zipdrives are obsolete

[stev0]

is it me... or do all of cuteybunny's ideas just get shot down... ie: the cdrw being better than a cdr thread...


yes, zip drives are still widely used and are very versitile. I don't see how you can compare it to a cd though, they wouldn't even be considered a same class, disks and cd's.. The drives arn't all that expensive, and if you look around you can sometimes find them for free when you buy software. The disks, 1 gig for 50 bucks, thats also very mobile, not bad. Many graphic artists still use these to store their layouts, webpages and other things for each job. Many colleges also have them installed onto their computers so the students have something other than a floppy to put their files on. If it is a newer drive and a newer computer, plug and play makes swapping that 200 meg file with a friend very easy. The files that you don't want to put onto a cd because they arn't big enough, but you want them to be backed up... thats right, you put them on a trusty zip. I could go on and on, I'm sure you get the point.

 

[Elledan]

I use Zip-disks for backups because I can't afford a tape-drive (yet ).

Advantage Zip-disks have over CD-RW's is that the former can be used without any third-party programs and can be rewritten and formatted more than 1000 times.

 

[DuffmanOhYeah]

If I had another ide channel or wasn't too lazy to get a promise card, Id still be using mine.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Zip drives really became obsolete the day LS-120 drives hit the market. But for some reason those didn't catch on like they really should have. Hopefully the new LS-240's will fair better, they can hold twice as much as the old 120's and format a normal floppy to hold around 30 megs.

 

[Phunktion]

<< [LS240's] format a normal floppy to hold around 30 megs. >>


Is that true? A regular old floppy formatted to fit 30 megs? If so that's a hell of a good selling point..

 

[Luden]

i havnt owned a zip drive yet and dont plan to, the media has always seemed to be a little expensive. Cdrs on the other hand can be had for .25 or less each and cdroms are on most every computer...

 

[Jerboy]

Zip drive can't be compared to CD-RW or CD-R in terms of ease of overwriting, editing and compatibility. CD-RW can be wrote in packet-write to allow being used like floppy disk, but it requires reader/writer software to be installed on every computer and formatting depends on what packet write software you use to write and this is very picky. Packetwrite is also insanely slow and unreliable. If you disturb the computer while its writing file index at the center of the disc you will lose all the data.

 

[Bulldog7000]

We love our USB powered Zip250 external drives! They are Cross Platform (Mac/PC) and they are portable as hell! No power supply since they run off of the USB bus alone. We use them for taking Publications (Quark/Illustrator/InDesign/Photoshop) back and forth from printing houses. I don't think the ZIP is dead!

BDOG

 

Many MANY pieces music production equipment come with a built in zipdrive for uploading of samples and saving created samples, loops etc.
Not obsolete yet.

 

[Maetryx]

CD-R's are so cheap that I don't mind using a "whole CD" for a 10MB file, if the need arises. I don't even care much for CD-RW, because the media are so cheap that I rarely care to reclaim a used one. Just like 1.44 floppies.

 

[spanky]

<< CD-R's are so cheap that I don't mind using a "whole CD" for a 10MB file, if the need arises. I don't even care much for CD-RW, because the media are so cheap that I rarely care to reclaim a used one. Just like 1.44 floppies. >>




i don't care about wasting a cdr on a 10mb file either. but if all i needed to do was to transfer that 10mb file from one computer to another, and i had a choice between zip or cdr...i'd rather use a zip. its faster.

 

[cavingjan]

I hate wasting a cd for a 100mb file. Its just too wasteful in ways other than money. I have both a zip drive and burner here at the house and a zip drive at work. Almost all my projects get a daily backup and carried back and forth to and from work. That would be a lot of junk cds going into the landfill at the end of the week. I had a project that was constantly being updated. I simply ended up doing the whole thing on a zip so it didn't matter which computer I was on at the time. I used to simply email files back and forth but with having internet outages at work, that makes that prospect less appealing. When I get my PDA, I'm making sure the case I buy has enough room for one zip disk.

 

[kami]

<< however, want to open up a cd-burning program, and go thru the chore of making the image, and then burning the cd. know what i'm getting at? >>


chore?!!? You create a new cd, add the files and then a couple mins later you have your cd.

i hate zip disks...hell, i've even used a whole cd for files that were less than a meg before. at 25 cents/each or sometimes less, I really don't care.

 

[nateholtrop]

you guys dont go to school do you....

most students carry their work on floppies and zip drives at my school because the computers all have zip drives and it's easier for them to work on them with that 1 disk.

nate

 

[TripleJ]

<< you guys dont go to school do you....

most students carry their work on floppies and zip drives at my school because the computers all have zip drives and it's easier for them to work on them with that 1 disk.

nate >>


True. But even my zips didn't hold enough for the stuff I did. I never use my zip drive anymore. I wish CD-RW's were more universally used at schools. Maybe now that prices have dropped to more acceptable levels they will.

