Last week we told you that Iomega had released a new eGo Mac Edition portable hard drive. We got our hands on one and here is our two minute review.
The Iomega eGoTM Portable Hard Drive, Mac Edition has great style and triple interface connections for Mac users! Two FireWire 800 and one USB 2.0 port combined with high-performance 7200 RPM disks offer industry leading performance and connectivity. The included Drop Guard Case helps protect the drive from drops up to 2.1m. Keep your files secure with built-in 256-bit hardware encryption. Plus, the Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive requires no external power supply and includes Iomega Protection Suite, Mac Edition software via easy download.
The eGo Mac Edition portable drive comes in either black or white and in either 500GB or 1TB capacity options.
Who are Iomega?
From their website:
Iomega Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of EMC Corporation headquartered in San Diego, is a worldwide leader in innovative storage and network security solutions for small businesses, home offices, consumers and others. The Company has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks since its inception in 1980. Today, Iomega’s product portfolio includes industry leading network attached storage products, external hard drives, multimedia drives, and our award-winning removable storage technology, the REV® Backup Drive.
Specifications
Cache – 8 MB
Data Transfer rates: USB 2.0 – up to 480 Mbits/s; FireWire 800 – up to 800 Mbits/s
Hardware Encryption: AES 256-bit Encrypted Storage Controller
Iomega Protection Suite Software (via download)
Trend Micro™ Smart Surfing for Mac (12 month free subscription)
Iomega QuikProtect
MozyHome™ Online Backup service (2GB free)
System Requirements
Built-in USB connection
Built-in FireWire 800 connection
- Mac OS X 10.5 – 10.7
- 128MB RAM
Weights and Dimensions
13.5 x 9.0 x 1.9 / 2.26* (cm)
0.24 / 0.26* kg
All dimensions L x W x H are approximations.
*1TB version.
What’s in the Box?
Along with the eGo drive, are one FireWire 800, one conversion FireWire 400-800, and one USB 2.0 cable, the usual paperwork and a drop guard case used to protect the drive.
A Closer Look
Using the Drive
Fitting the eGo drive into the rubber drop guard case is easy and gives it that little bit of extra protection.
Connected the eGo to my Mac was simple and the drive worked straight away.
Final Thoughts
The drive is very simple to use and does exactly what you would expect from a drive. The addition of a pass-through port for FireWire will make the drive more desirable for some.
My MacBook Air doesn’t have any FireWire ports so I could only test the USB 2.0 port, and using that connection the drive seemed “fast enough” for my needs on the Mac. It also worked perfectly with Time Machine as a backup drive.
I could have reformatted the drive and run proper performance tests on Windows but that seemed a little pointless as if you wanted a Windows drive you wouldn’t buy this one as it’s aimed at Mac owners!
The drop guard is a good idea, and worth having on all the time – sooner or later you will drop a drive, so better to be prepared.
The Iomega Protection Suite software is very useful and is a good addition to the package.
Price wise, the 500GB version retails for £138.00 and the 1TB version for £176.00, so not the cheapest portable drives available.
