Product Description

Affordable personal storage to move and backup your stuff anywhere. Expand your hard drive without limits; increase storage quickly, easily and economically, as you need it, with 250MB disks (also compatible with 100MB disks). Iomega ZIP 250MB Drive for PC expands your hard drive without limits, holding the stuff you need for work or play. They're fast, easy and familiar (like your hard drive).The 250MB Zip drive delivers a time-tested, feature-rich SuperFloppy with the highest capacity of any product in its category. Best of all, current Zip 100 drive users need not worry about their investment in 100MB Zip media - the new Zip 250 drive reads and writes 100MB Zip disks as well as 250MB Zip disks (optimum performance is gained using 250MB media).

Product Details

• Brand: Iomega
• Model: 10918
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98

Features

• 250 MB version of classic parallel-port Zip drive
• 0.8 MBps maximum sustained transfer rate
• 4 milliseconds minimum seek time
• Detaches easily and goes where you go. Can piggyback your printer or anything that uses the parallel printer port.
• IomegaWare CD-ROM includes all the Iomega software you need to operate your drive

Amazon.com Review
Remember when floppy drives ruled the land of backup storage? With hard drives becoming ever more cavernous and file sizes becoming more bloated each year, it's a wonder those atrociously slow floppy drives still come standard on every computer. Maybe it's time you moved up to something faster, better, and more capacious. A Zip 100, you say? Maybe last year. But why bother with that when you can get a Zip 250?

As you likely have gathered from the name, Iomega's Zip 250 uses 250 MB disks for incremental data backup. Since the media is removable, you can buy new disks when you need more storage instead of buying an entirely new drive. The 250 MB capacity is a much more reasonable standard for shuttling around files than the 1.44 MB diskettes used by a typical floppy drive.

You might be worried about purchasing a drive that uses a parallel interface, as that's the port most printers occupy. Iomega thoughtfully has designed the Zip 250 with a pass-through port, meaning you can attach the drive to the PC and then attach a printer to the Zip drive. It worked flawlessly in our tests. The drive comes with both an AC adapter and a parallel cable, along with one 250 MB Zip disk--everything you need to get started.

Zip drives always have been designed well, and the Zip 250 is exceptional in this regard. There's a well on the side for the power plug so it doesn't protrude from the jack. This makes it possible to stand the drive on its side if it's taking up too much space lying flat.

Zip products have been around long enough that the software for them has had plenty of time to mature. The included CD-ROMs contain useful tools like Copy Machine, which lets you copy a Zip disk using a single Zip drive, and a one-step backup/restore utility, which easily backs up files from your hard drive. We also liked the included Norton Zip Rescue Disaster Recovery software, which lets you make a working backup copy of your Windows installation so you can easily restore it if the system goes bad. It works much better than the Startup Disk utility included with Windows 95 and Windows 98.

The main drawback to the parallel-port Zip 250 is its abysmal transfer rate. Peaking at 0.8 MB per second, we're talking at least five minutes for a 250 MB transfer. That's under perfect circumstances, and we all know how often computer users encounter perfect circumstances. Regardless, it's better than the 1.44 MB floppy drive it replaces, and most users won't need to transfer more than a few megabytes worth of data at a time. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Backward compatible
• Smart design
• Excellent software
• Shares parallel port with printer

Cons:

• Slow transfer rates
• Compatible only with Windows PCs

Customer Reviews

Good for backup
What is good about this zip drive is that it is very easy to install, and requires basically no configuration, just plug in, and install the software. The one thing I don't like about it is it sometimes freezes up your computer while you are backing up files. I mean you don't have to restart the computer or anything, you just can't do anything else for a couple minutes. Sometimes that can be a pain. All in all though, its still a good product.

Why when you could get a CD burner for the same amount?
I received my Zip drive about four years ago when I began developing PowerPoints that exceeded 23 megs. It was a great storage medium at the time and the portability of the drive was very helpful.

I then bought a CD-RW two years ago and haven't touched my Zip drive since. The CD-RW drives give you all the storage flexibility of the Zip drives but they store more data (unless you purchase the 2 gig Zip Drive), they're cheaper, and more portable and can work across platforms. I can backup my files on a CD and copy them onto another computer. I can create discs of my MP3 files to play back on this or other computers.

In the end, it simply is easier to burn a CD and use it on another computer. For example - some time ago I helped a friend of mine put together a presentation on a medical case he had. With all the digitized pictures and cat scans, the power point and graphic files exceed several megs - too many for a floppy. I could have given him a Zip disk and my Zip drive but he would have had to connect the Drive to his computer, install the software, and then copy the files over. Instead, I burned him a CD with the PowerPoint and all supporting files. He simply placed it into the presentation computer and was using it 30 seconds later. It doesn't get much easier than that.

Zip drives are seing the end of their days. I would suggest looking at the Zip CD's and the CD-RW if you're considering purchasing a Zip Drive.

Wrong Choice: Parallel Port External Drive
Troubleshooting tips in the User's Manual are a warning for what you can expect. Examples: "Computer hangs on reboot or does not operate correctly" and "Zip drive transfer speed seems slow". Forget tech (phone) support unless you enjoy long wait times. Email tech support turnaround response time within a day or two is usually a general answer to a specific question. If you have a choice, don't waste your money on this parallel device -- instead buy the USB version.