Jay Jacobson (nin@goodnet.com)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 22:44:38 -0700 (MST)
Ahh...the one aspect I forgot...compatibility. :) Then I see your point.
For my case, I still believe my SparQ investment was a good decision -- I
use the drive to transport files between home and work (work = OC3
connection : home = 56K -- you see the point :) You mention the
'ruggedness' of the Zip disks. What is inside the casing? Is it 'floppy'
material? One of the first things I noted about the SparQ is that inside
the disk is not floppy -- it is actually remniscent of a hard-drive
platter. Is the Zip a hard-metal platter also (I don't know about Zip, but
I think Jaz uses platter(s)).
~Jay
- J a y J a c o b s o n
- -----------------------
- Network Engineer, ISP -- 602.303.9500 -- 888.Good.Net
- jay@good.net -- www.kinetic.org
On Tue, 20 Jan 1998, David Campbell wrote:
|> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 20:55:16 -0700 (MST)
|> From: Jay Jacobson <nin@goodnet.com>
|> To: David Campbell <campbell@gear.torque.net>
|> Cc: linux-parport@torque.net
|> Subject: Re: [PARPORT] Zip Plus status
|
|>
|> I have a question. Don't take this the wrong way -- I am not trying to be
|> condecending. I am just curious -- why do people buy Zip (or Zip +) drives
|> when they only hold 100 MB. Retail here (in Phoenix) the Zip + (external)
|> drive is $199. For the same price, the Syquest SparQ drive holds 1 GB. As
|> well, the SparQ has a faster seek time, and faster transfer rate. If I
|> remember correctly, Zip + seek time is about ~24ms, while the SparQ is
|> 12ms. The Zip + sustained transfer rate is ~1.0 MB/sec, again, the SparQ
|> is ~1.25 MB/sec. (Stats are for par-port ocnnections, not SCSI) With the
|> cost of SparQ media being only $99 for three disks ( = 3 GB ), that can't
|> be it either.
|>
|> Like I said, I am not trying to start a war, I am just curious...
|
|The ZIP+ is either a parallel port OR a SCSI device depending on what it is
|hooked up to. The TechSpecs for the SparQ is a little sparse (looking at
|the web page here). The ZIP drive has a head transfer rate of 1.4 Mb/sec
|with a bus speed of approx 60Mb/min.
|
|*think carefully* This has absolutely nothing to do with performance.
|
|I think the SparQ is being sold cheaply to get some installed base. The
|total number of ZIP drives sold is something like 50 million (I could be
|wrong here...) The chances are your neighbour has a ZIP drive.
|
|Summary: Iomega won the first battle by introducing the PC owners
|cheap removable bulk storage. SyQuest at the moment appear to be waging
|war against Iomega in terms of price to regain ground.
|
|The war is not over yet by a long shot, pray that they don't change the
|parallel port interfaces in a hurry as it causes headaches for the Linux
|driver hackers. Arrggg!!!!
|(I am assuming Grant sympathises with the above comment)
|
|David Campbell
|
|PS: One thing that I like about the ZIP drive is that the cartridges are
|extremely rugged. At work we send them by courier around the world
|(actually from Phenoix of all places) WITHOUT being in a padded bag of any
|kind. HDD don't survive anything like that, I know as I have a 2 Gb paper
|weight sent to me from our Singapore office (5 hours flight north of
|Perth, Western Australia).
|=======================================================
|campbell@torque.net (Parallel port device related mail)
|dcampbel@p01.as17.honeywell.com.au (For all other mail)
|
|Just when you thought you have seen every possible
|parallel port chipset there is, some manufacturer comes
|out with a new quirk. Just to make things worse, every
|mainboard manufacturer on the planet decides to use it.
|
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed 30 Dec 1998 - 10:17:20 EST