Iomega Micro Mini USB 2.0 Drive

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by Julie

July 01, 2004

Product Requirements:
Device:
Win98/98SE/ME/2000/XP, Mac OS 8.6 or later, Linux 2.4.x

USB flash drives come in many shapes and sizes and with added features like cameras and mp3 players. These little gadgets are a great way to carry important files with you everywhere you go. Today I'll be telling you about the Iomega Micro Mini USB 2.0 Drive that the fine folks at ThinkGeek sent me to review. Although this drive doesn't have any of the special built in features mentioned above, it does have a few things going for it that set it apart from similar products.

First of all, it has a fitting name, as it is very small. With the rotating cover in the closed position, it is barely 1.5in in length and .75in wide.

The body of the drive is made of gray plastic with blue status LED embedded into the end. This LED blinks slowly while connected to the computer and faster when it is transferring data.

The rotating plastic cover is what makes this drive different than others. It actually comes with 3 covers of different colors: Blue, Gray and Orange. A small metal ring at the base of each cover allows for the included key chain to attach to it. Switching out the covers is not difficult at all. One bad thing though about this cover is the fact that it doesn't snap in place. While there is a little friction, it basically can rotate freely. This isn't a big deal, but sometimes when I would try to plug the drive into a tight USB port, I found that my grip would sometimes slip.

The drive is available in a 64MB and a 128MB version. It uses USB 2.0 which is a big plus, as it makes file transfers much speedier. I tested the Micro Mini with my PowerBook and various PCs. It worked flawlessly with the USB 2.0 machines and the USB 1.1 machines. Below you will find the test results from copying a 38.5mb file to and from the Micro Mini on a computer with USB 2.0 and one with 1.1 ports.

	Hard Drive to Micro Mini	Micro Mini to Hard Drive
USB 2.0	58 seconds	9 seconds
USB 1.1	1 min 16 seconds	16 seconds

The only thing that this drive is really missing is a write protect switch. If you don't mind the lack of that feature, and need a very small drive, this one might be for you.

 

Price: $49.99 64MB, $69.99 128MB @ ThinkGeek

Pros:
Small size
Interchangeable covers  

Cons:
No write protect switch
Cover doesn't lock in place