Iomega Shifts All External HDDs to USB 3.0, Prices Stay the Same

With USB 3.0 surging in popularity, storage solutions developers have unveiled an increasing number of external units compatible with it, and Iomega seems bent on making a fairly radical move and shift all of its existing external HDD lines to this new interface standard, while keeping prices at the same levels and even adding an extra degree of ruggedness and security.

Iomega will soon switch all of its eGo range to the SuperSpeed standard and will also make them capable of surviving drops of 7 feet, twice as high as rivaling products.

Another asset that the company seeks to provide is 256-bit AES hardware encryption, so that its products may appeal to both casual and cautious end-users.

Furthermore, the products will, of course, be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports, so the devices will be usable on both new and previous-generation machines.

Iomega apparently decided to skip eSATA altogether because eSATA-connected drives, while faster than USB 2.0 units, have not been selling very well.

The company also has dual-interface USB 2.0/eSATA models, but eSATA often can't supply enough power for portable solutions, hence the comparably low popularity.

Regardless, the eGo units, of 500GB ($114) and 1TB ($189), should complete the migration to USB 3.0 by October, after which Iomega will move on to the Prestige and other lines.

'As a market leader in external hard drive solutions, Iomega is proud to be the first to move towards an all USB 3.0 portable hard drive lineup – and at no extra price premium to our customers,” said Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega Corporation and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC.

“With a super fast USB 3.0 interface delivering speeds of up to 10 times that of USB 2.0, super tough with a 7-foot drop spec that’s twice the industry average and super secure with AES 256 hardware encryption, Iomega’s eGo Portable Hard Drives will be the premium must-have portable storage product,” he added.