Final Thoughts
Iomega has been offering eGo portable hard drives for a few years now, however the much welcomed addition of USB 3.0 translates into faster transfer speeds if the computers you use support the newer standard.
Externally, the enclosure is a bit bulkier than most 2.5" drives but the added thickness is attributed to increased shock protection. The glossy blue paint job on our review sample looks great but will undoubtedly attract fingerprints and smudges over time. The Power Grip Band adds additional shock protection and can be removed if you prefer how the drive looks without it.
The portable drive performed as expected in our benchmarks and real world testing, maxing out at around 90 MB/sec on writes and 45 MB/sec on reads. USB 3.0 is capable of much faster speeds, so it's safe to say we are hitting the bandwidth ceiling of the hard drive inside the enclosure.
Depending on where you stand about the eGo's "mandatory" encryption software, this could be the drive's Achilles heel or simply an added feature that you could take advantage of. The software boots as a virtual drive alongside the storage drive, and as mentioned before, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to remove it beyond disabling Windows' autorun. The software itself is solid and works as advertised, but there will always be those who are completely against software being forced upon them, and rightfully so.
With that out of the way, the Iomega eGo USB 3.0 portable drive is a viable and convenient USB 3.0 mobile storage solution. As of this writing, the eGo 1TB drive is available for $130 with a three-year warranty. In terms of value, it's $20-30 more than most USB 2.0 portable drives, and seems to be selling below or at around the same price of competing USB 3.0 capable drives from other vendors.