ALT.SF4M

  Zip, SparQ drives, etc.

   • j********o@***.com
     13/03/1998 00:00:000 UTC

     I've "rented" a few Zip parallel drives in my day, and been startled how
     slowly

     they back things up (it may be that the large single file creates the

     bottleneck - I must try just copying them *.*). Just got a $200 SparQ 1
     GB

     parallel drive and am quite satisfied. Six times faster back-up than a
     Zip (70

     minutes to MWBACKUP 300 MB), 10 X the capacity, fewer (in my case, none)
     disk

     changes, only twice the cartridge price and less than twice the device
     cost. I

     considered an internal Jaz, but with the SCSI card it's $325, plus the
     disks

     are $100 a pop or three times the SparQ disks! Another superiority of
     the

     SparQ over the Zip is that you don't need it on at boot-up to use the
     printer

     pass-through! I can't speak for the Zip-Plus, and the SparQ (parallel,
     at

     least) is probably too slow to back-up decent-sized HD's, but the SparQ
     is

     what I wanted the Zip to be. 100 MB is a lot if you just want to port
     apps

     around, I suppose, but I've run VB 3.0 seamlessly off of my faster
     SparQky

     (woof!), and Win '95 apps might exceed Zip sizes.

     I draw a particular satisfaction at being able to save my entire (small)
     HD on

     one of these - twice! With space left over for all my IDE's! Now I can
     free

     up some space for Win '95 and Java.

     Gorno

     "Word to the wise, son - immortality is no excuse not to floss." - Nick

     Knight, TPD