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Iomega eGo Portable SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Hard Drive Review
Jason Tsay
Although cloud storage is all the hype these days, there’s no denying how useful portable hard drives can be. The Iomega eGo Portable SuperSpeed combines USB 3.0 with a ruggedized design.
Core Features
- Fast USB 3.0 interface available with no external power supply required
- Backward compatible to USB 2.0
- Drop Guard Xtreme feature protects the drive from drops up to 7 feet
- 256-bit hardware encryption
- 3 Year Warranty
Our Impressions
The unit we received was the 1 TB “Midnight Blue” model. Upon opening the box, you will find the hard drive sandwiched in between two pieces of plastic with the USB 2.0/3.0 cable and some manuals underneath. The hard drive ships with a massive rubber grip wrapped around in an X shape. Dubbed the Power Grip Band, this is intended to increase drop resistance - up to 7 feet. Externally, the hard drive looks quite decent. The glossy metallic finish feels smooth and fairly scratch resistant. The hard drive itself has four tiny rubber feet - one on each of the corners - that don’t do much to prevent slippage. However, with the Power Grip Band (also sold separately $14.95) attached, you won’t have to worry so much about the hard drive accidentally being knocked off your desk.
Setting up the hard drive was a breeze - we plugged in the main USB cable and up popped a 930 GB mass storage device, as well as a virtual CD-ROM, which we’ll get into later. Iomega’s 256-bit encryption software is nothing particularly mindblowing but it certainly is a nice option to have for those who need to protect their files. As for other software, the Iomega Protection Suite includes Trend Micro Internet Security, Iomega QuickProtect, Roxio Retrospect Express Backup, and MozyHome Online. The hard drive itself is a 1000.2 GB Samsung HM100UI with a buffer size of 8192 KB and rotation rate of 5400 rpm. What does this mean? It’s certainly not the fastest hard drive out there but the important aspect that gives a performance boost is the USB 3.0 connectivity. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to test out the USB 3.0 capabilities of the eGo Portable. Theoretically, the drive should be able to reach speeds up to 5Gbits/s (translation: up to 10x USB 2.0 speeds) using the new USB 3.0 connector.
Now here come the complaints (there are two main ones). First of all, Iomega formatted the hard drive with a separate 700 MB CD partition to store their encryption software. When you plug in the hard drive, two windows will pop up, as Windows thinks there are two pieces of hardware being plugged in. As far as we know, there is no easy way to remove the partition, so you’re stuck with that annoying virtual disk forever. Why couldn’t they have just put the installer on the main hard drive? Hardware wise, the indicator light is positioned in a rather strange location - on the top side of the hard drive. Rather than being on the largest surface, it is embedded on one of the sides, further concealed by the rubber band. This essentially renders the light useless unless you purposely lift up the hard drive, at which point you will be able to tell if it is spinning or not.
Update: As it turns out, there is a way to disable the virtual CD after installing the utility. In version 1.3 of the software, there is a toggle to hide the imaginary drive.
Overall
The Iomega eGo SupedSpeed USB 3.0 is a good portable hard drive - it features drop protection, as well as USB 3.0 connection. While we did have some minor complaints, it is a wonderful choice for those with USB 3.0 ports on their computers and need to store a ton of data on the go.
Pro’s
- 1 TB in a portable form factor
- USB 3.0
- Ruggedized
Con’s
- Virtual CD
- Status lighting location
Price: $159.99 (1TB)
Where to buy: Iomega Amazon
