Customer Reviews

Iomega 10919 Zip 100 Drive (Parallel Port)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I think that this is a half-and-half deal. I mean, the drive has an acceptable price, but being someone who has to back up information frequently, this does the job better, but there are much cheaper drives out there. The disks are pretty expensive, though, anywhere from less than $10 to more than $15; it depends where you buy it and how many you buy. Iomega's tech support is ridiculous, however, you'll find that they charge about $25 each time you call for help. I would recommend the Jaz drive or Castlewood's 2.2 GB Drive (cheap, huge capacity).

I have enjoyed the convenience of my zip drive- My university's graphics computers have zip drives, the local Kinkos have zip drives in their computers, my parents even have a zip drive now. Its a nice, accepted standard, and for the price the disks read fast and work well- unlike 3.5 floppies, no zip disk has ever corrupted data for me. Zip disks are made of sturdy plastic which you can safely keep in your (shirt) pocket without damage.

The strongest competetitor to the zip disk standard is the 120 MB super-drive, which is a drive that is backwards-compatible with 1.6 MB (traditional)3.5 floppies, so you can totally replace your old floppy drive and still have it when you need it. A couple years ago it was expected that this drive would blow Iomega zip out of the picture, but super-floppies haven't really caught on.

In terms of exchanging data between computers in the same house, it is suprisingly simple to run an ethernet network instead- and there are other advantage besides transfering files- such as printer sharing and web sharing.

-Note. I think the zip 100 is more functional for the price than the 250 zip. -(For backing up really large files, the best thing these days is a cd writer or re-writer.)

The Zip100 is a minimum necessity for today's larger and larger file formats - MPEG, MP3, and multiple images files can easily run up to 100MB. I've used the Zip since its inception when it knocked old Syquest 88MB drives out of business about 5 years ago. The size and convenience is why there is really only one choice for removable media with easy and immediate read-write capability.

There are definite pluses and minuses. Some will say get a CD-R(W) drive - but burning a CD is definitely not as immediate as a Zip. The parallel port is a major bummer because of the thru-speed. But those of you who are not major speed demons won't be disappointed compared to a floppy. The Zip drive allows daisy chaining so you can connect/output to other peripherals.

Iomega cut cost on the power on/off (it's always on when plugged in). But really the overall design is very good - you can place it flat or vertical. Even though the thick parallel cord may tend to twist the main unit.

There are a plethora of other Iomega choices. And I would really ask yourself if you are planning on USB or SCSI - each are noticeably faster. On the plus side, the 100MB format is so common in print shops, university labs, and copy places that you can't go wrong. Plus the price of each disk is recognizably less than the 250MB. Seriously think about your file formats. If you plan to do a lot video - you'll need to go with a Jaz. And you can get these refurbished for about the same cost and hold 1Gig. The only barrier to entry is the SCSI necessity and the extra cost of disks. Overall, the Zip100 has been a major workhorse for me - back and forth between work and home/Mac and PC MS98/NT. It has performed flawlessly.

This device has essentially been eclipsed by its own success. Now the solution-of-choice only for older machines (more than 2 years), or for mobile professionals who want to make absolutely sure that they'll be able to connect a ZIP drive to any PC they encounter, this most basic ZIP drive should be avoided by most purchasers.

Fact is, if you need to be mobile with your ZIP, you should go the USB route these days. Every new PC and Macintosh comes with USB connectivity, and the difference in access speed is great enough to justify the minimal extra cost. This parallel port machine is the very slowest ZIP drive available. If you download files of any size (1M or more) you will notice the difference.

You'll also notice the difference between this model and an internal model. Make sure that you really need to be mobile with the drive itself before you choose an external model. As has been stated in other reviews, the ZIP-100 has become something of a standard nowadays, and many machines come with a ZIP drive pre-installed.

Also, even though the price is attractive, think carefully about choosing this model if you plan to do much printing. Most printers use the parallel port, and although you can hook up both a printer and this drive to the same port, you can't use both simultaneously. This is disasterous if you attempt to print a file from the ZIP drive. It can be done, but it takes a lot longer than printing from other drives. Also, forget about accessing the ZIP drive if you've sent a print command. Your parallel ZIP drive will be unavilable for the duration of the print.

Having said all this, I absolutely agree with other reviewers who praise the ZIP-100 format. It's got the broadest-based installation of any ZIP format, so chances are you'll be able to port your data more successfully with a ZIP-100 than any other format. True, 100mb is starting to look like small, but it's still an awful lot of room for almost everything but full-motion, full-sound video.

Still, I have to give this product fewer stars than it would've deserved two years ago, simply because Iomega has come out with better stuff in the interim. For many users, it would be wiser to buy an internal ZIP-100. Or, better still, buy an external USB ZIP-100 for current compatability, and leave the internal bay available for future installation of a JAZ-2MB. That way, you'll create a removable media solution that handles both past and future needs.

The Zip drive is lightweight, 5"x7"x1.5", and does what it's supposed to do at a reasonable price. Sufficient for home office use. Setup takes about 15-20 minutes to install the drivers.

We bought a parallel port Zip 100MB about three years ago for backups at home. Although we've since migrated to CD-RW (and soon a homebrewed fileserver), I have to say the Zip was a trouper. No problems, no errors, no bad disks (out of 18-20), no click of death. It's one slow mother, but hey, that parallel port connection worked on every PC I connected it to without a hitch. It served us well.

This model is quite slow, but it's not Iomega's fault, but just a result of it using the parallel port. The usage of the parallel port also uses CPU cycles, so while the thing is copying data, you might not be able to anything else but watch the egg timer.

Spend your money on a CD-R instead. A CD-R drive might cost a little bit more, but the media is MUCH cheaper, holds MUCH more data, and is more durable than the Zip format.

If you must buy a Zip drive, don't buy the parallel port model, it's far too slow for impatient people (like me.)

I've owned the Zip drive for 3 years already and have been very happy with it. The cartridges and driver are sturdy (unlike the SparQ, which was poorly manufactured). The whole thing is easy to carry around and holds the amount of data in about seventy 3.25" diskettes. I love it. :>

It was very easy at first. I could save everything with its great 100mb zip drive. I got the portable one just so I could bring it to other places. Every place I wanted to use it (ex. friends house, office) there was NO outlet in the back to plug it in. So the fact that it is portable is nothing to go crazy about. That part is no bug woop. Installing the zip drive was really easy that was why I gave it at least 3 stars. But every time I saved something on a zip my computer froze, and I don't have a crappy computer the freezes all the time. Only with the zip. The software that comes wiith it is crap. It males everything so hard. My suggestion do what I am doing now and get a cd writer.

If your computer has a USB port, you should definitely get a USB Zip drive or flash drive because this parallel-port Zip drive is really slow. However, most old computers (i.e. those made before 1997) do not have a USB port or CD-RW drives, and so this Zip drive is the ideal way for transferring data to and from such computers. 100MB Zip discs are pretty cheap, too. But keep in mind that this drive won't recognize 250MB discs. If you think you might need to use those discs in the future, get a 250MB Zip drive instead.