CompuServe Thread

#Zipdrives?

18 messages in this thread
#175276From: William A. TriffetJun 13, 1995 10:44 PM
Anyone hear of the new external Zipdrives?The media looks like a thick 3.5 disk but holds 100megs ( this is what i hear anyways). My friend tells me the disks only $15. bucks and are fairly fast. Dying to find out! TIA Bill
#175284From: Robert C. RitgerJun 13, 1995 11:46 PM
Bill: I came this close to buying one of those babies this week. I need a really good excuse to buy one, can you offer something? <G> I wish my tape drive would go south on me or some client would demand files on a zip disk. The drive specs out at 29ms seek time which is probably more than twice as slow as your hard drive but should be lightning compared to tape or floppy. You can get the drives in SCSI or parallel for less than $200 and a 3 pack of disks for less than $50. For me this product is almost something I need. I have a Syquest drive so I can get large files to the printer, I have a tape backup so I can archive files and I've got a floppy drive for saving small stuff.
#175307From: Accu-WeatherJun 14, 1995 7:41 AM
I've been considering the same. $200 for the drive and $150 for 1 Gig of space sounds pretty good. They (Iomega) have just announced another faster (15ms +/- 3ms, I can't remember) drive priced around $500 w/ 1 Gig disks; but those zip drives are just so darn cute.
#175446From: Robert C. RitgerJun 14, 1995 10:52 PM
Wade: /_______________________From your message________________________\\ I've been considering the same. $200 for the drive and $150 for 1 Gig of space sounds pretty good. __________________________________________________________________ You are right about that. FWIW, I found a new 1260mb EIDE hard drive for $319. I saw the tidbit on the 1 gig removable drive, now we are talking. I think this new drive is supposed to be a bit larger than the zip drive maybe 5-1/4" but I'm guessing. Now if we could only get RAM prices down by an order of magnitude…
#175485From: Accu-WeatherJun 15, 1995 6:37 AM
>> FWIW, I found a new 1260mb EIDE hard drive for $319. << Nice price; is it from a nationally available house/source? The 1 gig Iomega drive, the Viper, is $575 external, $500 internal, 14ms seek, w/ a $100 *3.5* inch platter. Sustained transfer rates of 3.5 to 5 Mbytes/sec. (I'm quoting out of a MacLeak). Third quarter release. Funny quote from the article: "Viper will give Syquest fits". However it's still all on paper.
#175652From: Robert C. RitgerJun 15, 1995 11:30 PM
Wade: I bought the drive from DOC (Drive Outlet Center) (708)970-4000. They have an 800 number and ad in Computer Shopper each month. I saw another blurb on that new 1Gb Iomega Viper, sounds pretty cool and smaller than I thought. Bob
#175695From: Accu-WeatherJun 16, 1995 7:51 AM
Thanks. Yea, I thought the platter was 5.25" as well.
#175976From: James M. MurphyJun 18, 1995 1:59 PM
Wade, >>> $200 for the drive and $150 for 1 Gig of space sounds pretty good. <<< Why not Buy a DAT Drive? The Slower (Backup at 10MB per Min.) 2Gig DAT's are now selling in the $700. Range and the Faster (33MB per Min.) sell for around $1300…however once you've made that purchase your Media is $9.10 that's nine dollars and ten cents per 2Gigabyte Tape! You can then purchase the TAPEDISK Software which allows you to read and write to the DAT Drive as if it's a local Hard Drive. It's like haveing a WORM Drive! This is what we've been using and recommending to all our clients and the payback is enourmous! The Big Upside is the Low Cost of the Media, the Amount of informaiton that fits on the Media and the Read/Write as a Disk Drive Ability! The only Down side is the somewhat higher cost of the drives and it's like a WORM Drive but I don't see that as a big issue because of all the Plus's… it also only takes 20 seconds to format a Tape with TapeDisk. We absolutly love this technology. For What it's worth. Murph'
#176073From: William A. TriffetJun 19, 1995 1:05 PM
>>You can then purchase the TAPEDISK Software which allows you to read and write to the DAT Drive as if it's a local Hard Drive.<< Does this software work with other tape drives i.e. QIC-80 ? Bill – Triffet Animation Co.
