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Section Front: External StorageToronto Star Fast Forward Section Front for April 23/98 * Back to White Pages main article index © Copyright, Myles White, 1998 * Note: after this column went to print, SyQuest Corp., filed for bankruptcy in late 1998. Its products are no longer available. You'll also find an updated version of this story, with revised cost-per-meg chart by looking in the We Compute article index under June 1998 (which is why the original table for this item is not here). mw And lo, the hard drive technicians gave forth a mighty effort. Prices fell! Capacities rose! And thee and me, my friend were sitting in front of computer systems on which we could store whole books, nay, entire libraries of books and other good stuff. Life was good. But, harken to the darkly whispering voices from the wilderness crying, "Woe is me, for my 2 GB hard drive is full, my tape drives runneth over and -- lest evil spirits curse my data -- I have to make backups and store clipart and put last year's financial data in a safe place and I don't have a box big enough to store the 2000 plus floppy disks I'll need to do it!" Well, pardner, looks like we got us a small problem here. Anyone who has owned a computer long enough to experience the gut-wrenching anxieties of losing all the material stored in it when a hard drive goes south or succumbs to the flashing fingers of visiting young relatives, will tell you that having a backup copy of the programs and data stored on the drive is the only thing that saved their bacon. When hard drives were small and computers were still new, it wasn't uncommon to make backups on floppy diskettes, but the drive sizes have increased geometrically over the years and there hasn't been a floppy-based storage scheme that's stuck since the introduction of the 3.5-inch, 1.44 MB diskette that arrived with the first AT-286 systems several years ago. We went through a bridge period when hard drives topped out at around 526 MB; streaming tape cartridges that held 250 MB of compressed data were just bearable, but we'd already long passed the time when any sane computer user could afford to spend all day feeding diskettes into the system. The cost of tape drives and their media, plus one other important factor made them get really old, really quickly. Unlike hard drives and diskettes, where data is stored at random all over the surface and can be retrieved randomly, too, information is laid to tape sequentially. If you wanted to recover some data at the end of the tape, followed by some in the middle, you had to wait and wait and wait while the drive found what you wanted -- then you had to wait some more. And that brings us to this week's topic - alternative random access storage devices. We're going to look at two types - the least expensive floppy alternatives - and the slightly more expensive removable mass storage devices you can add to your system. In the inexpensive category are the Zip drive, initially developed by Iomega Corp. The Zip can currently handle up to 100 MB cartridges and can be found at most retail outlets. It comes in two flavours and three versions. Zip drives can be external or mounted internally in a computer. External Zips can either attach via a PC's parallel port or through a SCSI (small computer systems interface) adaptor. Both sell on the street for between $189 and $199. Internal Zips can either attach to a SCSI adaptor (about $169) or to the same "ATAPI" or EIDE connector used by a CD-ROM drive (about $149). Individual Zip cartridges sell for between $18 and $19, and are available in 2-packs, 3-packs and 10-cartridge packs. Although they can handle up to 100 MB of data, Zip drives need special software, available only from Iomega, to be used successfully to back up large hard drives. The backup software currently part of Windows 95, for example, although it sees the drive as a removable device, can't store data across several cartridges. The program stops when it reaches the end, saying "disk full." Zip drives can only read and write to their own proprietary cartridges. Another candidate in the "inexpensive"category is from SyQuest. Best known among Mac users, SyQuest has been trying hard to make inroads into the PC camp for some time. It's older product, the EZ-135 didn't do well against the Zip, but it's latest, the EZ-Flyer 230 just might. The price is comparable, with SyQuest boasting higher speed and, of course, roughly double the capacity. The only drawback to the EZ-Flyer that may make it unapproachable for many PC users is that it has only one version, an external model that requires the presence of a SCSI adapter that will cost extra. The last entry in the "inexpensive" category is the LS-120 drive, initially developed by a consortium of companies which included Matsushita (Panasonic), Imation, O.R. Technology and Compaq. The LS-120 holds 120 MB of data and is the only removable storage device available that is backward compatible to existing 3.5" diskettes (it will read and write to 720 KB and 1.44 MB diskettes as well as its