Castlewood Systems ORB2II01 2.2 GB EIDE Removable Media Drive

by Castlewood Systems

Product Details

Product Manual [570kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000031KJJ
• Item model number: ORB2II01
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1999

Product Description

From Winmag®

Unseating the Iomega Jaz 2GB drive in speed and price is Castlewood System's ORB drive. With a 2.2GB capacity, the $199 ORB is about $100 less than the Jaz, and the $30 replacement cartridges are nearly one-third the price of the Jaz's.

The ORB's performance is a winner, too. We compared average read/write speed of the ORB internal IDE drive (parallel, USB and FireWire interfaces are promised for the future) with an external SCSI Jaz drive. The Jaz should have been faster but, in fact, the 5400rpm ORB pulled in front at 1.24MB per second vs. the Jaz's 0.61MBps on our standard file copy test. At that speed, the ORB rivals some hard drives.

Castlewood includes several utilities, such as drive and cartridge status, and disk eject. But more useful are an image-copy drive utility and the professional backup utility, which lets you choose files and which copied at a rate of 1.98MBps (there is no compression option). These utilities are available from a program group or by right-clicking on the drive's icon within Windows.

Our only concern: Castlewood is a brand-new company, and during the past two years, the product has been repeatedly delayed. As with many new, price-leading products, finding the drives (or, more critically, blank media) might be problematic.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars orb drive is awesome, December 29, 1999

By 

Sid (Texas man) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Castlewood Systems ORB2II01 2.2 GB EIDE Removable Media Drive (Personal Computers)

I have been stuck with a 2GB hard drive and haven't wanted to outlay the cash to upgrade an old system with a new hd. The internal orb drive is as fast as my old hd and holds more. If thats not enough I can buy new 2.2Gb disks for only 30-40 bucks. I just hope they stay in business long enough for support and media issues

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Orb drive wonderful, February 3, 2000

By 

Xang (Stanford, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Castlewood Systems ORB2II01 2.2 GB EIDE Removable Media Drive (Personal Computers)

The Orb drive has kept me from needing a new computer, since I can infinitely increase my hard drive space for my mp3 fetish. The one problem is it's extrodinarily loud when it's "thinking," but it's a small price to pay.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Orb Drive is Amazing, July 23, 2000

By 

"eswelsh" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Castlewood Systems ORB2II01 2.2 GB EIDE Removable Media Drive (Personal Computers)

I've had my Orb drive for six months, and it has been great. It's so fast you'd never know it was removable.