#176149From: James M. MurphyJun 19, 1995 11:28 PM
William, >> Does this software work with other tape drives i.e. QIC-80 ?<< I bought it for it's DAT and Exabyte capabilities. They keep adding to the list of drives it works with all the time. You may call them at 1-414-231-3333. Tell Em' Murph' Sent Ya' <g> Murph'
#176098From: Accu-WeatherJun 19, 1995 4:14 PM
Thanks, I hadn't considered a more expensive sol'n but then I didn't realize the tapes were so reasonable.
#176150From: James M. MurphyJun 19, 1995 11:28 PM
We love our DAT and TapeDisk Solution. Especially for throwing those really large DPS PAR Projects on. <BG> Murph'
#176172From: William A. TriffetJun 20, 1995 12:14 AM
Decisions, decisions… to tape or to disk. That is the question. <g> I'll give 'em a call. Tanks! Bill -Triiffet Animation Co.
#175288From: Mike MorganJun 14, 1995 12:22 AM
William, I just read an article where Compaq has joined with 3M to develop a 120MB 3.5-inch diskette that will work in existing high-density drives, you will need one of the new drives to get full capacity. The high-density drives will be backwards read/write compatible with the 1.44MB and 720KB disks. These drives are expected by the end of 1995.
#175306From: Mike LesterJun 14, 1995 7:33 AM
Bill, We bought one of these drives about a month ago, and LOVE it! We had been using a Bernoulli 150, which was fast but tempermental…also the disks were horribly expensive. The ZIP is not as fast, but works extremely well…and is fast enough. Each diskette holds 100 meg, and if pruchased in batches of 10 or so are only $15. They are about the size of a 3.5, but about twice as thick. This is nice, since they fit in storage compartments. The drive installs easily, and is transportable if you wish…it's about the size of a CD walkman. Ours is on the net now, but we may buy another one (or two!).
#175316From: Bob KohlJun 14, 1995 8:34 AM
Here's a copy of the release, Iomega developing new removable drive for power users ROY, UTAH May 15, 1995 Iomega Corporation announced it has shipped test units of a new removable disk drive directly targeted at providing high-capacity, high-performance, value-priced storage for "power" computer users. The drive addresses the high-performance needs of the power computer market such as video/audio producers, electronic publishers, CAD/CAM, graphics users, multimedia users, desktop publishing, medical imaging, and Fortune 1000 business users. The company said details about the new drive, still under development, will be released later in the year and expects shipment of the drive to begin before the end of 1995. Earlier this year Iomega addressed the needs of the consumer home and SOHO markets when it began shipping its Zip drive — an easy-to-use external drive that bundles useful Zip tools software for file management, sells for less than $200 and uses 100-megabyte removable Zip disks that sell for less than $20 each. The Zip drive has been widely acclaimed by press, industry analysts, retailers and customers and has become one of the fastest selling new products in several computer retail chains. The company remains cautious about second quarter earnings due to the on-going cost of development and introduction of new products. Iomega Corporation provides personal computer information storage solutions that help people manage their computer information — anywhere. These solutions include the Bernoulli line of removable drives and disks, Ditto tape backup drives and tape cartridges, and Zip drives and disks. Iomega provides storage solutions for the small office/home office, large business, government and education markets and are available through computer retail stores, resellers, and major distributors. Iomega had revenues of $141 million in 1994.
#175374From: Scott LawrenceJun 14, 1995 2:52 PM
I have a Zip & a Bernoulli 230. The Bernoulli is noticably faster, higher capacity, service bureaus have 'em & I prefer it (esp. for playback). Scott
#175492From: Dan O'LearyJun 15, 1995 8:11 AM
>> Anyone hear of the new external Zipdrives?The media looks like a thick 3.5 disk but holds 100megs ( this is what i hear anyways). My friend tells me the disks only $15. bucks and are fairly fast. Dying to find out! << We have a couple here at the office/home. Makes it easy to carry "homework" back and forth. For the price, you cannot beat it. I have a scsi version and my partner has the parallel version so he can use it with his laptop. The initial speed is ok, but once the directory is in your cache things really pick up. Noticable delay first couple of times. I wouldn't recommend running anything off of it, but for archival and transport purposes it's the cat's pajamas.