Iomega 100MB USB Powered Zip Drive for PC/Mac
Top Reviews:
I had some old zip drives that I neede to retrieve files from and this product worked great!
Stores files. Reliable. Good stuff.
As advertised
03068B01:IOMEGA ZIP 100 PLUS ZIP DRIVE
Top Reviews:
Iomega's Zip drives are finicky, hence not five-star, but you can't live without them, if you have 1990's or prior files. Because, Windows hardware compatibility options are limited. Gone are the 3.5" floppy drives, on machines post 2006 (for the most part: GET ONE, if you find it). Gone too, the 5.25" floppy drives. You can still buy external 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives that attach to parallel ports -- but most modern machines only have USB ports. You can use a Belkin parallel-to-USB converter, whew.Still, mass copying of all those old floppies, is better done in other ways. Like, to one of the Zip drives. The 100MB is more important, as it will hook up to a DOS machine. If you have a lot of old floppies OR such a machine, backup is faster. And, then you just pop your Zip disk or unhook the drive and move it, to your newer machine(s). The drive is instantly recognizable in XP. (I didn't yet test it on Vista or Win7, but presumably it is still readable.)Not too fond of the included backup and copy utilities Iomega carries, but they do work in Windows, if you need them to do it. Not sure all Windows machines can operate these utilities, especially post-XP, but for sure the Zip disks can be read and written on.My favorite use is to have one Zip drive hooked up to my main 486, for copying the whole drive, using XTREE copy. Then, just pop the disk in one of my Windows machines with internal Zip drives. Or, pop the disk into my Zip 250 drive, and read it. Iomega warns that you might not be able to read a 100MB disk in a 250MB Zip drive, but I don't remember ever having problems.Where I've had problems, is that the Zip drive itself, suddenly won't eject, and won't read the disk either. So here at this price, you can afford to pick up several, in case (as will happen eventually), the drive will eat the disk. The older the drive, the more reliable it is (the newer 250 drives with their glassy sapphire appearance are not as good in quality).Disk copy and storage is just like with a floppy or hard disk. But prior to XP, you may have to use the Iomega-included software, to read the files. You do NOT need that software, if you still have XTREE GOLD; for instead, your config.sys and autoexec.bat files set up the drivers, when you booted.So I now have four external Zip drives: two bought here at Amazon, 100MB (replacing the 100MB which had died), and two 250MB (one of which has eaten a disk and won't work). For true long-term storage, eventually copy your zip drives to a CD. One CD will hold 5-7 of your Zips, depending on the CD type. And of course one DVD will hold up to almost 10 times that amount.The only other alternative, is Imation SuperDisk. See my review on it, here in Amazon.Yell at me if you've questions!
Iomega ZIP 250 - Disk drive - ZIP ( 250 MB ) - Parallel - external - blue
Top Reviews:
Large and heavy enough to beat someone to death and steal their usb drive.
Throwback to early 2000s. You can have something that holds 1/500th of a flash drive for double the price.
How many times have you traveled back in time but only had a current day USB drive or something even newer from the future and had no way of copying off those files from, say, an IBM PC Model 50?These ZIP drives are a life saver!