Storage

Small, stylish-looking and easy to use, Iomega's eGo 160GB portable hard drive will be a useful addition to many photographers' kits. Small enough to slip in a camera or laptop bag, it can be used for moving large files from one place to another, backing-up files and folders or housing a media library. Available in two colours (red and silver) its anodised aluminium casing is curved like a hip flask and has steel end caps.

The eGo 160GB drive comes with built-in DropGuard protection, which appears to work by detecting sudden acceleration and parking the read/write head on the disk so it isn't damaged. Similar systems are found in many laptop computers. According to Iomega's literature, the casing is tough enough to withstand a drop of 1.3 metres onto industrial-standard carpet over concrete without being damaged.

One end cap carries the USB and DC-in ports (which can be used if the computer provides insufficient power via the supplied USB cable) plus a green indicator LED that shines when the unit is plugged in. Because it's designed to be powered via the USB cable the eGo drive is not supplied with a power adaptor. This cable has two heads and requires two USB ports if the port is not powered.

The drive ships pre-formatted with a FAT32 file system to enable files to be easily exchanged between different operating systems. FAT32 is recognised by both Windows and Mac OS and allows the drive to be used on both platforms.

When you connect the eGo drive to a Windows computer it is immediately recognised and will appear as an icon on the My Computer interface. You can download files to it from a memory card, transfer files and folders from your computer or create back-up copies of files and folders by copying the file or folder from your computer. Drag-and-drop copying is supported.

Like the Rev drive/disk system we reviewed recently, the eGo drive came with little in the way of product documentation and the user manual was only available online. We found it pretty uninformative so it's as well this device is so simple to use.

Unlike the Rev drive/disk system, the eGo drive is not supplied with back-up software. Instead, you get a licence to download EMC Retrospect Express HD, which appears to be Windows only.

Now in version 2.0, this backup software includes most of the facilities of the application provided with the Rev drive/disk system (including data compression) but does not include password protection or encryption. You can, however, schedule regular data back-ups, create a bootable recovery CD and duplicate files and folders.

In our performance tests it took 18 minutes and 18.8 seconds to copy a 7.54GB folder of mixed files from a Windows PC with a Pentium D 3.00GHz chip with 3.25GB of RAM to the eGo drive by simply selecting the folder and copying it to the drive. This equates to a data transfer speed of 7.4MB/second. Copying the folder back to the PC was slightly faster at 14 minutes and 49 seconds. Data transfer began immediately but no indication was provided on the computer screen to allow us to see whether transfer speeds fluctuated, as they did with the Rev 35GB drive/disk system.

Conclusion
Iomega's eGo 160GB drive is small enough to slip into a laptop case, briefcase or jacket pocket and light enough to be no real burden. Built to withstand most of the problems that can cause portable HDDs to fail, it is an excellent back-up solution for photographers on the move. Because it's designed to draw power from a host PC, it requires no additional power supplies and cable, which add weight and bulk.

Simple to use and affordable to purchase, the eGo 160GB drive will also suit a broad spectrum of travellers who would like to carry back-up storage as part of their kit. But, because it provides no file playback or viewing facilities, it should be seen as a computer accessory; not a total image or video storage solution.

Type: Compact, portable hard disk drive
Capacity: 160GB
Interface: USB 2.0
Data transfer rate: Up to 480Mbits/second (USB 2.0)
Memory cache: 8MB
Power supply: via USB cable
Dimensions: 133 x 89 x 19 mm
Weight:  218 grams