BACKUP DRIVES MIND THE STORE

By J.B. MilesSpecial to GCNLose it once and you're a veteran. Lose it twice and you're a fool.I pasted that saying onto my PC when I lost a whole day's work because I hadn't saved it to a floppy disk.Almost every computer user has lost a file or two'or more'from a hard drive failure, pulled-out plug or power blackout. And, of course, the most common cause of data loss is operator error'those unforgettable times when you forgot to store your work for safekeeping in a place other than on your computer's hard drive.Singly, such events don't always lead to catastrophic data loss. But depending on how you look at it, any amount of data loss is potentially catastrophic. Working to piece together information can cost hours or days of extra work. The loss of even tiny amounts of mission-critical data can cost organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars and the responsible parties their jobs.So, we agree'we must avoid losing data.Using a removable media drive such as those in this buyers guide can take the sting from an otherwise foolish and costly mistake. In price, they make even more sense. You can buy a 100M Iomega Zip Drive for less than $100; $200 and up gets even you more capacity for safe storage at pennies per megabyte. Used correctly, removable media drives offer nearly complete protection against data loss.If you are worried about data theft from vulnerable office workstations, store information to a 100M, 250M or 2G removable floppy or hard disk and put it under lock and key for safekeeping.Besides security, convenience is another reason to use a removable media drive. Each of them offers a way to easily archive data for later retrieval and use. Just mark your disks, store them and pull them out later as needed. Some users find that large-capacity drives, such as Iomega Corp.'s Jaz 2GB drive, work almost as well as standard hard drives for primary storage.If you're not the only one using your computer, a removable media drive can provide separation between your applications and someone else's. You keep your files on one set of disks; your co-workers keep theirs on others.Keep in mind that the products listed in this guide are not to be confused with other removable media drive systems, such as magneto-optical, CD-recordable, CD-rewritable and other developing technologies such as DVD. Such removable optical drive systems offer high levels of storage capacity and are great for archiving data. But if you're a betting type of person, put your money on the success of magnetic disk removable media drives, at least for the short term.Also, keep in mind that the removable hard drives'those with 3.5-inch magnetic fixed disks that generally connect via a desktop or notebook PC's parallel connection'aren't the same as those listed here. The drives in this guide employ easy-to-use replaceable disks that resemble slightly thicker versions of the standard 1.44M floppies they are intended to replace. Because the disks can hold between 30 and 150 times more data than a standard floppy, however, the term super floppies is rapidly coming into use.Before you buy, know whether or not an internal or external unit is best for you. Internal Zip, Jaz, SuperDisk and other similar units are placed inside a workstation or PC and generally are linked via an IDE or SCSI connection.Because they connect directly to a system's bus, they tend to be faster than external units. Any user who can remove a PC's backplane can install one of these with ease by using the manufacturer's setup software and carefully following directions. Advanced Technology Attachment Packet I is an internal interface in common use for connecting CD-ROM drives, tape drives and removable media drives such as the ones listed here. SCSI and SCSI-2 interfaces may also be used internally as well as externally, and are nearly as fast as ATAPI but can be more complicated to set up.As for external units, there are a few out there that employ external SCSI connections, but most take advantage of parallel-port, PC Card or Universal Serial Bus connections.Parallel-port connections are simple to establish, but are slower than SCSI and USB and allow no more than two devices to be connected simultaneously. At press time, only two PC Card drives were available'Sony Electronics Inc.'s new HiFD Drive and Iomega's Clik PC Card drive. But the use of PC Card removable media systems is promising, and there will be more of them by year's end as other vendors, including Imation Enterprises Corp., add them to their product families.USB technology promises anything-to-anything connectivity and will bring users beyond the limitations imposed by any of the other three. It is faster than parallel-port technology, less annoying to set up than SCSI, and eliminates the extra equipment involved with PC Cards.Recent improvements in drive and compression technologies have helped boost the storage capacity of removable media drives. As with the Zip Drive, Iomega has led the pack in developing Winchester drive systems holding one gigabyte and more of storage with its Jaz 1GB and Jaz 2GB products. Though at press time the company was in bankruptcy, Syquest Technology Inc.'s Web site, at www.syqt.com, promised that its high-capacity models such as the SyJet 1.5G and Quest 4.7GB will continue to be supported by the company's technical staff.If backwards-compatibility interests you, keep in mind that the proprietary floppy media used in some new systems can be used with older disks. Iomega's new 250M Zip drives can also read 100M Zip disks. Other products such as Imation's 120M SuperDisk series are backwards-compatible with conventional 1.44M, 3.5-inch floppy disks.'' Prices for floppy drive systems are dropping rapidly. The original 100M Zip drive cost about $200 when it came out several years ago. I bought my parallel-port version six months ago for $129; the company now offers it at $100 and it can probably be found priced at $80 on an online shopping mall or auction.The internal version of Imation's popular SuperDisk costs $99. Caleb Technology Corp.'s new 144M Caleb Drive internal and external versions cost $79 and $99 respectively, and Sony's new 200M HiFD Drive sells for only $200. The new 2.2G ORB parallel, internal or Ultra SCSI systems by Castlewood Systems Inc. are the first to break the $400 barrier for a gigabyte-range system, at $199.But you already know that price isn't the only consideration in choosing the right drive. Other things to think about:. As it should be, capacity is the No. 1 consideration in choosing removable media drives. Even at $100 or less, it makes no sense to buy a 100M floppy Zip drive if your principal interest is in storing a large office application and its related files on a single disk. For holding or archiving large data files, a 1G or 2G system would be a much better choice.