Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive (1TB) Review

Just a year or two ago, obtaining a terabyte of storage seemed nothing more than a pipe dream. But thanks to rapidly falling hard drive prices, buying 1TB of storage won't break the bank. One of the latest entries into this increasingly affordable market is the $229 Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive, an external drive that packs not only plenty of room for photos, music, and video but looks good enough for just about any user's desktop.

Design

Featuring elegant curves, shiny chrome caps, and three eye-catching color schemes (Jet Black, Midnight Blue, and Ruby Red), the 7,200-rpm Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive looks more like the mother of all flasks than an external storage drive. Measuring 8.1 x 5.0 x 1.7 inches and weighing 2.4 pounds, the drive is far beefier than its little brother, the 7.7-ounceIomega eGo Portable Hard Drive, but with the extra girth comes a 3.5-inch internal HDD that houses nearly 7 times the storage. Due in no small part to its size, the Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive requires its own power supply.

Performance

Transferring a 5GB folder of music, video, and pictures to the Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive took 4 minutes and 44 seconds, a write speed of 18.0 MBps. That's faster than other 1TB drives we've tested, such as theMaxtor OneTouch 4 Plus(13.2 MBps) andWestern Digital My Book Mirror Edition(13.1 MBps), but lagged behind the Buffalo DriveStation Combo 4 (20.7 MBps), andLaCie Hard Disk(19.7 MBps). On our read test, the exchange took 4 minutes and 1 second, or 21.1 MBps. That rate outpaced the Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus (18.8 MBps) and Western Digital My Book Mirror Edition (18.2 MBps) but was slower than the Buffalo DriveStation Combo 4 (22.2 MBps) and LaCie Hard Disk (25.0 MBPs).

Backup Software

The Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive doesn't come with backup software preinstalled, but a sheet included in the box pointed us to download EMC Retrospect Express HD from Iomega's Web site. After creating an account, downloading the software, and entering a license code, we were pleased to see that Retrospect could perform full or partial drive backups and create restore points. Although we successfully set up a scheduled backup of our data to our hard drive using the software, we would like to have seen it installed directly onto the drive itself. Retrospect Express doubles as your encryption and password protection tool, and MozyHome software is also included for up to 2GB of free online storage.

Verdict

If you desire copious space for storing content over the course of the next few years, the 1TB Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive is a fast and stylish external hard drive for those who want to safeguard data. At $229 (which includes a one-year warranty), it's one of the most affordable of the sub-$300 1TB external storage solutions. The lack of encryption software means that it may not be ideal for the business set, and the middle-of-the-road transfer speeds may not appeal to multimedia mavens, but its a fine drive for everyday use.