special high-density media). The LS-120 drive is a variation of a short-lived drive technology known as the floptical drive, in that it uses a laser, but not to read or write data to the disk surface. Instead, the laser acts as a guide to keep the drive's read/write head precisely focussed on disk surface, allowing for more data tracks in a smaller area. Internal LS-120 drives are selling on the street for around $159 and the special media, sold by both Imation and Maxell, is about $19 per disk. According to Panasonic's product manager of storage products, Robert Kwong, the LS-120 is only the beginning of where the technology will go. Later this year, he says, we can look for higher density (240 to 500 MB capacity) and faster drives. The newer drives will read older media, but of course anyone with an older LS-120 drive won't be able to use the new higher-density media designed for the new drives. This is a story that will be familiar to anyone who ever owned one of the first 720 KB, 3.5" disk drives. Panasonic has another technology it's quite keen on. Marketed under the "PD" label (Phase change dual), these are "rewritable optical" cartridge drives that can also read CD-ROM discs. PD drives are SCSI devices. There are currently two Panasonic PD drives, an external model with a suggested retail price of $599 and an internal version for $499. The media, with a capacity of 650 MB, costs about $27 per cartridge. According to Kwong, there will be a new PD model released May 1 with a 24X CD-ROM reader. One drawback to the PD drives is that while the drives will read CD-ROM discs, the recording media is not a CD, it's a cartridge that can only be read by another PD drive. In the 650 MB capacity ballpark also come the CD-RW or CD-rewritable drives. There are several on the market from companies such as Yamaha (CRW4260), Smart & Friendly (CD-RW 426) and Hewlett-Packard. HP's SureStore 7200 is doing well in Canada. The external 7200e uses the PC's parallel (printer) port and has an estimated street price of $870. The internal 7200i will run you about $712. The price of the recordable CD media will depend on what you want to do with the results. If you just want to distribute the discs to others, CD-recordable media costs about $3 per disc. However, if you want to be able to write, erase and re-write, the CD-RW discs will set you back about $37 each. One advantage of CD-R and CD-RW drives is that you can read the disks in any other CD-ROM drive as well as a second-generation DVD (digital video disc) drive or better (first generation DVD drives can not read CD-R or CD-RW discs). One disadvantage of a parallel port-based device is that the data throughput is never going to be as high as either a SCSI or ATAPI/EIDE drive and there's the added potential problem of conflicts with existing printers or other devices which might like to share your parallel port, such as a low-cost scanner. Now we're leaving Kansas and going for the gusto. Within the past few months, there have been a host of high-capacity storage devices from the traditional rivals, Iomega and SyQuest. Iomega has four versions of its SCSI-based Jaz cartridge drive. There's a high (2 GB) and low (1 GB) version in both external and internal formats. The 2 GB external drive should set you back about $899 (1 GB, $435). The 2 GB internal Jaz sells for about $799 ($399 for 1 GB). None of the prices includes a SCSI adapter. Media for the Jaz drive is pricey at $240 for a 2 GB cartridge and $179 for the 1 GB version. SyQuest has two entries in the 1 GB-or-more class. The SyJet holds 1.5 GB per cartridge and requires a SCSI adapter, while the slightly less expensive SparQ holds 1 GB per cartridge and attaches through a parallel port. I had mixed results with the SparQ. Although I was able to get the second unit the company shipped to work on both my Dell and a visiting Toshiba laptop, nothing we could do would make either one function on an IBM Aptiva that was temporarily in the office. A colleague from another publication told me he had to send his first SparQ back as well. The upside of all this is that the computer industry is working on fast, large-capacity alternative devices to replace the 3.5-inch floppy drive as a removable storage device. There's a positive side to this for consumers, too, in that all this competition will bring prices down as well as bringing more players to the party. The downside, of course, is that often the leading edge of technology becomes the bleeding edge when the really good idea of this week becomes last week's mistakes. If I had to make a decision this month, I'd play safe. I believe the Zip drive will survive, for example and that CD-RW will be around for some time to come. As for the others? I'd do some future planning and, remembering dead ends such as the floptical drive and the 2.88 MB floppy, I'd buy as much of the storage media as I could afford while it was still available. See the We Compute article index for June 1998, to see an update of this story, together with a comparison table showing cost per megabyte of the various units featured