The Predator is an external CD-RW drive that is rated at 8x write, 4x rewrite, and 32x read. Up until now, the Predator hasn’t been able to burn or read at its full speeds — the PC card and USB interfaces are considerably slower than FireWire, and limited the drive to operating at 4x4x6 instead.
Iomega Senior Vice President Doug Collier said his company is excited about offering FireWire for the Predator.
“We are delivering on the needs of Macintosh users and a growing population of PC users of FireWire connectivity with a cutting-edge portable CD-RW drive with speed performance far in excess of current USB connections,” said Collier.
Rather than integrating a single computer interface, the Predator utilizes interchangeable adapters. USB 1.1, FireWire and PC card are all now available. Iomega plans to support USB 2.0 as well.
The Predator ships with Mac software, including Adaptec/Roxio Toast CD mastering software, MusicMatch Jukebox and MGI PhotoSuite. System requirements call for a PowerPC G3-based Mac or better; Mac OS 8.6 – 9; CD-ROM drive or 740MB free space to copy CD data.
The Predator CD-RW with FireWire adapter is now shipping and carries a suggested retail price of US$329.95. Users with other versions of the Predator wishing to replace their interfaces with a FireWire adapter will be able to later this month; the adapter kit costs $79.95.