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Iomega Prestige Portable Compact 1TB review

Iomega Prestige Portable Compact 1TB
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £128
inc VAT

If you need lots of portable storage right now, then the 1TB Prestige is a reasonably priced, if imperfect portable hard disk.

Specifications

1TB hard disk, USB2, 21x79x116mm

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop

Iomega’s latest portable USB2 hard disk is the first we’ve seen to have a capacity of 1TB. It’s noticeably thicker than other USB2 portable disks we’ve seen, but it’s still compact enough to slip into your bag or coat pocket. It feels very robust too thanks to its brushed metal enclosure, although the tacky-looking brown plastic endcaps spoil its appearance.

The Prestige’s file transfer speeds matched our expectations for a USB2 disk in almost all our tests, except when writing small files where it managed a sluggish 7.2MB/s. We’d expect small file write speeds of at least 16MB/s for a USB2 portable disk.

At £128 the 1TB Prestige seems expensive, but at 13p per gigabyte it’s actually very competitively priced for a portable USB2 disk. The Prestige’s main flaw is its sluggish small files write speeds. If you need lots of portable storage and can live with this then the Prestige is still a good choice. We expect rival manufacturers to release their own 1TB portable disks soon though, so if performance is a priority you may be better off waiting.

Basic Specifications

Rating ****

Storage

Hard disk Seagate Momentus ST91000430AS
Capacity 1TB
Formatted capacity 931GB
Price per gigabyte £0.13
Disk size 2.5in
Interface USB2
Power connector USB from host
Spindle speed 5,400rpm
Cache 16MB
Weight 290g
Size 21x79x116mm
Power consumption idle N/A
Power consumption active N/A

Buying Information

Backup software included EMC Retrospect Express HD 2.0
Price £128
Warranty three years RTB
Supplier http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop
Details www.iomega.com

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