here. Yeah, but what about DVD?One of the great promises of DVD (Digital Video - or Versatile - Disc), aside from extremely high capacities compared to CD-ROM, was that we'd eventually be able to use the devices to record our own data. Unfortunately, an abundance of generations and confusion over standards -- not to mention a noticeable shortage of products you and I just have to get -- have held up the widespread acceptance of the technology. DVD-ROM drives and discs are the ones from which you can only read data; you can't record onto the media. DVD-ROM drives are currently available on the street in three different generations. The first generation drives held data in one layer on one side of the disc - total capacity 4.7 GB and although all DVD drives are supposed to read CD-ROM discs as well, these first-generation drives are unable to read discs recorded on CD-R (recordable) or CD-RW (rewritable) drives. If the discs hold video information it is most likely in Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) -1 format. CD-ROM playback speed is generally comparable to 6X or 10X CD-ROM drives. Second generation DVD-ROM drives may or may not play back at double the speed of the first generation drives (i.e., 2X) and read CD-ROM, including CD-R and CD-RW discs at 12X to 16X rates. These discs are still single-layered, but are double sided, for a capacity just over 8 GB. Second gen drives will play back first generation drive DVD discs, but again may only support MPEG-1 video. Some newer models will handle MPEG-2 for smoother pictures and faster frame rates. Third generation DVD-ROM drives will be at least twice as fast as first generation drives, use double sided and double-layered discs, for a total capacity of around 17 GB. These drives will definitely read MPEG-2 format. As yet, there aren't a lot of 17 GB discs to play in them. CD-ROM playback will be comparable to today's 24X+ drives. And that brings us to what will be the fourth generation and where the wheels really fall off. When DVD was in its infancy, there were two different groups of companies pushing two incompatible standards. After the section of the entertainment industry that was supposed to supply content knocked some heads together (saying, in effect, "We're not going to have a VHS v/s Beta argument, here!"), one common method of creating DVD read only units emerged. The grumbling didn't stop, however, and with recordable DVD, all the knives are back in use. There are currently four different "standards" fighting for survival: DVD-RAM was actually approved by the DVD Forum -- the consortium made up of the DVD-ROM manufacturers -- last summer, but you get the impression that everyone at the table except Panasonic had their fingers crossed. Panasonic's parent company, Matsushita Electric, is the main proponent of this phase change design. In its current format, DVD-RAM will hold 2.6 GB per side on single or double-sided discs, requiring a special cartridge to hold them. Panasonic says its first model, due out later this year, will also read its PD cartridges (see main story). Hewlett Packard, Philips Electronics and Sony are behind a second scheme dubbed DVD+RW. Although all three are members of the DVD Forum, they prefer this approach because, they say, it will eventually be able to burn CD-R discs as well as DVD, giving users access to the huge installed base of CD-ROM drives for portability and distribution. Also a phase-change device, DVD+RW discs would have a higher capacity (3.02 GB per side on a single layer) and wouldn't require a cartridge to hold the discs. Pioneer has been a player in the CD-ROM market for some time and was the first company, for example, to bring out a multiple-CD changer drive. Its scheme is called DVD-R/W, is based on existing CD-RW technology and uses a random access medium with up to 3.95 GB of data. Pioneer says its approach will lead to discs that can be read by existing DVD-ROM drives and TV-only DVD players without modification. It also says the product isn't intended for consumers, but instead is for content developers. Last, but not least, is MMVF (Multimedia Video File format) from NEC. Early claims from the company say that its goal was to fit a complete two-hour movie on one side of the disc and with 5.28 GB per side, it does hold more than any of the competing schemes. There's no indication whether it will require a cartridge holder or not. Don't even look for drives before late fall of this year, although the downturn in the Japanese economy could delay the development longer. Copyright NoticeThis document, and all other articles found within the White Pages Web site, are protected by international copyright. All rights are reserved. You may download items for your personal use. You may place a link to the White Pages at your own web site. However, you may not post the articles at your web site, make paper or digital copies for your friends or your class, or quote any part of these documents in any medium whatsoever for any reason unless you ask me first. Okay? |
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