Cool machine, shame about the power cable! (Iomega ZIP 250)

Name: tigertom22

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Product:	Iomega ZIP 250
Date:	10.01.02 (164 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small , Light , Quick

Disadvantages: Needs sperate power supply, Cables very annoying

So what’s a Zip drive?
Well Zip is a computer term for compressing data. So if you have a file which is 1MB of data theoretically you could “zip it up” and it would then be 0.5MB of data, or something close.
There is one thing about Zipping that makes this more complex though. The ratio you can compress/Zip data is directly proportional to how much data you want compressed and what kind of data you want compressed.

For example:

1. A 1K file will have a bad compression ratio. Say 2%. Because it’s not much data to begin, it’s hard to make something small to begin with smaller.
2. You have 60 Gigs of data (loads) and you want to Zip it up. You’re likely to get a good compression rate. Say 30-60% (which is good). Because there is loads of data and so therefore more scope to compress.
3. You have a JPEG file. These will not compress well, because they are already compressed.
4. You a word document or a Bitmap. These compress great. Why, because anything from Windows is wasteful of space. (Try making a blank word document, takes 19k. And there’s nothing in it!)

So now you know what Zipping is and how it can and cannot work.

But I still haven’t said what a Zip drive is. Well a Zip drive, is a machine which you can use Zip up files onto a special Zip disk.

So if you have a Zip drive, you need some zip disks to go with it. You copy files onto your Zip disks by way of the Zip drive. Clear? (Hope so)

So now we come to the main bulk of the op, the 250MB Zip Drive from Iomega.

Why do I want a Zip disk?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why?
Because: it is a cheap way to store large amounts of data very securely, and it makes data very portable as you can take the disk and the drive to where you want the data to be.

The 250MB Zip Drive from Iomega allows you to use 250MB disks and 100MB disks in its drive. This means that if you had
brought an old Zip drive which only supported 100MB then you wouldn’t need to buy new disks. Both 100MB disks and 250MB disks work in this drive.

The drive itself is about the same size as Roald Dahl’s THE BFG softback book. It’s really no t very big and it’s lightweight. So you can carry it round in your, slightly large, pockets. It comes in funky electric blue and it’s got grippy sides so you don’t drop it when playing rugby with it J

Now once you’ve set up the drive and its in use, it works fantastically creating a removable drive on your computer that you can treat like any other drive for each disc you put in. Which means you can plug in the drive and then be able to access your Zip disks for their information.

Setup
~~~~~

But unfortunately getting it set-up is a bit of a pain, when you’ve finished scrabbling round the back of your computer to put in the parallel port and you’ve wiped all the spiders out of your hair. You then have to deal with the completely irritating Power cable. Which is about 3meters long and in two bits (WHY!). The first bit has the plug on it and some connector, which goes into the other cable, which has the power socket for your drive on the end of it.
So all in all, a completely useless additional cable for you to worry about! They do it so that they can sell the drive to all countries without having to change the plugs.

Then you put in the CD and it installs. All very easy once connected.

WARNING: don’t plug it in and touch the power adapter, I have received 4 or 5 electric shocks off it already. It won’t kill but I’m getting more and more fed up of the spiked hair look.

So now you’ve got it all set-up it works great, it really does.
It’s quick, fast and easy to use. Most of the time you won’t even know it’s there. You can throw in disks and make backups of your da
ta easily.

Only problem is you brought an external drive to make it portable (otherwise you should have brought a non-removable drive) (But don’t because it costs the same and then you can’t move it), and by now you’ve spent so long getting all the cables looking nice you won’t fancy unplugging it all and going through all that again!

Summary
~~~~~~~

The 250MB Zip Drive from Iomega is a great machine.
Small, lightweight sleek looking and copies data pretty damn fast.

Technically it does what it should and it does it well. Being able to access quickly disks of 250MB is no mean feat. This is a great machine. It is so fast you can even listen to music from disk.

It is small and lightweight but the power cables are really gonna pee you off.
Also because it is a parallel port machine it will replace the slot at the back of your machine where you put in the printer /scanner.

I also think it is a better alternative to using CD’s for data storage. No need to sit there burning all night long.

Cost: £130 for the machine. £10 for each 250MB disk.

My advice is to spend a few more quid and get the USB version, which is a lot easier to use.
And has no damn power cable!

Happy Zipping!

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