zip drive

[enhanced08]

are zip drives nice to have? i got the chance of getting the drive for free, i just need some disks, is it worth it to own even tho i have a CD burner?

[glc]

Not if you have to pay for the zip disks.

[Force Flow]

I've had one for a few years and the only time I've ever used it was for backups before I have a burner or when I needed to transfer files to a mac. Other than that, 99% of the time it just sits there inert.

[oryx]

You didn't say whether the drive was internal or external, but an external parallel drive can be handy because you can plug it into any computer.

[enhanced08]

its internal. i might end up getting it just to have but maybe not.

[glc]

It's not a bad thing to have if it's free - if someone has a zip disk that needs to be read you can do it, but it's a waste buying cartridges.

[Force Flow]

Last time I checked, they were $12 a piece for the zip100 disks. A lot of $$ to spend on something that isn't used much.

[discodanman45]

Flashdrives are making Zipdrives into overpriced data storage. If you have to buy a zipdisk I would recommend buying a 128 MB flash drive instead. You can get flash drives for about $30-$40 now and they are a lot more handy. Use it as a key ring and it will always be with you.

By the way I checked ebay and you can get zipdisks for pretty cheap there. 5 brand new disks sell sometimes for $15-$20 including shipping.

[glc]

That's still at least twice the cost of a CD-RW which holds 6.5 times more data - and 10 times the cost of CD-R in bulk.

[discodanman45]

I totally agree with the proce arguement. I use zipdisks since the computers at my school don't have cd-r drives, but they all have zipdrives. I guess going to a state school sometimes means adapting to their technology. I also had problems with some cd drives recognizing cd-rw and cd-r disks. I never once had a problem with my zipdisk.

[enhanced08]

eh, maybe i'll use it for backups on my network. i hate CD-RWs.

how big of a disk can you get?

[discodanman45]

It depends on your drive. There are three different drives. The two common ones are 100 MB and 250 MB. There is a 750 MB zip drive that came out. I think they were trying to take on CD-R drives with that one.

The 100 MB drive uses only 100 MB zipdisks. With the 250 MB drive I believe you can use both 250 MB and 100 MB zipdisks. The 750 MB drive will only write to 750 MB and 250 MB disks.

[enhanced08]

o, i didn't know they had a size for each drive. (100mb drive uses 100mb disk) i thought there was one drive and different sized disks. i'll have to see what size it is before i get it.