Iomega launches REV 35GB/90GB drives

Iomega has started shipments of its new REV 35GB/90GB drive. According to Iomega this new drive has the portability of tape, with the capacity and the ease of use of a hard drive.

The Iomega REV drives transfer data up to 8x faster than tape, with a maximum sustained transfer rate of 25MB/s Iomega said. They also said the REV units perform better and cost less than half of competing tape alternatives like DDS-4, DAT-72, VXA, AIT-1, and DLT VS80.

The Iomega REV drive offers the removeability of tape with the speed and ease of use of a hard drive. REV disks transfer data up to eight times faster than tape**, are smaller than a deck of playing cards (10 x 77 x 75 mm), and can be rewritten more than a million times (estimated). With a maximum sustained transfer rate of 25 MB/sec, and using drag and drop random access technology, REV users can copy and restore individual files in seconds.

“The new Iomega REV drive is a unique and versatile product that changes the rules of data backup, combining superior reliability and performance with breakthrough pricing,” said Werner Heid, president and CEO of Iomega Corporation. “Backing up to tape has always involved compromises because tape is a relatively fragile, slow and expensive linear-access technology. Iomega’s new REV drive makes backup and system or file recovery tasks faster, easier and less costly. Small business owners and IT managers will save immediately in terms of labor, hardware costs and system downtime.”

The REV drive is shipped in a USB 2.0 external version ($400) and an ATAPI internal version ($380). One disk is included with the drive, additional REV disks are available for a price of $60, or in a four-pack for $200. Autoloaders to support multiple disks per drive unit are planned for later this year, as are models that support FireWire, SCSI and Serial ATA interfaces.