Iomega's 500GB 'Skin' external HDDs boast designs your mom wouldn't approve of
For better or worse, these ain't your grandmother's hard drives. Iomega has teamed up with Skin Industries in order to debut some of the wildest, zaniest looking 2.5-inch portable HDDs this planet has ever seen, with a trio of designs shipping today. When speaking with the company, we were told that these three were sort of a trial run to see if consumers were actually into such exotic pieces, but we got the impression that we may end up seeing more if this does indeed spark a new craze. The Iomega Skin drives -- outside of the exterior -- aren't that radical within; you'll find USB 2.0 connectivity and a single 500GB option to choose from. For now, $119.99 gets you a Knock Out, Red Hot or Radical (shown above and throughout) skinned hard drive, and while we didn't exactly expect these to be crafted with precision, we were thrilled to find that our own unit had the logos baked into the plastic -- no stickers or decals here. If you're into the graphics, the drive itself looks pretty sharp, but we can't help but wish there was an option to slap our own Photoshop creations onto this thing. In related news, SIIG managed to push out the world's first 4- and 7-port USB 3.0 hubs, which handled a multi-drive transfer with poise and precision during our brief testing; of course, we couldn't push the new Iomega drive to SuperSpeed or anything, but if you're in need of a product to help you simultaneously connect all seven of the USB 3.0 devices in existence today, they're available in the US for $59.99 a pop.%Gallery-96060% %Gallery-96061%
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Iomega Shows Some Skin with Exciting New Portable Hard Drives
Three Hip, Unique Designs for Expressing Your Own Style And Storing All Your Videos, Photos and Music
Skin Hard Drives by Iomega - SAN DIEGO, June 21, 2010 – Iomega, an EMC company (NYSE: EMC) and a global leader in data protection, today announced the launch of the exciting new line of Iomega® Skin™ branded Hard Drives, three different 500GB* portable hard drives that pop with unique designs and colors that scream, "Who says portable storage has to be boring?"
In conjunction with the popular Skin Industries, one of the leading alternative "Sports Fashion" brands in America today, Iomega's new Skin Hard Drives feature three compact personal storage models with custom Skin-branded graphics that stand out in a burst of hip culture compared to anything else in the hard drive market today.
"The new Iomega Skin Drives exude an alternative personality Jonathan Huberman with eye-catching Skin Industries graphics that demand the attention of anyone who doesn't accept the status quo, who zigs when others zag, especially when it comes to the look and design of their digital devices," said Jonathan Huberman, President of Iomega and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC. "Iomega's new Skin Drives deliver that kind of excitement in a lightweight, compact design with the quality features people expect from Iomega, including industry-leading ruggedness to protect your data and a top-tier software suite bundled free of charge with every Skin Hard Drive. That's an unbeatable personal storage combination for tech-savvy students and young professionals alike."
Iomega Skin Hard Drives
There are three different models in the new Iomega Skin Hard Drive line. All three models are USB 2.0-powered 500GB portable hard drives.
The RadicalThe "Radical" Skin Hard Drive model has a retro Skin-branded printed logo design on a black top with a vibrant yellow base, creating a look that stands apart from any other portable hard drive.
The Red HotThe "Red Hot" Skin Hard Drive model features a "Skin" Swipe logo printing on a red top with a black base, creating a definition of hip and hot for today's young iconoclastic computer user.
THe Knock OutThe "Knock Out" Skin Hard Drive model has a dark, mysterious aura with a "Skin" Gothic logo design on a silver top with a black base. One look at this portable hard drive beauty and envious friends and co-workers could be down for the count.
Al BordaAl Borda, CEO of Skin Industries, said, "We continue to build on the lifestyle tradition of Skin Industries. As the CEO, I like to think ahead and focus on the future in everything we do for the company. With the release of the exciting new Skin hard drives and joining with Iomega, this is another step forward for Skin to become more than just a clothing company."
