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Floppy Disks Replaced by Zips!
side from good old floppy disks and CD-ROMs, Zip disks have quickly become the most common of the types of transport media. It seems that almost everybody, even those not involved with graphic design, knows what a Zip disk is.

It's pretty amazing to consider that only a few years ago, Zip disks and drives didn't even exist. A lowly company, by the name of Iomega, started the craze and Zip disks and drives became so popular that Iomega wasn't able to keep up with the demand.

The naysayers said that there was no way that Zip disks and drives could become popular. After all, Syquest disks and drives had been around for years and most designers already had Syquest drives. (An important part of transport media is ensuring that others have the drives to trade media back and forth. A transport disk isn't much good if you don't have a drive that can read it!) But Zip disks (initially available in 100mb and now 250mb sizes) and the drives have several things going for them. They include:

• Both the Zip disks and drives are very affordable.

• Both the zip disks and drives are very portable. A designer can carry a Zip disk in a shirt pocket and can easily unplug a zip drive and to transport in a briefcase.

• Zip drives come preinstalled in many computer systems today.

• They are very simple and easy to use. Zip disks are even easier to format than floppy disks are on PCs.

• Zip disks are very durable. A Zip disk can survive being dropped a short distance without data loss. Syquest disks were notorious for being very fragile and could loose data if the disk was even jostled the wrong way.

• The disks come with software called FindIt. When installed, this software will catalog the contents of every disk that is inserted into a computer's transport media drive. It's very helpful for locating files on transport and storage media.

• The regular Zip disks can hold up to 94mb of data which is approximately 80 times as much as a floppy disk. The newest disks can hold almost 250mb of data which is over 200 times what a floppy can hold.

Zip drives and disks are available for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. 100mb Zip disks are available for approximately $12 each and cost even less in quantities of ten. 250mb Zip disks cost a little bit more. A Zip drive costs between $100 and $150 depending on the configuration that you choose. Visit Iomega's site for additional information at www.iomega.com.

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