Iomega eGo Blackbelt 3.0 - Karate Kicks the Competition

Being shock proof, or rugged seems to be a common feature among external hard drives, these days. Manufacturers are viewing external hard drives as something more than a computer peripheral. With people owning gaming consoles, HD media players, Smart TVs, etc, the external hard drive is developing into something of a travel accessory where one takes their portable hard drives to office, friend’s house or just merely connecting it to multiple media devices they own.

Stylish and sporty looks

Iomega has launched a range of rugged external hard drives at varying capacities with USB 3.0 support. Just as the rugged and high speed data transfer rate features suggest, Iomega have aptly named this external hard drive - eGo.

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Design and features
The Iomega eGo comes in a variety of colours with different storage capacities. The one we received was a solid, rugged yet stylish looking black external hard drive. Iomega has named each hard drive according to its colour, with the one we received called the eGo Blackbelt 3.0. The other variations in this line of portable hard drives include eGo Red 3.0, eGo Midnight Blue 3.0 and the eGo Silver 3.0.Besides being black; the portable hard drive has a silver rim along the sides. The logo of the company – Iomega is in white and the eGo logo is embossed in a dark shade of grey giving it a somewhat stylish, yet sporty look.

The 3.0 in each of the hard drive’s model name denotes the USB 3.0 capabilities these rugged devices possess. Manufacturers claim that USB 3.0 is up to 10 times faster than the previous standard – USB 2.0. Like all other USB 3.0 drives, this drive is also backward compatible, however for optimum results, the Iomega eGo 3.0 should be fitted to a PC having USB 3.0 capabilities.

The storage capacity we received on the eGo 3.0 is 1 TB. The Iomega eGo series of portable hard drives ranges from 320 GB to 1 TB with only the Midnight Blue variant having a maximum storage capacity of 500 GB.  This by most standards is a sizable amount of storage for an external hard drive. The salient features of this portable drive is it is built with Iomega’s Drop Guard Xtreme feature and Iomega claims that with this casing, the hard drive can withstand a fall from the height of seven feet. Apart from the Drop Guard Xtreme technology, the drive is also fitted with another protective implement in the form of Iomega’s Power Grip Band. This rubberized band offers the drive further protection. As with the colour of the drive, the Power Grip Band is also black in colour.

Proprietary USB port

The USB port that comes along with the Iomega eGo is a proprietary USB port. The cable has two standard USB connectors on one end and the proprietary connector at the other. These two connectors help in faster data transfer speeds between a PC and the external hard drive. The cable bundled up with this drive is a little more than a foot in length and is also black in colour.

The overall build quality of the Iomega eGo 3.0 1TB is pretty solid but pretty average looking in the looks department. The size of this hard drive is also not that big and can be easily carried around in a small pocket of a carry bag or a person’s pocket (without the cable) . It weighs in at 230g which is quite light.

Test Rig Specifications
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40 GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte P67A-UD3R
Memory: Corsair Dominator GT 6 GB DDR3 (3 x 2 GB)
Hard drive: WD Velociraptor 300 GB
GPU:  AMD Radeon HD6970
PSU: Cooler Master 1000W

Performance
Having USB 3.0 support, we hooked it up with both cables to our test rig to get the maximum out of this drive. We ran it first through synthetic tests and later through real world tests. We paired it with a WD Velociraptor 300 GB to test file transfer speeds.

Synthetic tests run through SiSoft Sandra was average with the read speeds resulting in at 76.19 MB/s. the synthetic write test was slower with a speed of 73.14 MB/s. This compares a bit worse to the 320 GB Seagate GoFlex Slim which we saw recently, which had an average read/ write speed of 91 MB/s.

Average performances considering USB 3.0 capabilities

Real world scores fared better for this portable drive with read speeds averaging at 81.92 MB/s for a single 4GB file and an assorted 4GB file folder averaging at a read speed of 61.13 MB/s. The write speeds did a lot better with a single 4GB  file being transferred at an average speed of 91.32 MB/s while the multiple 4 GB file write transfer rate was at a respectable 71.27 MB/s.

We partitioned this drive into two volumes and recorded the write speed between the volumes at 25. 28 MB/s for a single 4GB file while a multiple 4 GB write speed averaged at 24.09 MB/s.
The performance of the eGo 3.0 is average at best, having plugged in both connectors in USB 3.0 ports, we would expect it to perform a lot faster than it did.

Power Grip band and Drop Guard Xtreme Technology

Verdict
The Iomega eGo 3.0 1 TB portable hard drive is priced at Rs. 5,999 and comes with a three year warranty. Though the features of this drive are really good with its rugged design, extra protective layers, USB 3.0 support, 1 TB of storage capacity, as well as twin USB connectors; we feel that this portable hard drive would offer value for money with other rugged portable hard drives like the Transcend StoreJet 25H3P selling at a price of Rs. 4,000, or more. Though data transfer rates are fare slightly less than the Seagate GoFlex Slim portable hard drive, the Iomega eGo 3.0 does not do too badly, either.