Revving Up REV To 70 GB

REV is a backup solution that is meant to replace conventional tape streamers and provide faster backup and restore. It uses self-contained 3.5" magnetic discs that are as thick as a slice of toast. Performance-wise, REV excels over tape streamers since it can be accessed almost as quickly as a hard drive and it delivers very acceptable data transfer rates. In addition, REV not only hooks up using SCSI, but there are Serial ATA and USB 2.0 versions as well.

The sheer number of Iomega REV drives purchased never ceases to amaze us. The company states it has sold over 1.2 million of its 35 GB disks and more than 225,000 drive units. The new 70 GB REV from Iomega is similar in operational functionality and practical appearance to the older model we reviewed back in 2004.

While the first generation of the REV featured 35 GB cartridges, Iomega has attempted to "get with the times" and doubled their capacity after two years. This should serve to partially fend off new attacks from rival technologies such as Blu-Ray discs and archival drive solutions based on RAID and USB or Firewire interfaces.

The version we received was the external USB 2.0 edition, which contributed to ease of installation; it is also compatible with both the PC and Mac. Transfer rates as recorded by our tests were not high enough to be affected by the USB interface.

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