Iomega announced the new Iomega REV SCSI 35GB/90GB Drive, designed to replace entry level SCSI-based tape and other backup devices used with servers.
Iomega's latest REV drive model delivers vastly improved performance and reliability for IT managers at a lower cost.
"At less than the price of most tape drives, Iomega's new REV SCSI drive is an exciting new backup device for IT managers," said Werner Heid, president and CEO, Iomega Corporation. "Tape users will appreciate the speed, reliability and million-rewrite service life of the REV disk, which frees them from the hassles of tape head cleaning, tape retensioning, and worn tape replacement. In terms of performance, reliability, and low maintenance, the new Iomega REV SCSI drive is exactly the kind of backup device that IT managers have been asking for."
The Iomega REV SCSI 35GB/90GB Drive, in internal and external models, is the newest product in the Iomega REV family, joining the ATAPI and USB 2.0 models released in April 2004 and the FireWire? model released on August 2, 2004. Since its debut, the Iomega REV drive has won numerous industry awards, including "Best of CeBIT America" for personal hardware and a PC Magazine "5 Stars" rating and Editors' Choice award (June 22, 2004, issue).
State-of-the-Art Performance
REV disks are smaller than a deck of playing cards (10 x 77 x 75 mm) and deliver exceptional read-write performance of up to 25 MB/sec. (maximum native transfer rate), much faster than tape alternatives. Affordable and durable, REV disks' native storage capacity of 35GB per disk equals that of many entry level tape products. Additionally, REV disks enjoy much higher rewriteability--estimated to be over one million rewrites--for tremendous cost savings versus tape when factoring in the replacement cost of worn-out tapes.
Iomega's REV drive outperforms more expensive tape alternatives like DDS-4, DAT-72, VXA?, AIT-1, and DLT VS80. The REV drive is designed to solve many of the problems encountered with tape solutions, making it a viable alternative or replacement solution for tape drives being used today. While tape is a fragile, slow and expensive linear-access technology, the REV drive offers robust, high-speed data transfers with random access capability, transforming the backup process and making system or file recovery tasks faster, easier and less costly in terms of both labor and network downtime.
Revolutionary Reliability
REV disks are engineered for a long shelf life, estimated to exceed 30 years. In the REV drive design, sensitive components like the read/write heads and electronics are located in the REV drive for protection. The disk itself holds a hard drive platter and a quiet fluid-dynamic bearing motor, eliminating the spindle hole as a source of dust contamination. Patent-pending air filtration, together with shutters that seal off both drive and disk from outside air when the disk is inserted and ejected, contribute to a virtual "clean room" environment inside the removable REV disk.
These features, combined with Iomega's patent-pending advanced two-stage error correction and patent-pending automatic head cleaning, give REV storage products exceptional data integrity.
Bundled Software for a Total Solution
Included with each Iomega REV SCSI drive is a software bundle that provides for scheduled or automatic file backup, full system backup and recovery, and software-based compression.
For servers, a full version of Yosemite TapeWare? for REV Drive software is bundled free with each Iomega REV SCSI drive, enabling easy data backup, retrieval, and disaster recovery. Yosemite's TapeWare software, an approximate $400 value, features automatic server and client discovery and intuitive backup and restore wizards. It is also able to write up to eight data streams simultaneously, increasing data throughput and minimizing backup times. TapeWare's disaster recovery module provides a reliable method to recover quickly from a system failure.
For PCs, Iomega Automatic Backup Pro Version 3 software, also bundled free, provides frequent file-level backup as well as powerful disaster recovery functionality. Once configured, the "no-touch" software automatically backs up specified files (including multiple revisions); keeps multiple backup sets on different destination drives; excludes user-selected files by file type; and performs scheduled backups. Professional-level features include up to 2.6:1 compression, providing up to 90GB of compressed capacity per REV disk, and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) file encryption. Disaster recovery features allow for live or scheduled system backups within Windows--with no need to boot to DOS.
Industry software support for the Iomega REV drive has been growing fast since its release in April 2004; already, eight major storage software vendors in the Windows, UNIX, and Linux communities support the REV drive, and Iomega continues to work with others to certify compatibility with their solutions.
Compatibility and Requirements
Supported operating systems include Microsoft? Windows? XP Home and Professional; Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition; and Windows 2000 Server/Professional/Advanced Server (SP3 and SP4).
Price and Availability
The new external Iomega REV 35GB drive with SCSI interface will be shipping in the first half of September in white box configurations for $499.99, with one disk included. An internal SCSI model will also be shipping in the first half of September for $449.99, with one disk included. Additional PC-formatted disks are available separately for $59.99 each, or for $199.95 in 4-packs (all prices are U.S. suggested retail).
The Iomega REV drive is currently shipping in USB 2.0 external ($399.99 with one disk included), FireWire external ($399.99 with one disk included), and ATAPI internal ($379.99 with one disk included) configurations (all prices are U.S. suggested retail). Iomega REV autoloaders, which will support multiple disks per drive unit, are currently planned for introduction in the fourth quarter of 2004.