Iomega throws its hat into the USB storage market with yet another keychain USB drive. Is it an innovative bit of technology, or just a case of 'me too'? Read our Australian review.
If Dell and other PC suppliers are to be believed, the humble floppy has had its day, and USB drives are the small and portable storage format we'll all be booting from, and backing up to, in the future. This kind of idea has seen an explosion of different types of USB keychain drives; we've honestly lost track of how many different brand USB drives are out on the market. The underlying technology is generally identical, they all tend to work sans drivers, and most vendors start at the 32MB limit and work upwards from there. So it's perhaps understandable that when the Iomega Mini USB Drive 128 entered the office, we were feeling cynical. Sure, Iomega do make nice storage stuff, but isn't this a case of following the already rather large and unruly herd?
In terms of file transfer, the Mini USB Drive managed a steady transfer rate both up and downstream. Copying 49MB of files to the Mini USB Drive took 50 seconds; the same files took 53 seconds to move obediently off the unit. That's both quite nippy and quite impressive; most of the other units we've examined have excelled in either up or downstream transfers, but rarely both.
Iomega's design team usually doesn't disappoint when it comes to making the dull subject of storage look interesting, and the Mini USB Drive is no exception. It's styled out in red and black with a keyring holder that slides down the entire length of the Mini USB Drive. Our only objection to the design is that it's quite fat. We normally wouldn't pick on the relative obesity of a USB drive, except that its size makes it a touch fiddly to insert it into PCs with close ports.
The other factor built in to the Mini USB Drive to make it stand out is integrated security. We've seen secure USB drives before, but the Mini USB Drive's approach is novel, to say the least. When you first run the Mini USB Drive, you'll notice a file labelled 'clickhere.exe'. This launches an option panel that allows you to start security locking, which is managed via download. This means you should be able to have the Mini USB Drive locked wherever you go, as long as you have a Net connection, thus keeping the unit driver free. Also downloadable is a very Media Player-looking control panel that shows you the current status of your Mini USB Drive. This also allows you to treat the unit as though it were a PDA, by synchonising files between a host PC and the Mini USB drive.
Iomega also bundles the ability to download ActiveDisk software to the drive, ranging from the well known time-waster Bejewelled to more productive software for reading Powerpoint files. ActiveDisk titles can be set to launch automatically, and while they won't run as fast as native hard drive files, they're still quite useful. It's an interesting application of the technology; while you could do similar with any other USB drive, this is the first unit we've seen that tackles the issue of running software from the drive as an included specification, rather than an afterthought.
The Mini USB Drive is an interesting addition to the pantheon of USB drives out there. It's not the cheapest solution, but it does justify its slightly higher asking price with a compelling set of add-on utilities and some solid performance results.
Iomega Mini USB Drive 128
Company: Iomega Australia
Price: AU$199
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 02 8223 9140
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