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Subject:SUMMARY: data storage media From:John -dot- Cornellier -at- PARIS -dot- IE -dot- PHILIPS -dot- COM Date:Tue, 16 Sep 1997 15:00:42 +0200
Thanks to everyone who replied to my post asking about alternatives to floppy
disks for backing up, archiving, and transporting large amounts of data. I had a
request to summarise, so:
People love Zip drives! Couple of people liked Iomega. The parallel version is
"easier to install and much slower than the SCSI version". Apparently it's
better not to work off docs or run files off the Zip - copy them to your HD
first.
Eleven out of 11 top technical writers recommend Zip Drives. Read some of their
testimonials:
"indispensible"
"a Zip drive made my life significantly easier."
"A Zip drive is a God-send ... easier to organize the material ... I love it."
"Perfect ... installs flawlessly ... use at home, uncable and use at work,
uncable again and take to a party"
"more likely to do backups ... an infinitely large, completely interchangeable
HD ... I highly recommend the ZIP drive."
"Taking work home never easier ... if I had to have just one zip to share
between home and work, it would be a parallel port model ... tough to go wrong
with either model, really."
"infinitely convenient ... take the drive itself with you and plug it in to any
PC with a printer port"
Regarding the continued use of floppies (if you must...), I had a recommendation
for a compression scheme called LHA.
In my original post I mentioned having problems with disk spanning in Winzip.
One correspondent wrote that "PKZIP disk spanning doesn't work with disks that
have had zipped files or spanned zipped files on them in the past, even though
the old files have been erased. Something in the disk (perhaps a FAT or a
special FAT that PKZIP sets up, or something?)". Another recommend using the old
DOS Zip, rather than Winzip.
In the end I PKZip V2.04, with the full disk format switch.
Time to get a Zipdrive.
john -dot- cornellier -at- paris -dot- ie -dot- philips -dot- com
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