External ZipDrive or 2nd HD?

[pentacles]

Which one is better;
Having a 2nd HD as your backup, or having a Iomega external 250Mb zip drive?

[bobcat]

If you are leaning towards the zip why not go with an ORB? It got great reviews last year. Don't quote me on the prices: USB: $300, Parallel or IDE for $230 and SCSI $280

2.2g cartrigdes for $29.
http://www.castlewood.com/

Don't have one yet. Too many other things to upgrade first.

[LJE2]

For a backup device, I would recommend a 2nd hard drive over an Iomega Zip, because the Zip is only 250 M, it would take several cartridges to back up most Win98 systems, It would most likely be cheaper (and faster) to buy a 2nd hard drive and use a program like Norton Ghost. If you are considering a drive like the Castlewood Orb, as bobcat is recommending, there is another alternative, a drive I personally own, it's the Onstream ADR tape drive, the cartridges are 30G compressed or 15G native, they cost about $40, and the IDE version of the drive can be had at Onvia for $261. http://www.onvia.com/usa/products/index.cfm?Task=ViewProduct&CategoryID=22569&IdCatalog=275511

This drive is very fast for an IDE drive, uncompressed I get over 60M per minute, faster than alot of SCSI tape backup drives. It's very quiet compared to other tape backup's and the software that comes with it is easy to use.

Here's a link to Onstream's site. http://www.onstream.com/

[Meat Puppet]

I agree with LEJ2, and if you can install a mobile rack with hot swap all the better.

Your avg 6.4 gig Hd is a more cost effective solution to a zip drive for total system backup purposes.

Plus if you ever get a virus backups a plugin away.

[OuTpaTienT]

Don't EVER get an external ZIP. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay slow. Internal IDE ZIP is tremendously faster! I don't know if there is a USB ZIP, or how fast it is...but a parallel ZIP is a BIG MISTAKE.

[hhh8785]

I got an external Parallel Iomega Zip Drive. It isn't that slow, slower than my HD, but I don't care about speed that much. I just use it to transfer files from computer to computer. But for backing up a computer's files, I would recommend something like a Ditto drive. I don't know that much about them, so for all I know, they might suck or something. But from what I have read, they can hold 2 GB in each cartridge, and they are pretty much just for backing up a HD. If someone knows more than me about them, and you really think they suck, I guess I will remove this message or whatever.

[pentacles]

Thanks guys for the advices. The ORB is too expensive for me, eventhough it can handle 2.2GB per diskette. Furthermore, I can get a 15~22GB EIDE ATA/66 HD just for the price of one ORB drive. And I think, based on your replies, it much easier/faster to do a backup process regularly just by using 2nd HD. Yea, maybe you have other thoughts though.

[Axel]

Here's your answer -
http://www.promise.com/AboutUs/News/040700dataq.htm

Buy the Promise hotswap bays and two ATA66 hard drives and do the IDE RAID 0+1 - never do another back-up on that system and double your hard drive access speed - - a drive goes out - you replace it and let the system rebuild the drive - Only problem is if your unit fries both drives at once..... but then most people leave the back-up tape in the drive anyway...

[Biff]

I got a zip, back in the good old days, when hd were 2.5 gig or less and quite a few bucks. These days I'd go with second hd - no questions asked.

[DEMENTEDEVIL]

I just love the SuperDisks, 120MB is sufficient enough for me, and use it in place of my 3 1/2 floppy. Don't know why they never caught on. I mean,Zip Drives aren't that much faster, plus the Supers hold an extra 120 over the Zip 100's.

[Dave_H]

A second drive is a good place to start for system backups. It is quick and easy, but it is kind of like "Putting all your eggs in the same basket". If someone is looking for protection against mistakes or crashes, thats fine. But if your looking for a way to back up critical data, you need to add other ways to store and archive the data "outside" the system, and a means to move large amounts of data between systems.
Dave

[pentacles]

Hmmm....I think I've changed my mind, I'm going to buy Creative cd-rw Blaster instead of 2nd HDD. Just burn all my backup files, mp3 files, on the CDs.

1)Can i use cd-rw disks with regular CD-Rom drives?
2)What is the best cd-rw drive in the market now?

[This message has been edited by pentacles (edited 06-12-2000).]