5. IOGear's Combo 1.8" Ion Drive Makes Dual Connection's Possible, Continued

While these accessories may make stationary users happy, they are a real pain for mobile users. That's because the long interface cables and power adapter take up at least as much space in your notebook bag as the drive itself. Another negative we noted was that the drive absolutely requires an additional power supply for operation. That means one of the two power adapters has to be toted along on your travels. At least IOGear includes a power adapter in the form of a split cable that provides power to the drive via USB or keyboard connection.

Thanks to this split cable you can leave the unwieldy power supply at home

Thus, operating the unit via USB port requires two of the coveted - while in short supply - USB interfaces on most newer notebook models, as only few of the mobile PCs available have a keyboard connection. And we'd also like to know just how we're supposed to connect the drive to the four-pin Firewire port on a notebook using the cable provided (four- to six-pin plug).

Due to these numerous limitations, we judge the IOGear Combo 1.8" Ion Drive to be anything but the perfect product for the mobile professional. Bus-powered USB drives from competitors like Apricorn and Archos offer clearly better-designed solutions for the professional notebook user as far as mobility and ease of operation are concerned.

Meanwhile, the IOGear Combo 1.8" Ion Drive's performance delivers what we'd expect: if you compare the data transfer diagram with that of the EZ Bus Mini from Apricorn, you see that both drives perform about equally well within the limits of the repetition accuracy of the measurement.

Data transfer diagram of the IOGear Combo 1.8" Ion

Data transfer diagram of the EZ Bus Mini 20 GB from Apricorn

That's not surprising, since IOGear deploys the HTC424040F9AT00 model from Hitachi's C4K40 series: Apricorn drives feature a hard drive from the same series, the HTC422020F7AT00.