Tape drives are a common tool for small and medium-sized businesses who need to keep their data safe, but Iomega sells an alternative product it claims delivers superior performance, higher capacities, and lower costs. This alternative is dubbed REV technology, and Iomega announced the third generation of REV cartridges and drives earlier today. According to Iomega, 120GB REV drives provide transfer speeds of up to 35MB/s, and the removable disks can live through one million rewrites and stay archived for 30 years. Iomega adds that its new REV drives compare quite favorably to entry-level LTO-1 and DAT160 tape drives, supposedly featuring five times greater transfer speeds, 20% more native capacity, and costs "upwards of 50 percent less." Backup maniacs (TM) will be able to purchase REV 120GB backup drives and removable disks starting next month. Iomega will offer drives in both external USB 2.0 and internal Serial ATA flavors, and disks will be available either individually or in five-disk packs. Later this year, internal REV drives with ATA interfaces will also be available. Iomega hasn't announced pricing yet, but judging by the price tags it slaps on second-gen REV offerings, we'd expect third-gen drives to cost at least $500. (thanks TechReport)