Recognising the need for ever more storage in PCs, Iomega has released a series of external USB 2.0 hard drives, ranging in size from 60GB to 400GB. We tested the 120GB version on a machine running Windows XP, although the drive also works with other operating systems, including Mac OS and Linux.

The 120GB version comes in a heavy duty, matte-finished metal case weighing in at 1.1kg.

Connecting the hard drive is as easy as plugging in the mains power cable and hooking it up to a free USB port. This drive is compatible with both USB 1.1 and 2.0 ports, although for moving large amounts of data, a computer that supports USB 2.0 is recommended.

The theoretical burst speed of USB 2.0 is 480Mbps, although USB 2.0 devices are rarely able to sustain this speed. Through a series of large file transfer tests, we concluded that this drive is capable of a respectable sustained transfer rate of 23MB per second.

Iomega's Automatic Backup software, Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 and Musicmatch Jukebox are included with the drive. The backup software, in particular, is quite handy.

Iomega's hard drive range is well worth looking into. The price is reasonable, and for people not technically inclined, this drive provides an easy to use, plug'n'play interface.