RE: digital imaging
From: | Todd Sherman <t-sherman@home.com> |
Hello Timothy,
Sounds like your DVD setup is quite effective. I wanted to add some
comments regarding the Iomega Zip 100 however unflattering as they may be.
Executive summary:
Fawlty, I mean faulty, drive; unreliable and pricey media; buggy software
Acceptable for trivial storage; rapid data access
The nitty-gritty:
I used to be an advocate of the product and have personally/professionally
installed more than ten of these units over the last four years in different
operating systems. Six years ago when these devices first started
proliferating, neither writable CDROMs nor DVDs existed and they were a
great alternative to the floppy disk. I now discourage their use as an
archival storage system.
I have had two drives fail because of the "click-of-death" syndrome...and
no, I'm not making this up. A class action suit was filed and is currently
being settled [JASON RINALDI, ET AL. v. IOMEGA CORPORATION, Civil Action No.
98C-09-064-RRC : SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE] in which "the
Court has entered an Order which preliminarily determined that the
Plaintiffs fairly and adequately represent the interests of the Class and
are proper parties to assert these claims." The claims made were "(1) that
the ZipAE Drives contain a manufacturing and/or design defect that causes a
iclickingi problem, and (2) that as a result of the alleged defect, users
experience damage to the ZipAE Drive, to the media contained on ZipAE Disks
inserted into the drives or to other drives into which the ZipAE Disks are
inserted."
I've had another Zip drive "eat" a disk; i.e. some internal mechanism
pinched the media surface and tore the film. I and others have had stored
data irretrievably lost when a second disk was inserted after a previous
disk was accessed and ejected. This was a either an driver/operating system
error or an Iomega software utility error. I found a workaround for this
but it was an unacceptable solution.
Further, the disks are expensive with a price range of $8.00 to $15.00 per
100MB disk. There is some economy in the cost of the drive itself compared
to RW-CDROMs or DVDs, but that savings is quickly lost when you add a
lifetime of storage disks to your total cost of unit operation.
I have no reservations using the devices for routine data transfer or
temporary storage as long as I preserve an original source. But in my
opinion it would be foolish to rely on these devices for archiving,
especially the storage of critical patient or research material. The CDROM
solution seems the most cost effective at this point but I suspect DVD use
could become the preferred archival media in the near future.
Regards, Todd
Todd Sherman
t-sherman@home.com
IT student
-----Original Message-----
From: Plummer, Timothy B. [mailto:Plummer.Timothy@mayo.edu]
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 8:28 AM
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: RE: digital imaging
<snipped by Todd Sherman>
For people interested in using these permanent
storage options it is recommended that you take some time to consider your
storage size needs, access requirements, and file organization. The DVD
system is really nice. Other options to consider would be JAZ 1-2GB(sp?)
drives and for small needs- ZIP 100MB from Iomega.
Timothy B. Plummer
Coordinator, ImmunoPathology Core Facility
Transplantation Biology Research
Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN, USA
Phone: 507.538.0689
fax: 507.284.4957
plummer.timothy@mayo.edu
http://researchweb.mayo.edu/transplantation_biology/
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