Storage and peripheral vendor Iomega is looking to make a big splash at this year’s Apple Expo in Paris, announcing a bevy of new Mac-specific storage products aimed at users of all levels. In addition to featuring designs that look like they could have come right out of Cupertino’s labs, the drives all come pre-formatted with Apple’s HFS+ file system, saving Mac users the annoying hassle of having to reformat drives vendors “helpfully” prep for Windows systems. Each of these drives also ships with EMC’s highly-regarded Retrospect backup software.
“Iomega storage products for Mac users are both functional and versatile with a focus on seamless implementation into a Mac product environment, as well as perfectly complementing the Apple design esthetic,” said Iomega’s VP of international sales, Romain Cholat, in a statement. “Our new lineup of external storage products on display at Apple Expo strike just the right balance between ease-of-use and functionality and attractive Mac-friendly designs that look great on the desktop.”
First up, Iomega is introducing the UltraMax Pro Desktop Hard Drive, offering a two-drive SATA II configuration with 1.5 TB of storage, two FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port, and one USB 2.0 port. The UltraMax Pro defaults to a high-performance RAID 0 configuration which stripes data across both drives, but also supports data-redundant RAID 1 simple and spanned configurations, or turning RAID off entirely and accessing both drives as individual volumes. Mac users might appreciate the Mac Pro-like mesh-grill design, but any serious backup fiends will appreciate that the drives are hot-swappable when configured as a RAID 1 array. The UltraMax Pro Desktop Hard Drive is available now at a suggested price of $599.95; the company also plans to ship a version for Windows users (formatted as FAT32 and sporting eSATA connectivity in place of FireWire) for the same price.
Next, the UltraMax Desktop Hard Drive offers both 750 GB and 500 GB capacities and is designed to hook up to darn near anything, sporting two FireWire 800 ports, along with single FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA ports. Iomega will also be offering a 500 GB dual interface version with just FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 ports. The four-interface versions will be available in October for $319.95 and $219.95 in 750 GB and 500 GB capacities, respectively, while the 500 GB dual-interface model will go for $189.95.
Iomega is also rolling out a new 750 GB model of its MiniMax Desktop Hard drive, which sports a hub with three USB 2.0 pots and three FireWire ports. The MiniMax’s design is intended to complement—and stack neatly with—Apple’s Mac mini. The 750 GB MiniMax Desktop Hard Drive is available now for $179.95.
Finally, Iomega is also introducing a new version of its eGo Portable Hard Dive, this one sporting both a FireWire 400 interface in addition to its earlier USB 2.0 port. The company has also bumped the capacity of the eGo drives up to 250 GB, and it sports a sleek curvy design. In Europe, Iomega will offer both red and black versions of the dual-interface eGo drives, while it looks like the North American market will be stuck with cherry red. Expect to see the 160 GB dual-interface eGos in October for a suggested price of $159.95, with the 250 GB USB-only edition following later in the month for $259.95. The dual-interface 250 GB version should be available in the fourth quarter of 2007, but Iomega hasn’t yet released suggested pricing.
