Iomega says its removable drives will be USB 3.0

REMOVABLE STORAGE VENDOR Iomega has announced that it will ship all its removable hard drives with USB 3.0 connections.

The company says that the change will not cost punters a penny and should "deliver speeds of up to 10 times that of USB 2.0". The drives will use 'Superspeed' USB 3.0, which ups the theoretical maximum to 5Gbps. Iomega also touts the "drop spec" of its drives saying that the units can be dropped from up to seven feet without any problems.

Iomega's Ego hard drives in 500GB and 1TB capacities will be the first to come with USB 3.0 from early October. By the first quarter of 2011, Iomega will have moved its Prestige Compact line over to the new interface, followed by the rest of its range.

Those looking for something a little meatier might want to consider Buffalo's latest network attached storage (NAS) offering. The firm announced that it will be updating its high-end quad drive box saying that it now supports up to 8TB of data, presumably though installing four 2TB drives.

Buffalo deserve some credit for stating that its Drivestation Quad, previously known as the Quattro, ships by default with a RAID 5 configuration rather than the suicidal RAID 0 typically used to bolster marketing claims. The firm say its 8TB monster will set punters back $1,150 (£750). Those looking for something a little more affordable could always consider one of the firm's single or dual drive units.

NAS units have grown in popularity as users' want to stream data to multiple devices. Some units allow users to ditch the standard operating system, usually a customised version of Linux, and install their own fully fledged Linux distribution, meaning a pint sized, energy efficient server is easily had.

Buffalo's Drivestation products are in stores now, while those considering one of Iomega's USB 3.0 drives should make sure their motherboard supports USB 3.0. µ