ChatGPT's New Skills Resident Evil 4 Remake Galaxy A54 5G Hands-On TikTok CEO Testifies Huawei's New Folding Phone How to Use Google's AI Chatbot Airlines and Family Seating Weigh Yourself Accurately
Want CNET to notify you of price drops and the latest stories?
No, thank you
Accept
Culture

Iomega to add USB 3.0 to eGo portable drives

Iomega announces plans to add USB 3.0 to its existing line of eGo Portable hard drives by October.

Dong Ngo headshot
Dong Ngo
2 min read
The eGo Portable Drive from Iomega.
The eGo Portable Drive from Iomega. Iomega

Iomega announced Tuesday that its plans to equip all of its eGo portable hard drives in 500GB and 1TB capacities with the new USB 3.0 interface by early October. Iomega is a little late to the USB 3.0 game as Western Digital, Seagate, and many other storage vendors released their USB 3.0-based external hard drive a long time ago.

According to Iomega, to make up for this, the new USB 3.0 portable drive will share the same software bundle that comes with its existing USB 2.0 drives. And most importantly, according to the company, its USB 3.0 drives will also cost the same as its USB 2.0 devices.

Arguably, Iomega eGo offers the most comprehensive, even redundant, set of software applications that make their drives do much more than just serve as portable storage. Its software applications include:

  • v.Clone software that captures a complete virtual image of your PC, including the operating system, all applications, settings, and files and saves it to an Iomega hard drive
  • A free 12-month subscription of Trend Micro Internet Security for the PC, or Trend Micro Smart Surfing software for Mac
  • Iomega QuikProtect backup software: For simple scheduled file-level backup of data to hard drives and network-attached storage devices
  • Roxio Retrospect Express backup software: Backup all of your data plus applications and settings

The new drive will also have AES 256 hardware encryption and a rugged design that can withstand a seven-foot drop, according to the company.

Iomega also will make USB 3.0 add-in solutions for laptops (Express card) and desktops (PCI Express card) that don't currently support USB 3.0. These add-in cards will cost $40 each.

The company has not released pricing information for the USB 3.0 eGo portable hard drives; however, according to Iomega, the drives will costs the same as its USB 2.0 counterparts.