 

[Juniper]

Zip Disk is a nice handy thing to have, especially for students, because we do not always want to burn our unfinished projects on cds every now and then when we want to bring them around.

 

[LordJezo]

<< yeah, ok, nobody's used a floppy since 1994 as a means of transporting anything in a reliable fashion... >>




That is not true.. here on a my college campus the floppy disk is the most widely used means of people getting their papers to and from the computer labs.

There are better ways (such as ftping it) but most people have no idea how to do that.

 

[SinfulWeeper]

<<

<< you guys dont go to school do you....

most students carry their work on floppies and zip drives at my school because the computers all have zip drives and it's easier for them to work on them with that 1 disk.

nate >>


True. But even my zips didn't hold enough for the stuff I did. I never use my zip drive anymore. I wish CD-RW's were more universally used at schools. Maybe now that prices have dropped to more acceptable levels they will. >>



That they already have.

 

[RSI]

<< Actually, Zip drives are still quite useful on the Mac platform. You can't even GET an internal floppy drive from Apple anymore, and Mac OS allows you to boot from Zip disks. With 100 (or 250) MB of space on a Zip, you can make a really cool system restore disk that will let you fix corrupted file systems or copy files off of the drive.

Besides, even floppy drives are useful for certain tasks on PC's. Things like making boot disks for BIOS updates and OS install/repair disks. >>

Floppies are now useless, especially for what you described. There is not one thing that can't be done with CD-ROMs that you have mentioned about floppies. You can create boot disks with CDs, store all your BIOS updates as well as 600-700MB of whatever the hell you want. I have made several boot CDs and they are awesome. Boot the comp to a clean DOS prompt with CD-ROM support in 2 seconds.

-RSI

 

[Jzero]

<< You create a new cd, add the files and then a couple mins later you have your cd. >>



You said it right there. "a couple minutes" is an enternity these days. If I have a Quark publication that is 30-40MB with gfx, I don't want to have to waste 5 min wriiting it to CD when I can waste 30sec writing it to Zip. Furhtermore, I can keep all the tiff gfx on the same disk and I can edit them on-the-fly. There's some thing you just can't do easily with write-once media.

That and I can't easily fit a CD in my pants pocket, but I can with a Zip. Go figure.

If you're whining about the cost of the media, my Zip came with one disk. It's the only Zip disk I've ever had. If I'm finished with a project, I burn it to CD for safekeeping. Why waste a Zip disk if you don't need to have ad hoc write access?

The LS240 probably won't outrun the Zip b/c it is horrendously marketed. Same thing with the LS120. It's a brilliant and far more useful technology, esp in the way it allows you to reuse old disks, and I saw a USB LS120 for $100 came with 3 disks. So for $100 you get 600MB of storage and a drive that will give you 30MB x however many hundreds of old disks you have laying around.
Too bad they won't try to get the OEMs to push it or push it themselves.

Back to topic, Zip and CDR each have their uses.

 

[no0b]

Why not get one of those usb memory key chain things? Just about every computer has a usb port. It would be cheaper than getting a zip drive and media.

 

[Jzero]

<< Why not get one of those usb memory key chain things? Just about every computer has a usb port. It would be cheaper than getting a zip drive and media. >>


You kidding? Those things are like $50 for 8MB! You could get a USB Zip100 + 1 disk for $75.

 

[MrCodeDude]

Yeah... Too bad I have two Zip drives.. A 100mb Internal and a 100mb External (parallel port, no usb).
It was useful transporting things back and forth between my parents computers before we had the home network set up.
-- mrcodedude

 

[IGBT]

Costco sells 100/250 meg zip media in blister packs at a more then reasonable price. And they sell lots of em. If you like em use em. Otherwise don't torture yourself. Lots of hand wringing over zips out here today.

 

[kgraeme]

I like my Zip. I like my CD burner. I use both for different things. CD burning doesn't obsolete Zip, it complements it.

There have been some things introduced that could make the Zip obsolete though. Iomega introduced the Click! drive. Good idea, but it seems that Iomega has used up their marketing clout. For a while I really wanted PCMCIA slots on desktop computers. Like about 6 of them. They could have become the new expansion method providing drives, LAN, video, wireless, etc... And it would have let PCs have a much smaller form-factor. But it never happened. Really, I see SmartMedia, CompactFlash, etc being the Zip replacement. Much smaller form factor. The price still needs to come down and desktop connecting drives need to become more ubiquitous, but it's getting there. Not just for digital cameras anymore.