No matter what the capacity of any removable-media device may be, computer
users always want more. Perhaps the Zip 250 is Iomega's belated response to these
requests.
Installation of the Zip 250 was simple and easy. Since many Mac OS and
Windows computers have Iomega software pre-installed, you may only need to
connect USB and power cables to get going.
The Zip 250's slender, compact styling make it easy to pack. Its external
power cord uses a microtransformer that doesn't hog more than one AC outlet, and
Iomega bundles a USB connection cord. A rubber cradle lets it sit
vertically--something I could never get my original Zip to do--thus saving
desktop space.
The Zip 250 USB Drive I tested looks and sounds more like a precision
instrument than the original Zip drive. The clunky sound of the original Zip is
gone. Instead of the sometimes-labored noises the original model produced,
inserting and ejecting disks is now accompanied by crisp sounds of the disk
spinning up or down and the cartridge mounting or ejecting.
The Zip 250 is backward-compatible with 150 million existing 100MB Zip disks
still being used out there. The drive mounted easily and read some of my
five-year-old cartridges in the same effortless manner in which it handles new
250MB carts. Side-by-side, the new cartridges appear identical.
USB can transfer data at 1.5Mbps, and the Zip 250 delivers data at a rate of
up to 0.9Mbps. Random-access time for the drive is 50 milliseconds, compared to
29 milliseconds for the original 100MB drive.
Through an optional ($39.95) PCMCIA cable/card, the Zip 250 connects directly
to the PC card slot on most Windows notebook computers. Transfer rates through
the PC card are the same 0.9Mbps produced by USB. In real-world tests, I copied
35 files with a combined size of 101MB from my hard disk to a Zip 250 cartridge
in three minutes and 17 seconds. Not hard-disk speeds for sure, but faster than
optical media.
The IomegaWare CD-ROM contains a collection of useful utilities that let you
format disks, diagnose problems, emulate hard drives, and perform other functions
such as backing up or copying disks. All utilities work with both the Mac OS and
Windows, but the 1-Step Backup/Restore program is Windows-only. Mac-heads get a
Control Strip module that lets them launch the software. The Windows-formatted
cartridge that accompanied the drive worked perfectly on my Power Macintosh G3
computer, but if I hadn't been using it in a mixed-platform environment, I would
have used Iomega Tools to reformat it for the Mac OS. Iomega has been on a roller
coaster in recent years, but I have a sense that it's found the way back to its
roots, and products like the Zip 250 reinforce this feeling. Iomega's Zip 250 USB
Drive is the best removable media drive I've tested since I wrote about the
original 100MB model in July 1995 issue of ComputerUser.
Sidebar
Worried About Using a Hub?
Some external USB removable-media drives, notably Imation's original
SuperDisk, can have problems during system boot-up when connected through a hub
to Apple's G3 and G4 computers. The problem disappears if the drive is connected
directly to one of the machine's built-in USB ports. Iomega's Zip 250 doesn't
seem to care how it was connected in a USB chain, and worked happily while
connected to my G3 through a Belkin four-port hub.
Sidebar 2
Iomega 250 USB Zip drive's benefits:
Runs more smoothly than its 100mb predecessor
Compatible with all Zip disks
Contains cd-rom with useful utilities