The new Iomega Skin Hard Drives will be featured in a July window display at J&R Music and Computer World's flagship store on Park Row in New York City.
J & R Music New York"Young people today are looking for something different in everything they buy and use," said Rachelle Friedman, President and Co-CEO, J&R Music and Computer World, downtown New York City. "At J&R, we're always looking for unique and exciting products for our customers. Iomega's new Skin portable hard drives not only have personality and style compared to other hard drives in the market today, they also deliver on the functionality that's required of a quality portable hard drive - plenty of space for music, photos and videos, as well as rugged, dependable and easy-to-use. Put it all together and the new Iomega Skin Drives are a great new addition to J&R's computer peripheral offerings."
Self-Powered Drives with Plenty of Room for Lots of Multimedia Files
All three of the new Skin Hard Drives are perfect for slipping into a laptop bag or pocket to take anywhere your laptop goes. Best of all, the USB interface on the Skin Hard Drives require no external power supply. Just connect the included USB 2.0 cable to your Skin Hard Drive and your laptop, netbook or desktop and you are ready to store and share photos, music, videos and more.
To appreciate how much data can be stored on a new 500GB Iomega Skin Hard Drive, users have enough capacity to hold up to 200,000 photos, over 125,000 songs or more than 190 hours of video**.
Drop Guard ProtectionAs Rugged as You Wanna Be!
All three of the new Skin Hard Drives feature Iomega's standard Drop Guard™ protection, which helps guard the drive from accidental drops of up to 51 inches on to industrial carpet - or 40% better than the industry average.
Iomega Protection Suite Software Included Free With New Skin Drives
Included free of charge with all three of Iomega's new Skin Hard Drives is the Iomega Protection Suite, a one-stop portfolio of backup and anti-virus software giving users added protection for their photos, videos, music and other files.
The Iomega Protection Suite includes:
Trend MicroA complementary 12 month subscription to Trend Micro™ Internet Security for the PC, or Trend Micro™ Smart Surfing software for Mac.
QuickProtectIomega QuikProtect: backup software for simple scheduled file-level backup of data to hard drives and network-attached storage devices (for Windows and Mac desktops and notebooks).
Retrospect Backup SoftwareRetrospect® Express software: backup all of your data plus applications and settings (for Windows and Mac desktops and notebooks).
Mozy Online BackupMozyHome™ Online Backup service: Convenient online backup service with 2GB of online capacity for free (unlimited online storage for $4.95/month). MozyHome Online service allows you to restore your most important data from any computer with internet access, at any location in the world.
All of the software elements in the Iomega Protection Suite are accessible via easy download to Skin Drive owners.
Pricing, Availability and Warranty
The new Iomega Skin Hard Drives are available today in the U.S. at select retailers, etailers and at www.iomega.com. All three Skin Hard Drive models retail for $119.99 each. (Pricing is U.S. suggested retail.) Iomega's new Skin Hard Drives also will be available next month in select European markets.
Iomega's new Skin Hard Drives include a 3-year limited warranty (with registration).
For more information on the new Iomega Skin Drives as well as Iomega's complete line of portable and desktop direct-attached hard drives, please go to www.iomega.com. Be sure to learn more and discuss Iomega's new products on our social media sites found at www.iomega.com/social.
About EMC
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.
About Iomega
Iomega Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of EMC Corporation headquartered in San Diego, is a worldwide leader in innovative storage and network security solutions for small businesses, home offices, consumers and others. The Company has sold more than 425 million digital storage drives and disks since its inception in 1980. Today, Iomega's product portfolio includes industry leading network attached storage products for the home and small business; one of the industry's broadest selections of direct-attached portable and desktop external hard drives; and the ScreenPlay™ family of multimedia drives that makes it easy to move video, pictures and other files from the computer room to the livingroom. To learn about all of Iomega's digital storage products and managed services solutions, please go to the Web at www.iomega.com. Resellers can visit Iomega at www.iomega.com/ipartner.
