Iomega External SSD Flash Drive

Flash Drive A speed demon that is cool, silent and low on power consumption

Flash Drive A speed demon that is cool, silent and low on power consumption

I love hard disc drives (HDDs). A palm-sized drive can hold up to 2 TB (yes, 2,000 GB), and that capacity is only set to increase. But they have one big limitation—they have too many moving parts. And whatever moves is prone to wear, tear and crash—as HDDs do frequently. They also live a handicapped life because the speed of electronic data read-and-write in these drives is limited to how slow or fast a mechanical motor can spin.

The average flash memory pen drive allows faster read-and-write because it has no moving parts. Such pen drives are now touching 32 GB of storage and come with the ultra fast USB 3.0 interface. You pay Rs 6,000 a piece for these pen drives, but their worth lies not only in the 32 GB of data they can store, but in their USB 3.0 interface which is 10 times faster than USB 2.0. The 32 GB barrier is where pen drives are today, and for more, there exist the solid state drives, which are also flash-based. Earlier available only as internal drives, they are now available as external USB drives. Here is a first look at the Iomega External SSD Flash Drive—which is what it is called.

A 64 GB costs Rs 14,500; 128 GB is Rs 25,000, and 256 GB, a whopping Rs 45,000. But these drives need only 7 minutes to completely fill up even a 256 GB SSD. Their top read speed is 191 MB per second and top write speed is 130 MB per second. They offer 256 bit encryption, and have been drop tested up to 10 ft. Iomega has also bundled along its backup software, an online backup service and a subscription to Trend Micro’s internet security software.

About The Author

Gagandeep Singh Sapra