a good Zip drive
Written: Jul 27 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: sexy color and shape; no-brainer reliability; no plugging it in
Cons: it's a zip drive, so it's a bit slow; bulky
The Bottom Line: It's a good drive, but don't expect lightning-fast copy speeds.
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| agathafroo's Full Review: VST FireWire Zip 250 |
I purchased the VST zip drive a year and a half ago, at the same time I bought my computer (a brand-new Apple G4). I could have purchased an internal Zip drive in my G-4, but I've heard from tech people that the internals go bad a lot. I've also worked onsite on computers in which the Zip drives went sour. I don't know if internal Zip drives have gotten better since then, but I hope so. Another reason I choose the 250 mb external Zip drive was because at the time, there were no internal 250-mb Zip drives being made.
Reliability
I've had absolutely no troubles with this Zip drive in the 1 1/2 I've owned it. It is always recognized by my computer, and it always reads Zip disks. It is a trustworthy little drive. I have just purchased a 45 GB external hard drive from VST, which shows how much I like the company.
Appearance
As you can see from the picture at the left, the VST Zip drive is a striking red color, with a quirky curved shape. Some may think the color and shape are too wacky, but I fell in love with it. It looks fast and in a way "evil"--a great compliment to the Firewire technology.
This zip drive is quite bulky. At the time however, it was the only Firewire Zip drive available, and USB was painfully slow, so I opted for this one. As described below, these drives are perfectly stackable with other VST products, so that saves space.
Installation and Troubleshooting
Installation involved a few seconds of installing the software and a few seconds to plug the firewire cable in. The really wonderful thing about this drive is that you don't need to plug it into an outlet, it is powered my its firewire connection. (Note: if you have several devices powered by the firewire connection, you may have to plug a few devices into the wall outlet because there's only so much power available.)
There has been nothing to troubleshoot with this drive. I don't think I've even opened the manual. It just works perfectly.
expandability
You can purchase additional red VST hard drives and stack them on top of the Zip drive. They fit together nicely because of the shape.
speed
Speed was the only letdown for this Zip drive. VST does have the speed tests online so they are not deceitful; however, since the Firewire is so fast, I figured that the Zip drive would be as well. But it seems that Zip drives are inherently slow; however internal Zip drives are the fastest option if speed is your primary concern.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
agathafroo
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Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Reviews written: 55
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
I am a designer with three cats and two computers.
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