Like a standard hard drive, the REV system uses a flying head to read and write data to a spinning platter.
This product, especially the server model, was marketed as a replacement of tape drive technology for enterprise data backup, with claims of higher reliability, greater speed, and random access capability.
The REV was in many ways a successor to Iomega's Jaz drive, which uses a similar removable hard-disk-platter concept.
The drives suffer from poor reliability and high failure rates of both the disk mechanism and power supply units (on the external versions).
Faced with cheaper, smaller, higher capacity and more reliable USB 2.5" portable hard drives, the REV format was discontinued: