Iomega Peerless 10 or 20GB!

[High_Jumbllama]

http://www.iomega.com/peerless/index.html

The Peerless™ 20GB USB bundle for PC is the ultimate removable storage solution. The Base Station is hot-pluggable, so you can swap other USB devices while you computer is running. And, for the ultimate in flexibility, it accepts all Peerless™ 10 & 20GB disks! The Peerless disks are the ultimate in today's technology. Ultra high capacity and fast transfer rates.

[Jammrock]

Jammrock's next toy???

hmmmmmmm...

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Athlon 650
256 MB PC133 CAS3 from Crucial
87 GB storage from WD & IBM
Matrox G400 (it's not dead yet!)
SB Live! the original full retail, still going strong
Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400, the PC speakers that goes BOOM!
Hope Matrox releases the G800 before rebuild time, becuase the end is near!

[xortam]

I still have a 44 MB Bernoulli; matched the drive size in my Mac Classic. Its been quite a while, but the last time I checked they were asking $100 per disk! I doubt the media is even available anymore. I didn't see a price on the Peerless media but I'd be very cautious about investing in a storage solution with only one vendor supplying the media. A friend of mine solved his storage problems by buying a SCSI removable data storage kit; in particular, he bought a inClose Mobile Dock. He needed to store large amounts of data (HDTV recordings) and archive it or share it with others. You can use anyone's drive (they have IDE versions too) so you benefit from ever dropping storage prices. Its working great for him.

[az]

I would rather buy some IDE Harddrives and swap frames (don't know if this is the correct word, hope you get what I mean ) - It's both cheaper and faster than any proprietary removeable RAM media I know.. But then I don't know many, but I've read in C't that the price tags of the peerless drive and mediae are quite hefty.

AZ

[xortam]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by az:
I would rather buy some IDE Harddrives and swap frames ...</font>

That's what I just got done saying.

[High_Jumbllama]

The prices for media were $160 for a 10GB disk and $200 for a 20GB.

I do feel a little less intelligent for not thinking of using some sort of removable hard drive system even though I have no need of it or Iomega Peerless. High end video of some sort is the only thing that I can think of at this time that would really benefit from this sort of device. It does provide for some interesting types of recovery disks. Booting into a full version of an OS with every utility you could ever need.

Imagine people in the future not compressing their CD audio due to having storage this huge. Imagine the headlines: "RIAA goes after WAV file players. Not even MS is safe."

Now, if only they'd make an internal version, but that is probably less than a month away.

[xortam]

A 20 GB IDE drive (which can be reused in most any PC) will cost you around $200 USD today and its getting cheaper every second. Iomega media never gets cheaper.

[az]

I just found one argument in favor for iomega drives, which is portability: hard drives don't like being carried around..

I'd still prefer CDR/CDRW/DVDRAM in the future as portable and backup media, streamers for long term mass storage, and hard drives as fast, reliable, interchangeable RAM swap media.

AZ

[High_Jumbllama]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by xortam:
A 20 GB IDE drive (which can be reused in most any PC) will cost you around $200 USD today and its getting cheaper every second. Iomega media never gets cheaper.</font>

Hmm, you don't have to open up a machine to install the peerless. It supports USB and Firewire.

As for getting cheaper, the first pack of Zip 100s I bought cost $130 at Best Buy. They now cost $80.

Also, both Iomega and Fuji make discs. There is not just one supplier. (response to a post further back)

Add to that the fact that Iomega has been around for years and during part of that was completely undisputed as the leader in removable media market. They were smart enough to also start making their own CD-RW drives when the CD-RWs were starting to get included in just about every non-bargain machine thereby keeping their name out there even if their flagship products were not included.

[This message has been edited by High_Jumbllama (edited 21 April 2001).]

[az]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by High_Jumbllama:
Hmm, you don't have to open up a machine to install the peerless. It supports USB and Firewire.</font>

That's a one time job - it's worth the ten minutes IMHO.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">As for getting cheaper, the first pack of Zip 100s I bought cost $130 at Best Buy. They now cost $80.</font>

Woohooo! What a bargain! You know how much cheaper IDE harddisks got in the same timeframe?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Also, both Iomega and Fuji make discs. There is not just one supplier. (response to a post further back)</font>

Opposed to at least 5 MAJOR IDE hd manufacturers.. BTW, the point was that with only one manufacturer, the prices WILL stay up - which they'll do with two manufacturers too, since Fuji has to pay royalties to iomega.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Add to that the fact that Iomega has been around for years and during part of that was completely undisputed as the leader in removable media market.
They were smart enough to also start making their own CD-RW drives when they were starting to get included in just about every non-bargain machine thereby keeping their name out there even if their flagship products were not included.</font>

So what? How long have IDE hd's been around and how far are they spread? Which PC doesn't come with a built-in IDE controller?

AZ

[Rags]

200 bucks for a 20 gigger?

Are you kidding me? Even at the local superstores here they are around 130 bucks. 40 giggers are 155, 60 giggers are 180.

Rags

[xortam]

You're right Rags, I don't know what I was looking at to quote that price. I'm seeing 20GB drives for around $100 USD here.

High_Jumbllama, once the dock has been installed into the PC, the removable drives just slip in/out of the dock from the front of the PC, like any other media.
I'm not knocking Iomega ... they make fine products but I think they're only a short term solution as the media soon becomes too expensive relative to other solutions. Remember I said I had a 44 MB Bernoulli ... Iomega produced the Bernoulli. A very, rugged drive designed to not skip a beat even while falling off a desk onto a hard floor.

Az, my friend has no trouble swapping drives with his friend so they can share HDTV movies. HDDs aren't that fragile. Now if you're prone to drop kicking your media and tumbling it the parking lot than maybe you need something more industrial strength. CDRs may be a bit fragile for you too.


Note that Antec also makes removable drive kits.

[Rags]

Yah, I can find the cheap drives for that price here too, but I am referring to name brand, retail box stuff, you know the WD/IBM 7200 RPM retail boxed stuff. The point is, they are damned cheap.

Hell, even my daughter has enough hard drive space now to fill up several days worth of streaming video for Grandma and Grandpa

Rags

[xortam]

WD Expert 7200 20GB IDE OEM $103 USD (O.K. its OEM). This is where I usually buy my parts (in fact they originally built my computer).

Another cool thing my friend does with this is he has a second dock that he uses for his boot drive. Keep his OS and apps for W2K on one, and Win98 on another. Clean way of swapping environments w/o partition managers.

[Gurm]

One has to wonder WHY he wants to swap environments though...

(Asks Gurm, who _still_ can't be convinced that there is ANY good reason to run a 9x-based OS...)

Hehe. No seriously though. Proprietary removable hard drives became moot as soon as someone made a cheap scsi drive and a hot swap bay. In other words, several years ago already.

IOMega seems insistent on trying to market a badly-sized, overpriced solution. Every year or two they release one. Nobody buys it, and it fades quietly into obscurity.

*shrug*

Some people never learn from history. Look at MS and all those other high-powered companies, trying to bring back the workstation/mainframe model of computing... here's a hint guys - it didn't work 10 or 15 years ago, and it won't work now.

*shrug*

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.