Another Step Forward in Storage Products

I have been happy with my three older zip drives, and this drive is continuing my unbroken string of satisfaction with Iomega products.

Installation: The software installed cleanly. I love boring installations!

Connectivity: The drive ran fine on a hub. It helps that it is self-powered and doesn’t need to draw power off the USB line. (It comes with an adapter.) I later installed a USB 2.0 card and gave the drive its own port.

Speed: Speed is relative. Even with the obsolete USB 1, the 750 was faster than my 4x CD-RW, my previous backup engine. And now with USB 2.0, it writes a 175 MB zip file in 45 seconds.

Human Factors: A reviewer on a different site complained that this drive is so lightweight that it just scoots backwards when you try to insert a disk. He’s right. So I took a crude but effective approach to “planting” the drive. I took a big piece of duct tape and taped the drive to the top of my system unit. Now the drive is in a real handy spot, and it doesn’t budge when I insert a disk. So what if it's no longer portable, and it’s more like an internal drive. That’s OK.

Vulnerable to static discharge? It is, according to the same reviewer, who had a spark leap from his finger to the drive, and said spark temporarily knocked his drive out of commission. I have had no such problem because with the drive taped in place, I don’t have to hold it down with one hand when inserting a disk. So I don’t need to touch the case. Also, it may help that the drive is against my system unit’s metal case.

Some nitpicking criticisms:
(1) This drive is much noisier than my previous three zip drives (all internal). Its "zip" noises are loud and raspy.
(2) Dust might get inside the drive because there is more air space around the door than I have ever seen on a drive. I hope it won’t collect enough dust to damage it. I see no way to safely clean it out.
(3) Iomega innovates so quickly that any Iomega product you buy may soon be obsolete.

SAVE THE ANTI-STATIC BAG that the drive ships in. If you ever need to carry the drive somewhere, you can use the bag to protect it from static and keep that loose penny in your purse or briefcase from slipping into it.

6/30/2003: My $50 rebate check has arrived from Iomega, so I have updated the "Amount Paid" field.