San Diego (CA) - Iomega today announced a new version of its Rev backup and storage drive for small and medium-sized business. The new Rev doubles the available storage capacity from 35 to 70 GB on one 2.5" disk.

With consumer storage solutions breathing down Iomega's neck, the new Rev drive does not arrive a single month too early. In a time when some businesses could also consider upcoming HD media such as 30 GB HD DVDs or 50 GB Blu-ray disks as a possible solution to backup valuable data, the first-generation 35 GB Rev disks could have lost their edge in some markets.

The new Rev 70 GB drive and disks gain back a capacity advantage, while promising more reliability than traditional tape-based storage solutions: According to Iomega, the new disks offer almost twice the native space of a DAT 72 tape drive (70 GB vs. 36 GB) and provide faster backup speeds at 30 MB/s. Rev disks are estimated to reach a 30 year archival life (warranty is limited to five years) and an endure one million rewrite cycles. Iomega says that the Rev disks can store up to 140 GB of compressed data.

Iomega offers the Rev 70 GB drive in a USB 2.0 version for $600; an ATAPI model carries a suggested retail price of $580. Both drives include one 70 GB disk and are backwards compatible with 35 GB disks. Additional disks are priced at about $70; a four-pack is sold for $250. Iomega said that it will introduce a FireWire 400 and SATA version of the Rev 70 GB later this year.

Iomega claims that is has sold 225,000 Rev drives and 1.2 million 35 GB Rev disks since their introduction in May 2004.