The Iomega eGo BlackBelt Mac Edition ($199.99 list) is a large capacity 1TB portable hard drive for Mac laptops and desktops. It's Time Machine-compatible, so it works right out of the box. It comes with USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports (and a FireWire 400 adapter), plus enough space to back up any MacBook or MacBook Pro twice over. Rugged construction, flexible interfaces, good bang for the buck, long 3-year warranty, and speedy performance all combine to give the eGo Blackbelt a very good score and our Editors' Choice award for Mac hard drives.

Design and Features
The eGo BlackBelt looks like all of its Iomega eGo siblings, except that the black and silver drive has a pair of FireWire 800 ports in addition to the USB 2.0 mini-jack. The FireWire ports are pass through, so they allow you to daisy chain FireWire devices together to share a single FireWire 800 port on your Mac. The BlackBelt nomenclature refers to the drive's removable black Power Grip band, which helps the eGo BlackBelt gain almost three feet of drop protection compared to the stock eGo drives. Stock eGo drives are rated for about a 4.25 feet drop, while the Blackbelt is rated for a 7-foot drop without damage. The Power Grip band also had an extra benefit: It helps prevent the eGo from sliding around on your work surface. As on previous eGo models, the eGo BlackBelt does attract its share of fingerprints.

The eGo BlackBelt is operable solely from its FireWire or USB connections, so you don't need to carry around an external AC adapter. The Y-shaped USB cable has two USB connectors, so you can plug into an extra USB connection for power if need be. These days, you really shouldn't have to carry around an AC adapter for a portable drive.

The drive is ready for Time Machine out of the box, just plug the eGo into your Mac's FireWire 800 or USB port, and once you go through the one-click setup procedure, you're backing up your new Mac. Note: this only works on Macs running Leopard (OS 10.5) or Snow Leopard (OS 10.6). For older Macs and PCs, you'll have download the free copy Retrospect from Iomega's website (all you need is your drive's serial number to get the software from the site). The eGo is pre-formatted for HFS+, the Mac's native file format. If you want to use the drive on a Windows PC, you can reformat it for FAT32 (Windows only) or NTFS (Windows and Mac-compatible).

Performance
If possible, we recommend using the drive's FireWire 800 port. Just about all currently shipping desktops and portable Macs come with a FireWire 800 port, notable exceptions being the MacBook and MacBook Air ($1,199 direct, 3.5 stars). Transferring our 1.22GB Drag and Drop test folder to the eGo BlackBelt was completed in a fast 22 seconds under FireWire 800 and 35 seconds under USB 2.0. The Mac version of the eGo BlackBelt isn't USB 3.0 compliant, but it will work on systems with USB 3.0 ports (just at USB 2.0 speeds). That said, recent USB 3.0 drives like the HP Portable External Hard Drive (1TB) ($169.99 direct, 4 stars) took only 19 seconds to transfer the same folder. Note: we didn't run our Windows-based PCMark05 tests on the unit, since the drive came Mac-formatted and is designed for Mac users. You can of course reformat the drive for Windows PCs, but Iomega sells a less expensive eGo Blackbelt without FireWire for Windows users.

At list price, the eGo Blackbelt is a smidge higher than average on the dollar per GB ratio: $0.20 per GB. Street prices at the time of this review are a little closer to the average for other portable drives around $0.16-0.17 per GB. Regardless, the price premium is justified, since the FireWire 800 interface provides a lot more utility for Mac users. Our previous Editors' Choice for Mac drives was the Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive Mac Edition (500GB) ($150 list, 4 stars). The Iomega eGo BlackBelt Mac Edition improves upon the older edition with much better protection, a higher capacity, and a FireWire 800 pass through port (the previous eGo had a single FireWire 400 port and a single FireWire 800 port). The larger drive is also better on a dollar per GB ratio, plus it's not too much more in total price. You may or may not need quite so much storage or speed, but if you're a Mac power user, the Iomega eGo Blackbelt should be on the top of your shopping list.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Iomega eGo BlackBelt Mac Edition with several other hard drives side by side.