Feb 98 Computer Shopper Removable Drives Survey/Shopper's guide.
The new CS came in the mail today. It contains a fairly good sized article surveying removable storage. They had some good and not so good things to say about IOM. It is too large to copy in its entirety as I am not a touch typist. A few items:
P.380
Iomega's Zip drive deserves much of the credit for pushing removable storage into the mainstream, thanks to a simple formula: Provide reasonably high capacity at a reasonably low price. For the original Zip, that meant 100MB per diskand about $200 - now fallen to $140 or less - for the drive. For the many drives that have followed Iomega's example, capacities have ballooned while prices have plummeted. A prime example: Syquest's new SparQ drive which sells for about $200, packs a full 1GB onto disks that cost roughly $33 apiece.
There's a side box on "The DVD-RAM Implosion" which talks about the four competing rewritable DVD formats: DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, MMVF, And ASMO - which ones support what, how much capacity, who's behind each, etc.
P.386
Whopping Floppies: 100MB to 200MB
All of today's removable disk drives from 100MB to 200 MB are vying to become the standard replacement for the 1.44 MB floppy drive. Iomega's 100MB Zip enjoys a huge head start here, with an installed base in the millions (Iomega claims to have shipped some 9 million Zip drives) and a status as standard or optional equipment in scores of PCs from vendors such as Dell, Gateway 2000 and Micron.
They really cover a lot, including the Swan, EZFlyer-230, MO, PD, CD-R, CD-RW, and even removable hard drives via docking bay. IMO, it is required reading for an IOM investor. You can see how stiff the competition is.
At the end of the article is a buyer's guide, including specs.
I would like to point out something here. The only speed spec given is something called "Average Sustained Transfer Rate", and here they are for those of you who care about such things (and you know who you are.)
Imation Superdisk PP ------------- 280K/sec (Read)
Iomega ZipPlus PP ---------------- 790K/sec (Read & Write)
SmartShuttle Zip100I EIDE ------ 1.4MB/sec (Read & Write) Who are these guys !!!!
Sony HiFud ------------------------ That's odd, no specs
Swan UHC-130 ------------------- 3MB/sec (Read & Write)
Iomega Jaz (Int & Ext) -------------- 5.51MB/sec (Read & Write)
Iomega Jaz2 (Int & Ext) ------------- 7.35MB/sec (Read & Write)
Syquest SparQ PP ------------------- 1MB/sec (Read & Write)
Syquest SparQ EIDE ---------------- 5.63MB/sec (Read & Write)
Syquest SyJet (PP) ----------------- 1MB/sec (Read & Write)
Syquest SyJet (SCSI &EIDE) ------ 5.6MB/sec (Read & Write)
Syquest Quest 4.7GB (U/W SCSI) - 7.6 MB/sec (Read & Write)
Looks like Syquest didn't squeeze as much speed out Quest's much vaunted MR cum PRML technology as some bears want to believe: 7.6MB/sec vs. Jaz2's 7.35MB/sec.
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