About the speed of Parrellal ZIP. (it kills me).

[kongkong]

Just bought a Parrellal Zip drive, it takes around 30 minutes to copy 90+ MB files from the Zip disk to my hard drive. That really sucks. It takes only 16 minutes or so for me to burn a CD-RW by using Rich 7040a (4x4x20). Since this drive is a refurbished product, I am wondering if anyone here can tell me if this extremely slow speed is normal or not. The spec on the box shows it could transfer up to 20 MB /min, it is a straight lie.

If all my friends have internal Zip, I won't even consider a parrellal Zip Drive. Now, what I am supposed to do with it?

[Mntsnow]

What type of parallel port are you using? Have you run the Iomega program called "port accelerator"? You are on the way slow side of things. 90 megs usually takes my wifes parallel zip about 5-7minutes.

Mntsnow

[runnin_guy]

My Zip drive is also really slow. I know that it took about 5 minutes just to copy a 20 Meg file. I tried the port accelerator, but it didn't do anything. I guess that you can't return the refurb'ed drive, you can always use it as a doorstop /forum/smile.gif

[Ed_S]

Mine runs prety close to what Mntsnow said, more or less. Never actually timed it, but that seems right. Accelerator util didn't seem to affect it.
Mine's on secondary LPT port along eith the scanner, printer is alone on mb's LPT1.
If your's is with the printer this could cause problems, I know some Canon's are very peculiar about port sharing.

[Mntsnow]

Ed S,
You might be on to something there....Wifes is on a seperate port as well. She has a SIIG duel Parallel card installed so the Printer (lpt1), Scanner(lpt3) and Zip(lpt2) have a LPT port to them selves.

Mntsnow

[bdog]

My dad just got a USB Zip drive for his laptop today and had me help him set it up. Man than sucker is fast. I really couldn't tell the difference in speed between it and my internal ide model. I would say it is definitely worth the extra thirty bucks.

[DLazlo]

I benchmarked my Imation 120Mb superdisc drive on SiSoft Sandra and it beat the pants off a zip drive! Maybe you should check them out.

[LazMan]

Yup. Ed_S is right on the money with his comment. I have numerous computers and I travel with my Zip drives using them as service devices to transfer information from client machines to client machines or whatever. I've run into instances where the parallel Zip drive will lock up computers, cause system freezes and all sorts of problems. The bottom line I've found is that the parallel port is designed for printers, not for disk drives. You can get good results from Parallel Zip Drives if you don't hook up a printer and you are using a newer motherboard (the really old motherboards do not perform well at all - the ones on 486s are really terrible - but they'll work if you're patient...).

Or, you can use a parallel switchbox but you'll have to run the 'GUEST' program anytime you want to use the Zip Drive. But, a parallel switchbox can cause other latency issues - especially with printers that have TSRs on the PC running periodic maintenance routines - which is the root of where the port-sharing problems lie when you use the pass-through connector on the Parallel Zip Drive.

Bottom line - you're Parallel Zip Drive is running slow most likely because you have a printer running through the pass-through connector. On Win98 and some Win95s, this pass-through is further stymied by the system periodically querying your ports. Some BIOS's also query ports - causing all sorts of problems with Parallel Port devices that try to pretend to be SCSI devices.

There's numerous reasons for slowness. All may not be lost. It could be simply a matter of systematically troubleshooting the problem by removing devices one at a time (leaving the Zip Drive connected) and trying to remain as non-intrusive as you can (don't get inside the case - that's not the problem). It could also be that you didn't install the drivers correctly or the drivers are conflicting in a minor way with other processes or TSRs. Try running the Zip in what I call 'GUEST' mode - copy the 3.5 floppy that came with the drive onto a 'folder' on your HD, uninstall the original Zip program that you installed from CD and run the program 'GUEST.EXE' in that folder you copied. See if that runs things differently.

Last, but not least, if you think the drive is at fault - your refurb drive has a warranty and if you haven't spent too much time with all this, you should be able to deal with it.

GOOD LUCK!

/forum/smile.gif

Laz

[Carl Uman]

Be sure that you are using EPP or better yet ECP as the type of LPT port. There should be a setting for this in your BIOS.

In general Parallel port devices other than printers cause a lot of problems and even more so then pass through is involved. If I need to transfer files I write a CD or for <1MB files I use email. Otherwise get internal or USB devices.

[kongkong]

Thank all you guys very much! Especially Mntsnow for his email, and LazMan for his such a long post!

After all, I followed Mntsnow's suggestion, got the port accelerator and ran it. All, that is purely ****, it runs 10 times faster now!! it takes only 3 - 4 minutes to copy the same files, around 90+ MB. :-)

I am very pleased with this result. Though I cannot say I love Zip product that much, still. You know, one out of my three newly purchased disks died after second use. That is too ridiculous. How could we trust something like and use it as backup tool. But not bad as a transport vehicle to move things around.

Thanks all you guys. It is amazing that I didn't notice there is something like this port accelerator in any documents.

[Mntsnow]

Glad to hear it helped! BTW I had Kong download the newest software from Iomega and run the port accelerator program.

Mntsnow