Iomega eGo 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review

[Julio Franco]

USB 3.0 support on the Iomega eGo provides faster performance but also the convenience of powering the drive from a single USB 3.0 port, an important feat if you plan to carry the drive around a lot.

Read the full review at:
https://www.techspot.com/review/339-iomega-ego-usb3/

Please leave your feedback here.

 

[Guest]

Awesome

Power packs suck, less cables FTW

 

[Leeky]

Sweet.

I can't wait for desktop external drives to start appearing en-mass. I'll definitely be using one for a backup solution when I next upgrade.

 

[treeski]

Is there a point to having USB 3.0 if you can't read data from the hard drive fast enough to match its speeds?

 

[Leeky]

I would imagine faster drives, with there own power source would likely be quicker.

 

[TeamworkGuy2]

Nice drive, well priced for a drive with USB 3.0 support.

 

[stensland]

They make great drives, but only WD and Seagate had large enough drives for me. I needed 3TB for media as my old 1TB Eagle Consus (beautiful drive by the way, great aluminum case - black) was full in under a month of the start of my task, that being the ripping of every DVD I have. Almost at 1,000 now.

 

[TomSEA]

Nice review - thanks! I've been chomping at the bit to use my new USB 3.0 system. Looks like this might be the toy to do it with.

 

[lchu12]

Anyone miss those good ol' zip disk days?

 

[Leeky]

The Iomega zips?

I've got the drive somewhere. :haha:

 

[Guest]

It just looks like a really small, vertical Wii Fit board.....then again id prefer that to this big bulky Seagate external any day.

 

[Julio Franco]

Well the eGo is meant to be portable, so the single cable connection makes a world of sense. For heavier backup duties a standard external hard drive (3.5") is cheaper per gigabyte and can scale in capacity.

Going even further, depending on your needs, a NAS can get you several terabytes of storage (check out this Synology NAS: https://www.techspot.com/review/237-synology-disk-station-ds410j/ but going back to the original point, 1TB portable storage is sweet at ~$130.

 

[Micro Watt]

I was going to buy his drive but then I had a change of mind and settled for the 2TB USB eGO which was priced at $118 on Amazon. I figured that I probably won't be using the portability as I will almost always have a power outlet around me somewhere.

Its a nice drive though!

 

[Guest]

I don't see why people gripe about the software included on any external hard drive. There are easy ways around it if you don't want it now, yet might want it in the future.

What I do when I get a hard drive is use Acronis True Image (or whatever the latest version is called) and its bootable disk (included in the retail package).

Next, I plug everthing together, power on the external hard drive (if it isn't USB-only-powered), then power on the computer and boot with the Acronis CD. I then image the external hard drive, first with the standard imaging, which results in a very small file, then with Sector-by-Sector imaging, which reads the entire disk, and use maximum compression to store that image.
There are other utilities on the Acronis CD that allow me to format the external hard drive the way I want it, which gets rid of the included software, yet because I have the images, which are small enough to burn to optical discs, I can always put the original software back on the drive and run it that way.

There are other disk-imaging programs that can also do this, but I've not had time or need to try them.

 

[theholmboy]

Nope, the supposed Acronis solution above is not the case with this drive. I tried Acronis 10.x, along with several others, but that CDFS partition cannot be removed/formatted. It is present upon boot (i.e. that virtual drive shows in my boot drive options), so I would guess it is part of the firmware. I queried Brady at Iomega support and his answer was, basically, if it is a Iomega USB 3.0 drive, the encryption is required/permanent and the partition cannot be removed. I would love it if I could even change then use that partition for bootable options, which I could/would use, but it is locked to such things. I dislike that the drive autoruns but I'll probably have to live with it since returns are more expense and hard to justify for an annoyance, albeit major.

 

[Guest]

Thank you! I was going to buy one of these, but the virtual CD drive is a killer. Got caught with the WD My Passport that also has this "feature" - at least they caved to complaints and offered a firmware update that removed the virtual CD. But won't touch WD any more, due to the dinky USB connector on that drive - too sloppy for a reliable connection.

The virtual CD is an issue, as I want to be able to connect the external drive to a DVD recorder to play videos on a TV, and the DVD recorder gets all confused by the virtual CD drive. May have to go back to the Lacie (USB2, single ended cable) 500Gb drive, that I have tested and know works with the DVD recorder (after it's reformatted to FAT32).

 

[Guest]

Just bought Blackbelt 1.5 TB eGo External HDD for $200.

I am a security conscious person so first thing I did after software installation was set a password. It formatted the drive while integrating the password and encryption. Then I took the HDD to another laptop, plugged it in, installed the software, DID NOT UNLOCK but noticed a section called "settings" where I can just as easily disable the encryption (but also lose all data).

I thought to myself, I am a business man with a lot of business secrets. If someone couldn't get into my HDD but wanted to do me harm, they can always format the disc, then what?

Techspot, please re-assure us here that we can disable the virtual CD AND OR disable some kind of settings so this kind of thing CAN NOT happen.

 

[Guest]

Bulky thanks to big rubber band around case that does nothing; mine was dropped from about 2ft onto a wood floor and is now toast. Iomega marketing says it survives a 7ft drop!

 

[Guest]

Please don't bye this product or any product with the micro usb 3.0 port, it just sucks
I bought the iomega ego 1tb, and when I see the connector I shoud see something terrible wrong was going to happend, and the day is today, because of the f****k connector, all my data just gone, windows 7 just corrupt the filesystem and now all my near 800GB of data is lost

The connector is just bad designed, ok I get it, the microusb 2.0 is strong and solid build. but a 3.0 microusb connector is just a bad bad really REALLY BAD idea

Please save your money and buy usb 2.0 or thunderbolt, or even usb3.0 but without the microusb, trust me or ruin yourselves

 

[cliffordcooley]

The connector is just bad designed, ok I get it, the microusb 2.0 is strong and solid build. but a 3.0 microusb connector is just a bad bad really REALLY BAD idea

How surprising, another guest that doesn't know what they are saying. Lets not forget that USB 3.0 is an extension to USB 2.0, which combines USB 2.0 chip-set with a new USB 3.0 chip-set. Lets not forget that there are several components that can be faulty, not just the connector.

 

[Guest]

(n)
[FONT=Arial]Do not buy iomega products, I recently purchased the iomega eGo 1TB drive. Product does not work AT ALL. Customer service from iomega is non-existent and unfair. They do not offer refunds only replacements which is against the law in Australia. After purchasing a product that doesn't work and clearly indicates poor quality why would I want to replace it with a product of the same poor quality?... no thank you.[/FONT]