“We want to try and open up the world of digital management to the consumer,” Dave Hubbard, vice president and general manager, Iomega, told MacCentral. “We are trying to provide some utility out of the box, both from an enterprise and consumer standpoint. You can do backup, synchronization, video-editing, photo-editing, as well as MP3 compilation management.”
The Peerless drive will slip into a base station only slightly larger than the disk itself — a slim, vertical enclosure about four-inches across and five-inches tall. The first drives shipping from Iomega will have a USB interface. A FireWire version of the Peerless system should be available in about a week, with SCSI and USB 2.0 versions following later this year.
Every Peerless system will come with a power cord, although the FireWire version will be host powered on a Mac.
“Many of today’s digital applications demand a storage system that is truly portable, truly high capacity, and truly high performance,” said Doug Collier, senior vice president, marketing and product management, Iomega Corp. “A pocket-sized Peerless disk can simplify almost any data management challenge, whether it’s migrating the contents of an entire system from one computer to another, backing up a hard drive, editing digital video, or carrying thousands of CD-quality songs.”
The Peerless system comes with several software titles for the Mac including IomegaWare, Aladdin ShrikWrap, QuikSync, MGI PhotoSuite and MusicMatch Jukebox.
The Iomega Peerless drive system can be ordered today in the U.S. through Iomega’s Web site. Shipments to international regions are expected to begin at the end of May. The drive with interface module retails for US$249.95. Peerless disks retail for $159.95 (10GB) and $199.95 (20GB). The base station bundled with an interface module and a 20GB disk retails for $399.95. The base station bundled with an interface module and a 10GB disk retails for $359.95.
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