PUT MORE ZIP IN YOUR ZIP
The venerable Zip Disk from Iomega (www.iomega.com)
has been around for a very long time and once again, it has been
improved. Originally positioned as the replacement for the lowly
floppy disk, the Zip Disk was one of the most popular removable media
devices on the planet.
The original Zip Disk capacity was 100 megabytes
and to this day, remains one of the most commonly used capacities.
Keeping in mind that the floppy disk still only holds a mere 1.44
megabytes, the 100 megabyte Zip Disk was a more than adequate
substitute. But as time progressed and the capacities of hard drives
increased into the multi gigabytes of today and the files stored on
these drives got bigger as well, the Zip Disk needed a boost to keep
up with the times. Thus the 250 megabyte Zip Disk and drive were
created. But time marched on and once again, capacities grew, plus a
new wrinkle was added, namely the recordable CD. CD-R and CD-R/W disks
hold 640 megabytes and these drives are on virtually every computer
made today. Burning a CD is easy, the media is inexpensive, and the
disks are playable on any modern computer with a CD-ROM drive, which
is virtually every computer out there.
 Given
all of that, Iomega has decided to once again upgrade its Zip Disk to
a new 750 megabyte capacity. Plus the drives now support the faster
Firewire and USB 2.0 standards as well. These high speed interfaces
give the new Zip 750MB the additional speed boost that's needed when
you are reading and writing to these higher capacity disks. And what's
nice is that for the most part, they are backwards compatible. The Zip
750MB will read and write to the 250 MB capacity disks, and can read
but not write to the 100 MB Zip disks.
Given all this, my only question is will this
product be successful? Recordable CDs store data less expensively and
are already ubiquitous. When you create a 750MB Zip Disk, the person
to whom you need to send it may not have have a 750MB Zip Drive to
read it. The only advantage I can see here is that you can continue to
use the smaller capacity disks and use the larger 750MB Zip Disks for
your personal use. Hopefully as time moves on, the 750MB Zip Drive
will become more popular. But until that time, you'll more than likely
only use them for yourself. Still, if you do use a lot of Zip Disks or
you already have one or more of the smaller capacity drives, then the
750MB Zip Drive is definitely worth your consideration. There's an
external version of the drive that supports USB 2.0, and another
external version for Firewire. All versions work on both Windows and
Macintosh computers. The external drive sells for $199.95. The Zip
750MB Disks are $12.49 each in an 8-pack.
www.iomega.com
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