Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive (160GB, Cherry Red)

Editors' rating

Very good

7.3

out of 10

The good: Very stylish casing; bus-powered; includes backup software for Windows users; good read/write speeds.
The bad: No backup software for Mac users; phone support costs $25 per incident.
The bottom line: If you love flashy toys, the Iomega eGo is for you. It's a fast and stylish drive, but Mac users get left out when it comes to backup.

Reviewed by:
Ryan Belonga
Edited by:
Felisa Yang
Review date: 8/3/07
Update date: 8/15/07

Editor's note: We recently retested the Iomega eGo after the manufacturer noted that our write test speeds were much slower than its tests predicted. We tested a new unit and have changed the review accordingly.

The Iomega eGo portable hard drive sports a stylish look and compact size. It's currently offered in just one capacity--160GB--but it's available in two colors, red and silver. The look and feel of this drive is impressive. The anodized-aluminum-and-polished-steel case resembles a flask and we find ourselves wanting to handle it constantly. But looks aren't everything; performance is important too. Happily, this drive performs as well as it looks. If you're looking for a stylish, flashy drive with fast read/write speeds, this $130 drive is a great choice.

Drive type	Portable, external
Connector options	USB 2.0
Available capacities	160GB
Drive speed	5,400RPM
Cache	8MB
Dimensions (LWH)	5.25 x 3.5 x 0.75 inches
Notable design features	None
OSes supported	Windows 2000 Pro, XP Home, XP Pro, Vista; Mac OS X 10.1.5 or higher
Software included	EMC Retrospect (for PC only)
Service and support	One-year limited warranty; pay-per-incident phone support ($25): weekdays, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET; Iomega site includes live one-on-one Web chat, forums, FAQs, software downloads, product documentation, and how-to videos.

The Iomega eGo was one of the fastest portable hard drives we've tested over USB. It wrote a 10GB folder of mixed file types in 9 minutes, 54 seconds. The Seagate FreeAgent Go wrote the same folder in 10 minutes, 33 seconds. The Iomega eGo read back that same folder to the testbed drive in 8 minutes, 11 seconds; the FreeAgent Go took just a few more seconds to do the job.

Portable hard drive read/write tests
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Read

Write

LaCie Rugged All-Terrain HD (FW400)

10:25

09:24

Iomega eGo (USB)

08:11

09:54

Seagate FreeAgent Go (USB)

08:38

10:33