11 Nov
1998
11 Nov
'98
11:36 p.m.
[Continuing a discussion about modern removable-media
disk drives, which
would be off-topic except that we want to use modern drives on old
computers.]
I'm using ZIPs on all Macs and some early PCs -> on topic .)
On the other hand, I've had nothing but good luck
with ZIP drives (which
I won't use zip drives either. I refuse to use an
undocumented device to
store my data. When somebody produces a service manual and a bit-level
description of the disk (as I have for all my minicomputer drives) then
I'll consider it. On the other hand, ECMA has published standards for
various optical
media, including CD-ROM, PD, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, and +RW.
But these are prety tough compared to traditional magnetig
medias (and after All, a Zip is just a high class diskette).
>> I think the problems with removable rigid
media stem
>> from the lack of any effective measure to keep contamination out of the
>> drive and disk cartridge; they've tried to use Winchester drive technology
>> without understanding its inherent limitations.
> You mean they _don't_ haev the proper air
filters? Ouch. High density
> media needs a cleaner environment than the old RK05 units, and those have
> pretty serious filters in them.
Air filters? Ha! They have nothing but a shutter on
the cartridge and a door
flap on the drive. Absolute rubbish. It's miraculous that they work even for
a few weeks.
Dame has been said on 8" FD: These will be damaged within hours
when the head engraves any particle ... But they worked well
and all FD technologies thereafter.
And on the other hand - in what way poor iomega could
gain this amount of money, other than selling cheap
tech at monopol prices.
Gruss
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
12 Nov
12 Nov
2:15 a.m.
Hans Franke wrote:
There's one on top of my wife's Win95 machine, one in my rucksack with
my notebook, one on top of this here Linux system. I've lost four or
five cartridges over the past couple of years to "click death", but
then again those cartridges spent a lot of time commuting in a cloth
bag with little climate control..
I've had good results from Iomega hardware and media ever since the
days of the 10 Mb 8" drives that backed up the data on a Tandy 6000
Xenix system. The decision to go with the Zip over the Syquest
EZ135 wasn't much of a contest. [1] A lot of my customers at the
end of the Eighties had serious problems with their Syquest drives
and [2] somebody wrote a device driver for the parallel Zip-100 for
Linux and I felt no need to add a SCSI interface to my notebooks.
I've even gotten a Zip drive to work with a Tandy 1000 by making an
adapter for the edge card printer connector on that machine. If I
was a _real programmer_ myself, I guess I'd have figured out how to
connect it to my Tandy Z-80 and 68000 equipment.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
[Continuing a discussion about modern
removable-media disk drives, which
would be off-topic except that we want to use modern drives on old
computers.]
I'm using ZIPs on all Macs and some early PCs -> on topic .) But these are prety tough compared to traditional
magnetig
medias (and after All, a Zip is just a high class diskette).
Air filters?
Ha! They have nothing but a shutter on the cartridge and a door
flap on the drive. Absolute rubbish. It's miraculous that they work even for
a few weeks.
Dame has been said on 8" FD: These will be damaged within hours
when the head engraves any particle ... But they worked well
and all FD technologies thereafter.
And on the other hand - in what way poor iomega could
gain this amount of money, other than selling cheap
tech at monopol prices. 
10:31 a.m.
I wrote about the problems with "modern" removable-rigid-media drives:
> Air filters? Ha! They have nothing but a shutter
on the cartridge and a
> door flap on the drive. Absolute rubbish. It's miraculous that they work
> even for a few weeks.
"Hans Franke" <franke(a)sbs.de> wrote:
Dame has been said on 8" FD: These will be
damaged within hours
Same?
No, no one with a grasp of how the technology works has ever claimed that a
little dust or smoke will damage a floppy disk or drive. Floppy disks use a
much different head/media interface than winchester rigid-media drives. Dust
or smoke particles can and will cause head crashes on winchester drives.
I am not a technical expert on the innards of Iomega Jaz and Syquest SyJet
and Sparq drives. However, a casual examination suggests that they use
winchester technology. This is consistent with the manufacturers descriptions
of the drives in product literature, and it is also consistent with the
high failure rate I've observed (approaching 100% after four weeks on the
Syquest drives). Winchester drive technology was developed for permanently
sealed HDAs, not cartridge drives. And even the sealed drives were designed
with air filtration.
Someone pointed out that he'd had no trouble with Syquest 230M drives; I've
personally had reasonable results with their earlier 44M and 88M 5.25 inch
drives. I don't what differences between the lower and higher capacity
drives accounts for the huge difference in reliability.
Eric
11:23 a.m.
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