Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

bark_bark_bark

Are 100MB ZIP Drives still useful?

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3033 Location: Oregon

Zip Drives come in four flavors and two capacities.
The flavors are IDE, SCSI, USB, and Parallel connection.
The capacities are 100 and 250 megs.
They have a habit of dying from what is normally referred to as "The Click of Death"
So as far as being good for data storage, I would not trust them as far as a USB flash drive/stick.
In their time, they served a purpose.
But with prices of USB flash drives going down and capacities going up, they are more of a conversation piece.

I have a 250 meg SCSI zip drive on my PC as well as two IDE connection types in a drawer.
I never use the one hooked to my PC.

starhawk · Posted: Thu 04 Oct 2012, 12:21 Post subject:

There was also a 750mb ZIP disk and drive at some point. I can still buy ZIP disks from my local radio shack at some absurd price -- they have them only because nobody in the town has purchased them.

ZIP drives are old, man, times have moved on.

bark_bark_bark · Posted: Thu 04 Oct 2012, 12:51 Post subject:

Well I am using it with my old dell.

starhawk · Posted: Thu 04 Oct 2012, 13:21 Post subject:

I'm sorry to hear that Laughing

kooliepup · Posted: Thu 04 Oct 2012, 16:45 Post subject:

Don't write it past the end of the disc, or you will lose everything, and any other disc you put in that drive will be destroyed.

benali72 · Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 262

>>>>> Are 100MB ZIP Drives still useful?

Yes, but you can buy a USB memory stick with much greater storage capacity for $10.

OTOH, some folks just enjoy using what they have for free, it's your choice.

Also keep in mind ZIP drives are very slow I/O, even compared to USB memory sticks.

BTW, I should add, when I volunteer for rummage sales, we get donations of ZIP hardware. No one ever buys them, even at $1 or $2 apiece. We usualy end up tossing them at the end of the sale.

`f00

Got my zip100 back in the day when thumb and flashcards were about the same capacity (hp digital cameras shipped with an 8mb card, lol). Used it a lot for external storage (even floppies, back when everyone's comp had a floppy drive and you could give 'em away or mail for cheap).

Knew the change was in effect when disk price dropped sharply (I still bought a few since the capacity is a decent in-between). Used to be puppy would fit on a 100mb disk but there wasn't much room for a savefile Neutral

Still got a bunch of vintage s/w and stuff on 'em - guess I'm just lucky I only got the 'click-of-death' once (e-mail storage of all things, opera did a much better job wiping out my old newsgroup storage when 927 auto-updated to 950 with those ugly black icons .. not much of a loss, but more of a wakeup to auto-anything).

On the other other hand, I should probably pitch some LS120(?) disks since I haven't seen one of those for quite awhile..

bark_bark_bark · Posted: Fri 05 Oct 2012, 16:10 Post subject:

Well I also have 3 USB Flash drives (1x 1GB, 1x 4GB, 1x 16GB), but I never got use a zip drive.