The Iomega 250Mb internal Zip drive has been around now for a few years. Many of you will be familiar with its predecessor, the 100Mb version which was a landmark piece of kit at the time.
So you spend your hard earned dosh and what do you get? Well first of all there are two main packages around. There's the retail version which comes complete with an ide cable, power supply adaptor cable, 5 1/4" adaptor housing, screws, one 250Mb disk and Iomega software. The second version is the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) type which consist of nothing but the drive unit itself. So, if you're a computer buff you'll probably have a good deal of knowledge and a bag or two of the relevant spares so you might want to settle for the OEM. For those with less
knowledge I would definitely recommend the retail pack. Expect to pay around £45 for the OEM and maybe another £15 more for the retail version. As with all computer stuff shop around for the best deals.
Assuming you've bought the retail version my advice is to carefully read and follow the instructions. Be patient and take your time. Providing you do this you should be fine. If someone you know has computer knowledge get them to give you a hand, or at least keep an eye on you while you install the drive. The installation instructions provided are simple and basic but quite adequate for the task.
Thing's to go wrong while installing the drive? Not much if you watch what you're doing. Most common errors involve master/slave settings on those drives sharing an ide cable and forgetting to fit the power supply cable.
Assuming all has gone well you now come to the big moment. Switch back on your computer and with a bit of luck Windows XP will pick up the drive and your away! The operating system fully recognises the Iomega 250Mb drive and really that's all there is to it. You can see it either by double clicking my computer or by selecting windows explorer. The software supplied by Iomega gives you some extra features not found by the operating system alone. These include drivers for older systems and extra programs for backups, copying, formatting etc. all done with nice simple layouts that are easy to follow. My own favourite is the ability to password protect your disks from unauthorised viewing. This allows you to keep confidential information on your disks with a degree of security. However make sure you remember your passwords as the only way to recover your disks otherwise is to reformat your disks - which will wipe out all your precious data. Nasty!
The 250Mb drive is fully compatible with 100Mb disks but you will find that the performance, in terms of speed of access and retrival of files is much reduced. This is a real pain if your busy and have lots to do. With the 250Mb disks the performance is much better and quite acceptable. The drive is quite in operation and trouble free. My only problem is that sometimes the eject button on the front doesn't eject the disk and I have to go into Windows Explorer and eject the disk using the software. This however is not a fault with the drive but an issue with the software not fully 'releasing' the drive. I'm used to this so it causes me no grief at all but it's a bit puzzling when you first encounter it. I'm not sure if all computers will suffer this - it will depend on which combination of software you are using.
This is a product that's now been around for a quite a few years. They were supposed to kill off floppy disks, though strangely these still linger around in just about every PC. Certainly they are far superior to floppy drives both in terms of performance and capacity. Newer Iomega 750Mb drives have now appeared and there are other storage options such as CD and DVD writers available. However if you are already an Iomega user or a fed up floppy disk sufferer who regularly needs to write and rewrite files then the 250Mb Iomega could find a place in your home or workplace. I've used a few of these over the years and never had a problem. My only comment is to watch out for other computer users - it's not uncommon for them to try and insert a floppy disk into the slot - these can get caught inside and break the mechanism - you have been warned!
Overall a good product with a good storage capacity. So its goodbye floppy disks - hello Zippy!
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Advantages: quicker than floppys, holds several hundread MBs of data, easy to carry around Disadvantages: will need a zip drive, not all computers will have them
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