JD, I tend to agree about the tie ratio for the average home user, however, if you have a home office and handle much private data, tax prep, etc. or if you have a larger business or are in research the tie ratio goes up rather rapidly. I could conceive of ratios of 30 to 40 disks per drive in such circumstances. Data on Zip disks can be easily kept in secure storage cabinets, safes or at the bank in safe deposit boxes. Who knows what will happen in 1999 as the Y2K problem gets nearer. What better place to keep backups of your important data than on Zip disks. I know, CD-R is becoming a very attractive archiving solution, but it still seems to me that most data files that you need to archive, even graphics and scanned photos, will most easily be backed up on a Zip drive as it is so quick and there is no need to create an image and dump it to the CD-R in a separate session. I do not speak from experience with CD-R only from what I read here. Rocky makes it sound almost too easy. So who knows, maybe the technology has gotten to such an improved state that CD-R will the simplest way to archive ANYTHING, but you still have to go out and buy, install and learn how to do it and the overall cost still sounds like a barrier to the average user.
On another topic, I just read an item over at C/NET on the new $2,498 Sony VAIO PCV-E205 computers that are coming out with NO ROOM in their little towers FOR EVEN ADDING A ZIP DRIVE! They run at 333 Mhz and come with a 5X DVD-ROM drive and only have 2 free PCI slots... The 56k modem is pre-configured and you can use the DVD to watch movies on your monitor or send it via a S-Video cable to you TV set, essentially using your computer as a VCR for the new DVD movies now available at video stores. Upon reading this I wonder where they would put their new Hi-FUD drive that is soon to be released, or so we are told. There is no room in the tower for anything else... no free expansion bays! I went over to the Sony web site and looked at several other Sony computers and none offered Zip drives. Not too surprising if they are really coming out with the Hi-FUD drive this year, but it looks like there just is "no room in the Inn" for anything more if they have decided to go with the DVD drive now. Could be an indication that the Hi-FUD drive is no longer a viable product? I don't know, but it does seem strange that they would not make the tower just a little bit bigger to have at least one more external bay available for add on peripherals. Comments? Mel |
