Iomega unleashes 500GB home storage drive

A storage specialist is hoping to remove the complexity and cost from home network storage with a new family of external drives.

Iomega's Home Network Hard Drives, available in 320GB, 360GB and 500GB varieties, are touted as the first drives to make sharing network storage at home almost as cheap as owning a regular external hard disk drive (HDD).

The 320GB model costs £75 while the top-end 500GB drive is priced at around £100. The 360GB version will launch later in September and will cost the same as the 320GB version.

“Today, the most common use for home networks is to enable shared Internet access,” said Tom Kampfer, president and COO, Iomega. “Families are struggling with how to organise data across multiple PCs. Shared network storage made easy and affordable with Iomega's new Home Network Hard Drive adds the benefit of securely sharing and consolidating photos, music and video over a home family network, as well as increasing storage and backup capacity.”

The drives are based around 10/100 Ethernet technology and come with a Ethernet cable bundled. The Discovery Tool Home utility for Windows software promises to make setup a simple process. Inside each model is a 7200 RPM SATA-II hard drive with 8MB cache

Kampfer added: “Many computer users want the basics at a fair price; they don't need complicated features and they don't want to pay for capabilities they may not use. The Home Network Hard Drive is the answer to their home networking needs and can potentially create a consumer mass market in this exciting product category.”

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