It's not a standard item, but helpful for many.

I've had a zip drive for years. The lab I work in has one of the original Bernoili drives (these were 90 megs and bigger than the old 5 1/4's). This "next generation" drive with the thin look and curved sides that are connected via USB are so much better than it's predecessors. There is no more of the "click of death" that was on the older models that Iomega was forced to offer a recall on. This was a problem on the older boxy-looking models where you would hear a clicking sound coming from the drive which would ruin every disk you put in. The new drives do not do this.

So there are a few models out there that all run on the 250 meg format (which can read both the 100MB and the 250MB disks). There are ones that work with Firewire, I have no experience with this one. The other two are both USB. The difference between the two USB models is that one requires a plug, the other is USB powered. This is the model I have, the fact that it dosn't require a plug makes it amazingly portable.

If you have a laptop but don't like the idea of constantly swapping your drives out, or simply require multiple drives at the same time, this USB powered model is great. It's the drive and the cable, completely portable and powered by your laptop battery. With Windows as your operating system, the drives are automatically recognized. I didn't even have to install the software. This came in handy when I and my fiancee were both working on presentations for graduate school. Not every computer had a zip drive, but they all had USB's and that's all I needed. Bouncing around from computer to computer with our presentations on them was very convenient.

Re-writable: I have had a lot of bad luck with re-writable CD's. I have found them to be very unreliable and I do not trust them at all. However, zip is like any other disk. Re-use them as much as you like. Transfer files, erase, modify. That's a nice thing if you are working on a project on multiple computers. You can resave it easily without having to burn another disk or uploading it to an email account, many of which have size limits.

Lifespan: I've had zip disks that are 6 years old that I am still using. Treat them well and they will last. They are far more durable than CD's. Remember that a burnt CD does not store information the same way a CD you buy does. The information is stored closer to the bottom surface, which makes scratches far more damaging to data.

Competition: I've already mentioned that this product is more reliable for many purposes than info burned on CD's. But there are also now memory sticks. If you havn't seen these, they are great little gizmos that are small enough to fit on a keychain. They plug right into your USB port and become a mini hard drive. Curently (8/03) you can get a 128MB for about $50. 256MB are also available but have wildly varying prices across manufacturers. These are considerably faster and require no drive on your computer. They have the same benefits of being able to save, resave, and change files over and over and over again.

So in the end it comes down to, what needs do you have?

If you have files you need stored and put away, a burner is for you. CD's can be as cheap as 25 cents each after rebates.

If you are working on projects that need constant revision, or are compiling data from multiple sources. You need to decide between the zip drives and the memory sticks. If you are going to need larger amounts of storage than the memory stick involves, it's cheaper to buy multiple zip disks, which run about 10 bucks (cheaper if you hit a nice rebate).


The only reason this is not getting 5 stars is due to the cost of the disks.