I would recommend a zip drive and or zip stock to anyone. I have two(one parrallel and one SCSI) and have installed many for some of my enthusiastic customers(I repair and upgrade computers). I previously worked for Incredible Universe and observed the zip drive as it came onto the market. Their success was amazing. I saw 50 drives disappear in one day, without any adds, and it wasn't even a very fast day. We ran out that day. They have been pushing an enormous volume of these drives, and have had very few returns/complaints(none that I know of). They function well, and I would rate them very close to the Syquest drive. Their is an obvious market for these. Consider that floppies have not been upgraded or improved since around 1986. This is an enormous time for a computer technology to stay idle. This is the replacement for the floppy. At 1M/s it is like a 6 or 7 speed CD-ROM. This is in raw feed from the disc. With the actual jumping from location to location it is important that one look at the access time. A typical CD-Rom has an access time between 150 and 350 ms(the lower the better). The zip has 29ms, making it about 5 to ten times faster than a CD. It is not as good as syquest @17ms access time, but it is still excellent.
Syquest has a couple of problems. First, it has terrible marketing, and I don't believe it has the young/fresh company spirit that Iomega has. People are disinterested. For instance, if you are like most people you probably brushed past the speed stats I just mentioned. That's not what sells it. It's the reputation and name it's built for itself. The other problem Syquest has is indeed reliability. I heard from somewhere that the syquest 135MB disks were single sided failures from the 270MB drives syquest makes. If possible someone please back this up. This would suggest that the media may be unreliable.
What's the news about the new compaq floptical? Is it not optical like a CD-ROM?? If so I would expect access times in the 100's of ms. Transfer rates would not be that impressive either. Perhaps the disks are cheap. Anyways, for whatever reason, people prefer the Zip. I have tried to convince people that the EZ135 is better, but they only respond that they would rather not buy an off brand(complete irony that Syquest should be thought of as an off brand, but it is).
Anyway, what's the specs on the Compaq Floptical??
And did I hear something about a potential takover of Iomega?? |
