Not exactly zippy... (Iomega ZIP 250)

Member Name: Stalin

Product:	Iomega ZIP 250
Date:	25/06/01 (46 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, Fairly good capacity, Robust

Disadvantages: Slow

Iomega's Zip has been around for some time now, and they have now improved it by upping the capacity to 250MB, a fairly significant improvement. I find that the capacity is good enough for general storage, but it's still not really a valid option for backing up whole drives. A shame, because if you could, this would be a great all-round device.

Installation was easy, as should be expected, and the included software, whilst being limited, works well enough. I have not had any problems with the hardware, and since I'm lugging it around the country fairly regularly, this is quite an achievement.

The big niggle, however, is the speed. The parallel interface just doesn't cut the mustard. Transferring a full 250MB of data can take upwards of 1.5 hours. If you need to transport your storage, get the USB version (which is a little faster). If you don't, get the EIDE or, better yet, the SCSI version.

As it stands, however, the Zip is the only practical method of hauling around large amounts of data (OK, you can use CD-RW, but that is too fiddly for me). Just consider whether you mind the long transfer times before purchase.

Summary: