Zip drives v. tape drives - is there really a choice?

[Medea]

I've noticed that a good number of people use zip drives which, I assume, are for backups - even on new rigs with good-sized hard drives that they are currently building.
Why would anyone want to use zip drives when tape backup drives are so much easier/quicker/reliable, and so less expensive (those individual zip disks can add up in costs).
Am I missing something here?

 

[GoldenTiger]

They're an "industry standard" so people stupidly feel compelled to use them. Same with tapes. Go for a CDRW drive: FAST, about 1-10 cents per disc, high capacity, and longetivity, as well as being rewritable .

 

[esung]

Tape isn't cheap, isn't fast, and it isn't easy to use. The only advantage of tape is that it's storage capacity, and relatively speaking reliability. You'll need special software to access the tape units, and it isn't as portable as ZIP drives, I'm not sure if there's USB version of the DAT drives that you can take with you or not (probably not).

but Tape backups and Zip drives are 2 different sector of the storage. Tape is usually for backups offers large amount of storage space. Zip is the portable storage unit, just like floppy (well, LS-120, HiFD, UHC...all share the same sector). people use ZIP for it's ease of storage and portability.

But personally I don't like either, I prefer CDR/Ws for my personal
backup.. it's cheap, and it's fast (12x), and it's nearly universal
(well, most of the machine now have CDROMs don't they ? )


just my $0.02

 

[thegreatjeff]

Yeah I like CD-RW's (I have one in fact, it's cool) but I like Zip because you can add and remove stuff just like a floppy. I have a 100mb unit but I don't use it because it was too slow (parallel) and also I'm working at removing ALL cords from my computer...i.e. zip drive, modem cord (I don't use my modem, I use the in-house network), network (removing this soon...gonna get a wireless model).

 

[Medea]

Yeah, I agree. But I'm talking about someone who is not getting a CDRW right now for their new rig (probably to save on the bucks) but they're getting the zip drive.

I'm one of those people who have to wait a while before getting a CDRW but I'm not going to backup on zips. I have one from a few years back to switch to backing up on it, and to carry stuff on them from one computer to another which weren't housed in the same place. But that taking out & inserting the next zip drove me crazy, so I went back to tape drives. Laplink is just as good for transferring info from one to another whether they're housed in the same place or not.

BTW, using zip drives ends up to be more expensive. Last time I looked, zips were up to 200 mb, but when you do the math after you've reached your 35th zip disk, you've spent a lot of money.

I guess each to his own...

 

[DaveJ]

FWIW, I wouldn't trust any valuable data to a Zip disk, I've seen too many drives have problems. Removable media in general (Zip, Jaz, Orb, Syjet) is nowhere near as reliable as a DAT or 8MM tape, or secondary HD. CDs are convenient, but I have WAY more than 650MB to back up and having tons of CDs around isn't an answer. The solution? I have a 33GB (66GB compressed) tape drive for normal system backups, and a CDRW for file exchanges and portability. It works quite well... for those that say tape backups are slow, my Ecrix tape drive backs up roughly 11-13GB/hr, which is plenty fast enough for me...

Dave

 

[Erasmus-X]

Zip is still a very popular format among colleges because a lot of the time you need to move around files that are too big to fit on a floppy from computer to computer. Even CD-RWs become a bit impractical seeing that most campus computers aren't even equipped with recordable drives. It still has its uses, contrary to what a lot of people seem to think.

Tape drives on the other hand are only practical for doing daily backups of servers and databases. It's too cumbersome and expensive now for personal use.

 

[BIGGDOG]

Well I ohave an Onstream 30 gig DI and it seems to back up about 4 gigs per hour. You can also just drag and drop your music on the tape and even play off the tape drive it self.

$149.00 for the drive and 33.00 for each 30 gig tape. I used to have a 45 gig drive for all of my music and utilities but one morning I heard a clicking and went to check on it and damn my Hard drive expired. So now I have the onstream tape drive.

 

[Eug]

<< I've noticed that a good number of people use zip drives which, I assume, are for backups - even on new rigs with good-sized hard drives that they are currently building. >>

They are NOT (or should not be) for large backups. The true niche of zip drives is as a replacement for floppies, and I would never build a system for myself without zip drive access (250 MB version, not the piddly 100 MB). Tape drives are better suited for system backups, but are virtually useless as a storage medium otherwise. Plus, it suffers the same lack of reliability of other magnetic media. CD-RW is OK, but not as easy to use as tape for system backups, but it's terrible as a floppy replacement, even with DirectCD.

I have CD-RW and zip, and have an older tape drive which is now not big enough for system backups. I'll probably get another tape drive later, but I will not give up either my CD-RW or my zip. However, for my most important data, that gets burnt to CD-R.

By the way, I'm setting up the graphics computer here. It's going to have both CDRW and zip.

 

[Miraluka]

Tape backups that i have used are slow, noisy, and the capacity really isn't so great. I'd much rather go with a burner and some blank cds that cost just a few cents.

 

[Zenmervolt]

For actual backups, I use CD-Rs and CD-RWs, but I love my ZIP 250 drive for transfering large files. Basically I use my ZIP drive just as though it were a large floppy, I wouldn't think of using it for backup, too small. A ZIP is almost essential in college, all the lab computers have ZIP drives, but not all of the lab computers have a CD-RW drive, so if I want to work on a group project in the labs a ZIP is really the only choice.

Zenmervolt

 

[cavingjan]

Having owned and currently using all three storage devices talked about here, I will put some comments on strong suits of each one:

tape: slow, should be used for backing up large amounts of data but will be very slow to retrieve.

zip: quick, convenient, great back up for personal files and documents only. treat it just like the over sized floppy. currently working on a big invitation list for a movie premiere and dealing with this from three computers and its easy to keep track of files since they are on one disk.

cdrw: packet writing for me has been hit or miss. Just because I put it on a cdr, doesn't mean every cdrom here at the office can read it. more importantly, we have no burners in the office as there is no need. so getting files home from the office is either via email or zip disk.

question: can you easily actively work from say a spreadsheet on the cdrw like I can with the zip/jazz? Or do you end up moving to a hard drive, working on it and then putting it back on the cd?

 

[Zach]

Get a huge 5400RPM hard drive and use Ghost or Drive Image. I'll be doing that over a network..

 

[Noriaki]

I use Zip and CDRW, both are useful, but for different things.

Zip drives are fairly plentiful at my University but CDRWs are not.

If I'm doing a project at home I can write it to a CD but what if I want to take it with me to school to work on it? No CDRW to right the new version at school. I can use floppies unless it's bigger than 1.44MB.

Sure I can set up FTP servers and crap like that on my computer..but why?

Zip disks are convinient...but I don't use them to back up data like you would a tape drive. Totally different function.