Review: 20 minutes with Iomega's eGo portable drive
Given that one external 2.5" drive is much like any other, Iomega's latest batch presents a good choice: theirs are designed to survive a drop onto hard surfaces. The compromise is that they're a little larger than the competition -- compare, for example, to Seagate, whose recent models aim for ultra-thinness.
Tested, the drive had similar throughput to all the other 5400 RPMers on the shelf: like them, it comes with a dual-head USB cable and backup software. In casual testing, it survived drops of 3 feet onto tile floor without a crack.
Iomega's eGo drives come in dark red, white and dark blue and are offered at up to 500GB. A Mac edition adds Firewire 800 /400. But as far as Iomega's droppable drives go, I still prefer the leather edition.
Product Page [Iomega]
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killdeer on Review: 20 minutes with Iomega...
"Glad to help Rob :)..."
strider_mt2k on Review: 20 minutes with Iomega...
"Who's hard drives are Iomega using?..."
aaronbeekay on Review: 20 minutes with Iomega...
"Argh. Except for the problem with all of these little 2.5" external drives: they..."
Rob Beschizza on Review: 20 minutes with Iomega...
"They must have updated it! (I wrote this review a few weeks ago, but literal..."
killdeer on Review: 20 minutes with Iomega...
""But I still prefer the last-gen leather edition--if only it came with more than..."
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killdeer
#1 – 1:55 PM June 21, 2009
"But I still prefer the last-gen leather edition--if only it came with more than 250GB."
But the page you linked has a 500GB model right there? "eGo 500GB USB Portable - Brown Leather" - "500GB USB 2.0 $134.99"
Rob Beschizza
#2 – 2:03 PM June 21, 2009
They must have updated it! (I wrote this review a few weeks ago, but literally lost it) So I shall update my post, too.
aaronbeekay
#3 – 2:55 PM June 21, 2009
Argh. Except for the problem with all of these little 2.5" external drives: they're underpowered. Horrendously so. USB was just never designed to supply the kind of power that we ask of it, and dual-head USB cables and the like are hackish and inelegant solutions.
The computer has the ability to control the power to each USB port. The reason that it doesn't dump 1A into every peripheral that asks for it is because it's a bad idea.
FireWire has the power to run a hard drive, and its transfer rates are faster. (Yes, I know nobody loves FireWire, but still.) I saw a WD drive yesterday that not only ran off USB, but didn't even have a power jack for you to plug it in if you wanted. On top of that, it came with a single-plug USB cable. I guess I commend them for conforming to USB spec, but the drive just flat-out didn't work on three of the four machines I tried it on. If you don't cheat, it doesn't go.
strider_mt2k
#4 – 3:19 PM June 21, 2009
Who's hard drives are Iomega using?
killdeer
#5 – 4:12 PM June 21, 2009
Glad to help Rob :)