LAS VEGAS — The folks who set the industry standard in removable high-capacity storage with the Zip drive are at it again.
Iomega Corp., based in Roy, Utah, introduced its new "Peerless" storage device, which can be used with both PC and Macintosh computers, this week at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show. CES is a four-day trade show highlighting the most innovative consumer products, ranging from concepts to those already on the market shelves.
"It's critical to the next generation of digital content creation," said Greg Bartels, director of Peerless product marketing for Iomega. "It's the next generation high-capacity storage solution, combining capacity versatility and speed."
He said the Peerless has attracted a great deal of attention at CES.
Peerless incorporates a disk and a base. The read/write heads are in the disks, which are about 4 by 5 inches and thin. The disks are sealed to eliminate the risk of dust contamination or damage to the data.
The base station, which will retail for about $249, contains the hard drive's electronics, which keeps the cost down considerably, according to Owen Quass of Iomega. Instead of buying the electronic technology in each disk, it's a one-time, base unit purchase. So the hard disks, which are available in 5, 10 and 20 gigabytes (suggested retail $129, $159 and $199 respectively), provide a lot of storage at a reasonable cost, he said.
Because of the large capacity, a disk could contain an entire music library, a couple of movies, entire computer game collections and more.
The disks will be available to use with computers that have FireWire and USB 1.1 when the product ships midyear, with USB 2.0 and SCSI following soon after.
Bartels is animated when he talks about Peerless' potential. He pictures separate disks for each family member, so they can store their own important data, including computer settings preferences, creating a personalized computer experience every time they pop Peerless into their computer. They can bring along their own music selections to listen to while they work in that computer setting, he said.
He talks about putting entire music libraries on a Peerless disk, then tossing in a couple of movies and other data for good measure. And he believes mobile multimedia devices and new computer system designs will all employ the technology.
Used with FireWire, it can transfer data at a rate up to 15 MB per second.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com