later - PowerPC G3 - RAM 128 MB |
| Package Particulars | Iomega eGo Hard Drive, USB cable, Backup software information page and warranty information. |
| Manufacture Warranty | 3 years |
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