News

posted on 04 March 2008 13:25

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Not quite as expected, Iomega's third-generation removable REV disk and drive will hold 120GB of data. The drive will be priced below the 70GB REV 2 drive.

The drive will have either external USB 2.0 attach or an internal mount serial ATA (SATA) interface. An ATAPI version is planned for mid-year.

Unlike REV 2 which doubled the 35GB REV 1's capacity, REV 3 has not attained 140GB but only 120GB. It's transfer rate is up to 35Mbit/sec, a sixth faster than REV 2.

To produce the new disk and drive Iomega has increased the areal density of the disk and also the capabilities of the read/write head which is mounted in the drive, actually the docking unit. The disk motor is mounted inside each disk cartridge case. The docking unit can read previous generation REV 2 disks.

Iomega has sold over 350,000 drives and 2 million disks. The product is positioned as a replacement for entry-level tape backup products. Other removable disk products include the RDX ProStore, sold by Dell and Tandberg, Quantum's GoVault, and Imation's Odysseus and Ulysses technologies.

Tom Kampfer, Iomega's president and COO, said: "Iomega's removable REV platform is a proven technology that delivers performance and ruggedness that no tape product can match. Compared to entry-level tape products like LTO-1 and DAT160 format tape drives, the new REV 120GB Backup Drive offers more native capacity, near instantaneous random access to files, faster backups and restores, and ruggedized cartridges -- all at a much better drive price."

Iomega says that, compared to LTO-1 or DAT160, its REV 120GB drive is up to 5 times faster and offers at least 20 percent more native capacity, and the drive costs upwards of 50 percent less. It also suggests that other removable HDDs, such as Go Vault and RDX, which claim a low cost of ownership, actually require users to purchase a complete hard drive every time data storage needs increase.

Iomega will price the REV 3 drive below the $554.95 REV 2 drive price, and also lower the REV 2 drive price, presumably to be less than the REV 3. The drives (docking units), shipped with Retrospect backup software, and disk, will be available in April.