Does anyone actually use ZIP drives anymore?

[xraymongral]

My question is why, what with cdr's being soooo much cheaper to use?

I need to fess up though...I do have a external USB Zip drive that I bought for like $20 or so at OD. Bought it just in case I ever needed one...but the media is so dang expensive.

 

[MadRat]

Because they are there and I spent $20 on my internal drive!

 

[Vyle]

I always try to talk people out of zip drives and prod them towards a CD burner. Some people just like Zip drives. I don't know why.

 

[mastaki11a]

I'm guessing because External zip drives are more readily available and cheaper...

 

[MadRat]

External zips?

*sees flash of external zip nightmares*

Argh!

 

[Barrak]

I use zip all the time, why waste a cdr on a 50meg file? Also unless you have one of the newer burners putting the file onto a zip is faster. I still use my floppy drive to for some stuff, but lets not get into that one again.

 

[erub]

I never used one really, media was too expensive for my cheapness . CDs are so nice, and can be burned easily and cheaply. Espically broadband I think has sorta pushed it out the window..much easier to transfer files over the Internet if you and your friends have broadband.

 

[kami]

<< I use zip all the time, why waste a cdr on a 50meg file? >>


I've used Cd-R's for 200k files.

They're so damn cheap ($30 CDN for 100 80min 16x Cd-R's) that I don't give a flying f*ck

 

[Punamo]

I used to go to my Uni to download huge files to my zip disks. Not anymore though since I don't live near a University anymore and I haven't been able to find a single zip drive in my company. They probably know people would be downloading gigabytes of files at work and use them at home

 

[ROcHE]

Hey Kami,

Who sell 100 80 mins CDR for 30$CDN in Canada?? This is interesting

 

[eyez]

I use Zip drive for files that I change real often. Direct CD is way slow.

 

[kami]

Well, I got mine from a friend who got them wholesale They are GigaStore brand and have the blue/silver dye so they aren't cheapies. I think the same ones retail for $50 at Future Shop.

 

[GoldenTiger]

10x rewritable discs and INCD/Nero are fast, and r0x0r. I get my discs at an average of 1.3 cents each (for 300 discs so far) that are recordable... I only have one 10x CDRW disc that came with my TDK VeloCD 12x10x32, but ti is enough for me. Gotta find some more soon, they are incredibly useful! CDR discs are so cheap it doesn't matter aside from space, but even that isn't much of an issue with Slimline jewel cases . I just can't wait for DVDs to become this cheap!!

 

[woodie1]

Don't have a burner so it's ZIP for me.

 

[DeeK]

Well, I don't have a CD-R yet. I still use my Zip drive for frequently updated files, as well as my Zip Rescue disk, which is a fully functional Windows on a Zip disk for emergency purposes (and no, I can't get my computer to boot from my DVD drive).

 

[lazyboy]

Most of the people that use them have special circumstances. I'm a student and have to bring work in from home everday and choose not to use 180 cd's a year when I could just use 1 zip disk.

 

[nateholtrop]

my school has them in all of their computers so

Nate

 

[AncientPC]

Barrak: Use CDRW's for those. Most burners nowadays can burn CD-RW's . . .

Also, CD-R's are like 20 cents now. Besides, the only reason I have a zip disk is because all the computers on my campus are guranteed to have a Zip drive. Other than that I have no use for it (I don't have a Zip drive myself).

 

[MadRat]

Zips work better on the &quot;fast and wide&quot; sneakernet.

The CDRW takes too long to eject.

 

[Workin']

Nothing beats an internal zip drive for backing up data that gets changed every day, as long as it will fit on the media. I use mine to back up my personal financial data and my QuickBooks data all the time. CD-R/RW is too fiddly to use for that, in my opinion. Maybe that's because I have an old writer (2x2x6) .

Also, advertising agencies and graphic artists I deal with all use zip disks to send files back and forth. But they could probably use CD-R/RW just as easily.

 

[rlism]

A lotta graphic artists still use zips because they're reusable, and still a little more convenient than CDR's and the size is nearly perfect. CDRWs require software to read which makes it slightly harder to exchange files between Macs (still the graphics/designers machine of choice last I checked) and other machines.

Zips ARE the best sneakernet media just cuz of capacity and popularity.

Many backup programs also don't support CDRWs or CDRs yet and a Zip drive is much cheaper/faster than tape drives and usually offers enough capacity if someone is just backing up data files.

 

[Elledan]

I use a 250 MB Zip drive for a daily backup of my work. I could use CD-RW's for this, but in that case I would have to buy a burner, I would have to wait much longer before the backup is finished and I wouldn't be able to read the disk on some CD-ROM drives.

Why use a CD-R for a daily backup when only a part of the files have been modified?

 

[Noriaki]

I use both Zip and CD Recorder,

a Zip drive is much faster and Zip drives are a read/write media.

For example I have LiveWare! 3.0 on a CD, but I can't install it from there becuase it wants to write something to it's current directory.

I have to copy to my hard drive first and that's a pain the arse. I don't like PacketCDs...first of all you need proprietary software to read them. A Zip drive uses windows explorer, and Packet CDs are quiet slow, even a 10x RW speed isn't as fast as a Zip drive.

If Windows Explorer had Packet CD software built in, and I had a CDRW drive with about 24x RW speed I'd probably not bother to use Zip drives again.

That's not to say I favour a Zip drive over a CD Recorder, I use my CDR drive all the time to, I find it handy to have both.

 

[Eug]

Here we go again.

CD-R for large files and backups, but it is a pain to use.

CD-RW is a pain to use, and most computers cannot read the discs anyway if you use something like DirectCD.

Zip is a replacement for floppy - and that's exactly how I use it, since in academic institutions and print shops, zip is virtually everywhere.

I own both CD-RW/CD-R and Zip (250 MB), I wouldn't give up either.

 

[Mykex]

Had my zip since CDRW was still a dream and still use it for things like drivers and other updates.