Great Potential but falls short in some areas
Written: Apr 14 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low cost removable media drive, low cost media, low MB/buck ratio, works with the major OS unsure about Linux though, easy set up
Cons: Drive failure fairly high
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Archived Computers & Internet Reviews |
There are many nice things about this drive. 2.2 Gig of storage, $39 for an additional cartridge, fast access and seek times, removable media, compatibility with many OS, and easy setup and portability... plus there are many options for setup such as External SCSI, Internal SCSI, Internal EIDE, External USB, and External Parallel. Easily detected by Windows and Mac OS. I was on the waiting list for an External SCSI for 6 months. The drive performed great during the first 3 days I had it. Then the major problem with the drive surfaced. The disk began popping out for no reason and soon would not stay in when inserted. I returned the drive and received a replacement 2 months later which again had the same problem right out of the box. Again another RMA and replacement arriving 2 months later... in less than a week the same problems occurred. A major flaw to mar the great potential of this drive.
I must say that the first 3 days I had the first drive, I was impressed. Accurate CD burns to a HP 7200i and 8200i series CD-RW for presentations and file backups. Easy portability to a Mac and PC system (using different cartridges) and a notebook PC. The system ran Ultima Ascension off the ORB as well as MP3 and streaming video with few to no problems... almost as few problems as running off SCSI hard drives or my SyJet 1.5 Gig drives. I would say it performed as well as most medium to high end EIDE drives. And again the benefits of the media as well. High storage potential (more than 4 CD-Rs worth) with low cost media as compared to others in the field like the Jaz 2 Gig. This is currently the lowest cost per Megabyte on the market for removable hard drives. Also the entry price (price for the drive and one cartridge) is as good or better than any other removable drive on the market at this point in time. There certainly are many, many pluses for this product.
As a mentioned above the major problems I had with the drive was the high failure rate. In my experience, only the SyQuest SparQ 1.0 Gig drive gave me as many drive failure problems as this drive. For comparision, I have 1 EIDE SparQ drive, 2 external SCSI SyQuest SyJet 1.5 Gig drives, 1 internal SCSI SyQuest SyJet, various Zip 100 Meg and 250 Meg drives, and access to Iomega Jaz 1.0 and 2.0 Gig drives. I would rank the ORB in the middle of the pack. I still prefer the SyJet and Jaz 1.0 Gig for reliability over the long haul. I also prefer Zip drives because so many people have the drive. Hard drive performance is very good between the ORB, SyJet, and Jaz 2.0 Gig drives. This one flaw is a major setback in what was otherwise a great product. It is because of this flaw that I will not recommend this drive to friends or others.
At the time I write this, I would suggest to friends who need a removable hard drive product to look at SyQuest SyJet which are on a firesale these days. Those people who are willing to put up with possibly getting a drive that may fail can experiment with this product. If Castlewood can iron out the kinks with drive failure, the drive would be fantastic. However, these days... if you're looking to back up your information tape drives and CD-RW may be the way to look especially with the rapidly dropping cost of these products and their media.
You have to know what you want out of this type of product before when considering a purchase.
Recommended:
No
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yusakugo
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Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
Reviews written: 399
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Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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