Review: Iomega's New Generation Of 70-Gbyte Capacity

By Marc Spiwak

December 4, 2006

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Iomega's Zip drives were known to be convenient and affordable, but the disks typically didn't store enough data to be used for backup purposes. Then, along came Iomega's first-generation REV drive, which offered hard- disk performance and a capacity of 35 Gbytes per cartridge. But for many users, even 35 Gbytes isn't enough storage space--most hard drives are now larger than that. That's why the storage vendor recently announced a new REV drive with a native capacity of 70 Gbytes per cartridge and up to 140 Gbytes per cartridge using compression. This enables users to back up an entire system on a single disk. Of course, the 70-Gbyte drive is backward-compatible with 35-Gbyte REV cartridges.

Iomega's REV drives use removable cartridges containing hard-disk platters. They offer hard-drive-like performance with an archival shelf life of 30 years. In the same way that DVD movies need no rewinding compared with VHS tapes, REV disks offer random access capability to quickly locate specific files with no rewinding or fast forwarding ever. There's also no cleaning or maintenance required.

Iomega's REV drive.

Disk-to-disk backup solutions offer great performance, but they typically don't back up on media that can be brought off-site for safekeeping. The REV drive offers the performance of hard-disk technology with the convenience and removable media functionality of tape drives. The 70-Gbyte REV drive is available as an external model with a USB 2.0 interface for $599.99 for the entire bundle, which includes the drive, one 70-Gbyte cartridge, cables and EMC Retrospect Express backup and recovery software. There's also an external FireWire REV drive geared toward Macs, as well as internal ATAPI and Serial ATA models that can be installed in desktop systems.

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