Iomega offers a wide range of zip drives which include the USB Port drives, parallel Port drives, SCSI port drives, and Internal drives. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of the four mentioned. Like any other item you wish to purchase you should know what you needs are before you purchase a zip drive, so that you may purchase the right unit. The external models connect with either the USB port, the parallel port or the SCSI port. They may only be used with the port that they are designed for.
The SCSI is a type of interface or port for connecting peripheral devices, such as hard drives, CD-ROMs, scanners and Zip drives. It stands for small computer system interface and is pronounced skuzzy. SCSI is the standard interface on almost all Apple computers, with the exception of some very early Mac models and the more recent iMac. PCs can also be equipped to use SCSI devices, but this requires the installation of a SCSI card. USB is a type of interface for connecting peripheral devices to a computer and it stands for Universal Serial Bus.
Then the parallel port is the commonly known as the printer port. The internal model connects via ATAPI. The ATAPI is a type of interface used to connect additional hardware devices to a computer. ATAPI stands for Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface. This is an internal interface that is commonly used to connect devices such as CD-ROMs, hard drives, tape drives and of course, Zip drives.
The USB zip drives have many advantages. One it is easy to connect, just plug it in, connect the USB cable to the computer, and install the IomegaWare software. It’s also portable and allows hot swapping. USB offer several advantages over the parallel port. The data transfer rates are faster. And, while the parallel port accepts only two devices at a time, the , USB port is designed to handle over one hundred chained devices! The USB port is not as fast as the SCSI interface.
However, it is significantly easier to install on a PC because it does not require a SCSI card. The Parallel port zip drives are also portable. They are have the advantage over the other devices because almost all PC’s have parallel port on them. This makes transfer on software from one computer to another easier.
The SCSI port zip drives are also portable, but only if the machine you are connecting to has a SCSI port on it. This is a major disadvantage, but on the up side they are a lot faster than the other external devices. Finally the internal zip drive is a very fast unit, and it is economical. On the other hand, it also needs to be installed internally in your CPU. Another disadvantage is that if you are uncomfortable installing any kind of internal devices you may want to have this handled by your local reseller. In summary in order to get the unit that best fits your needs you must chose one that has the advantages you want.
