Iomega has started shipping external hard drives that incorporate a Firewire 800 interface, the storage specialist announced today.

The launch also adds a 400GB unit to the top end of the company's desktop hard drive line.

Available in three capacities - 400GB, 250GB and 160GB - the external units also sport more commonplace Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces. The disks themselves spin at 7200rpm. Each drive can be mounted horizontally, for drive stacking, or vertically. Iomega bundles its own Automatic Backup software for Windows users, along with Dantz Retrospect Express for Mac owners.

The latter constituency will be those most interested in the 800MBps Firewire port, a feature Apple has been incorporating into its high-end desktops and notebooks for some time.

The three new drives are available now in the US for $199 (160GB), $279 (250GB) and $429 (400GB), respectively. There's no word yet on European pricing and availability. ®

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