Iomega’s Mac Companion hard drive is a 2TB ($349, 3TB model is $449) desktop drive with a few features that make it interesting to the average Mac (or PC) owner. While it doesn’t have the bells, whistles, and network access of many NAS and home storage devices, it does look good next to your iMac.
The drive is clad in brushed aluminum with a black glossy top panel and a two-port USB hub in back. You can also daisy-chain Firewire devices through the rear Firewire ports for 800mbps data transfers.
The drive inside is a 7200RPM modem with 8MB of cache. Three lights on the front signal available capacity if you download a small helper app.
My tests found the drive to be more than adequate in terms of speed. Maxing out at 73MBps over Firewire (compared to a 70MBps for a similar SATA drive), the Mac Companion is a useful back-up drive or scratch disk for video editing.
Can you get a cheaper, less attractive drive for half the price (or less)? Sure, but Iomega is banking on looks and performance to push this drive into the premium space. While I can’t recommend it unequivocally, it is a strong contendor for sexiest drive of the year.
Bottom Line
Sometimes a hard drive is just a hard drive. While $349 is way pricey for 2TB of space, the added USB hub and Firewire passthrough, performance, plus sexy styling make it a worthy addition to your desktop arsenal. Too rich for your blood? A basic 2TB drive costs $99 these days so there are cheaper alternatives.
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