Iomega eGo Helium 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 34491

Portable USB hard drives are becoming a commodity, from numerous manufacturers. I've used several from SimpleTech, Western Digital, and now this Iomega entry.

Compared to the WD entries, this one is very slightly larger (not enough to make a difference in any context) and weighs about the same.

The USB cable included is a special Y-shaped one...the second USB connector can be plugged in to supply extra power in case your USB port does not provide sufficient power to spin up the drive. My laptop's USB port was able to power the drive without needing to use the second connector. I did have one issue with the documentation here, since it says that the power port is the one marked with a lightning bolt icon. Neither connector on my cable was marked, so I went to the Iomega support site and asked a rep (using an online chat function). He told me that the power connector was the one with the thinner wire, which was easily found when I knew what to look for...Read more

Iomega's eGo 500GB portable USB HDD has been redesigned. When you purchase, make sure you are buying the new version.

I bought this portable HDD specifically to back up my iTunes directory, which is approaching 300GB. I also own another Iomega 500 GB portable HDD, and when I ordered this one I thought I was getting another identical unit. This one has been updated, and apparently for the better. This one is shaped like a slightly large deck of cards rather than as a whiskey flask configuration like the older model. It also has nice little rubber feet. But the big improvement seems to be that it is somewhat thriftier regarding whether it could draw sufficient power from the USB ports. This unit easily functioned in one of my computers in which the USB port was insufficient to power the earlier model. I do not know if this is a quirk or whether Iomega improved the design.

Further substantiating the theory that this unit is redesigned to be more...Read more

The Good:

This drive is very flat (thin) and has the approximate dimensions of a thin mid-size ladies' wallet. For me, it has the perfect size to take along on the road. I have other portable drives, such as the Seagate FreeAgent, a SimpleTech and several Western Digital Passports but in terms of portability I like the eGo best. The color red is stylish and although glossy not too prone to visible fingerprints. The rubberized feet on the bottom prevent the eGo to slide around the desk. All in all a good feel.

Setup was very easy, nothing to it at all. It worked right out of the box as all USB external drives should: Plugged the cable into the device, the other end into a USB port on my laptop and that was it. The drive does not come with an external power supply, it only has a dual-USB cable to plug into two USB ports when the power coming from one isn't enough. For my Dell XPS M1330 it worked with one but you might be out of luck if operating the drive with...Read more