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Review: Iomgea USB Zip 100
David Yee and Mario España, 21 December 1998
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At a glance, the Iomega USB Zip drive looks quite different than the other external Zip drives.
Although the basic shape is the same, the casing of the  USB Zip drive is
a stylish translucent-blue, designed to emulate the appearance of the Apple iMac. The USB
connection located at the back of the drive is tiny, and the supplied silver-ish USB cable
is refreshingly thin compared to those clunky parallel and SCSI cables used by other
external Zip drives. In addition, the DC power supply block measures just 2" x
1.75" x 1". Its small size means that it can comfortably coexist with other
power plugs on conventional power strips. The external Zip drives many of you may have
purchased a year or two ago have a much larger power supply block that was merciless in
cannibalizing real estate on the surge protector. Note that, however, although the USB
specification allows power be delivered from the computer to the USB device, the USB Zip
100 requires too much power and thus the power supply block is still necessary. |
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| This end goes to the computer. |
This end goes to the USB Zip drive. |
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| Installation |
It can't get any easier.
- Plug the power supply block of the USB Zip drive to a free
electrical outlet.
- Connect the correct end of the USB cable to the drive and the
other end to the one of the USB ports on the PC.
- Almost immediately, a dialog box with the message "New
Hardware Found - USB Zip 100" appears.
- Insert the installation CD in the CD-ROM drive, keep clicking
the Next button, and voila!, you're done.
Note that you must be running a version of Windows
(preferably Windows 98, although Windows OSR 2.1 also works) that supports USB, and of
course, your computer must have USB ports and a USB-aware BIOS. Most computers that
shipped since mid-1997 should have hardware USB support.
A phenomenon we observed was that when you unplug the USB
connection, the Zip drive icon promptly disappears from the My Computer window. Restore
the connection, and boom, the icon comes back. Cool. |
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