Over the years, I've had just about every kind of Zip, internal IDE, external parallel, internal and external SCSI, 100 MB external USB, 250 internal IDE, but the ZIp 250 powered is overall, the best one of 'em.

That's because it is thin, USB and has no power brick, the Achilles heel of accessories. I have a light laptop, a Toshiba Portege, but once you start adding cables and surge suppressor, mouse, DVD, it gets HEAVY. And that power brick is just the last straw.

This Zip is light: 9.75 oz for the drive and bundled USB cable, 1.25 oz for a 250 MB Zip disk (I just got out the kitchen scale, can you tell?). The bundled cable is 3 feet, but Belkin sells a more compact 20" USB cable.

The 250 powered USB is great on the road: you get to the client site and need to upload a 40MB add-on program, or you arrive at the conference and want to add a 50MB video clip to your previously emailed presentation, no problem. At home, you can easily move files from laptop to desktop.

Because it is USB, you can connect it to almost any current computer with a USB port: other PC laptops (you may need a driver), desktops, even Macs (with appropriate conversion software).

However, the fact that the Zip250 powered is USB and has no power brick is also its flaw! You give up, respectively, speed and speed. USB is everywhere, but USB is slow, compared to SCSI and Firewire, and when USBII really hits the market, USB will look like a turtle in the sun. To add to the problem, no power brick means it draws power thru the USB port, further slowing things down.

I've done a quick and dirty comparison of my three present Zip drives, and recorded the time it takes to copy 39.5 MB of MP3s to and from these drives (and time to eject): 250 powered USB, 100 SCSI external, 250 internal IDE:

250 powered USB: copy to in 3:45, eject in 4:37 (min. total)
100 SCSI external: copy to in 1:12, eject in 1:14
250 internal IDE: copy to in :46, eject in :49

250 powered USB: copy from in :48, eject in :51
100 SCSI external: copy from in :51, eject in :53
250 internal IDE: copy from in :21, eject in :34

As you can see, it is not a speed demon. Other problems are: having 100 and 250 MB disks has led to people swapping "zip disks" without identifying the capacity, and 100 MB drives cannot read 250 MB disks.

Also, the cost and penetration of CD burners has gone down and up, respectively, so it is very easy to burn a CD, which costs less than a dollar and can be given away, while a 250 MB Zip disc is about 18 bucks at CompUSA. And, as CD-RW, recordable DVD, minidisk and mp3 players like iPod make inroads, even fewer Zips will be utilized.

So, why not yet a dinosaur? Well, since the late, lamented Syquest and Bernoulli drives disappeared off the map, there hasn't been any real competition for the Zip drives (if you have to call your technology SuperDisk to compete, you're hurting).

Also, as the user market shifted from graphic designers to business people, the ubiquitous and cheap Zip took over.

In addition, it's still easier to swap files using a Zip vs a CD burner, which is heavier, harder to install on the fly, and slow as well. Usually, one does not need to move 700 MB of data on the road.

And it doesn't hurt that it's good lookin' too.

Recommended: Yes