Product Reviews

FireWire 800-equipped external hard disks tend to be faster than FireWire 400 or USB-only models, but are usually more expensive. We were surprised to find all three interfaces on Iomega's 320GB desktop hard disk, which costs just 39p per gigabyte.

When connected using any of the three interfaces, this disk copied files at one of the fastest rates we've seen. Its 26.88MB/s for large files using USB was quick, but the FireWire 400 speed of 32.4MB/s was even quicker. The Desktop Hard Drive was quicker still when using FireWire 800. Unfortunately, it's noticeably noisy.

Retrospect Express backup software is included. Western Digital's 500GB My Book Pro closely matches Iomega's disk in performance and low cost per gigabyte. However, if you can't stretch to the My Book Pro, Iomega's model is a good-value alternative.