Styled to match the Mac Mini, this 1 terabyte hard drive from Iomega is a quality item. It uses brushed aluminium (in place of coated steel or plastic as used on many other drives), giving it the edge in the “touchy-feely” stakes. Mac styling is a clever idea even though it works equally as well on PCs.
With USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 ports, it is a versatile drive and we were pleased to see Firewire and USB cables supplied with the unit. Our test version came formatted for Mac, the target market is obviously Mac users, but we simply formatted it NTFS for use with Windows. We did plug it into our test Apple Mac rig first though and can assure you it runs happily “out-of-the-box”.
Users should bear in mind that if you connect via Firewire you cannot use the USB passthrough. Connect via USB and it can be used as a powered hub.
The price however remains a large bone of contention for us. Until Iomega can get this in line with their competitors it will remain an external drive solely for those who want Mac-like looks, those who have Macs or those who favour style instead of price point.