PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

The Zip750 Drive

When the Zip250 Drive was introduced, we thought the Zip Drive had reached its limits. Iomega proved us wrong by introducing the Zip750 Drive, which triples the capacity and throughput of the Zip250 Drive.

The Zip750 drive is available with ATAPI/IDE, USB, and FireWire interfaces. Like the Zip100 and Zip250 Drives, the Zip750 Drive cannot read, write, or boot standard 1.44 MB diskettes. The Zip750 Drive reads and writes Zip750 and Zip250 disks, and reads Zip100 disks.

The Zip750 Drive spins disks 25% faster than the Zip100 or Zip250 Drive, and accordingly has an average access time (seek plus latency) of a couple of milliseconds faster than older models. The higher data density and rotation rate of the Zip750 allow a sustained transfer rate of 7.3 MB/s, three times that of the Zip250, when using the ATAPI, USB 2.0, or FireWire interface. When used with a USB 1.1 interface, the Zip750 Drive transfers data at only 0.9 MB/s, but that is a limitation of the interface rather than the drive. The difference in transfer rates between the Zip100/250 Drives and the Zip750 Drive is quite noticeable. To us, a Zip 100 or Zip250 Drive feels like a fast floppy drive, whereas a Zip750 Drive feels like a slow hard drive.

Despite the faster performance of the Zip750 Drive, we think it is likely to sell in small numbers because the Zip750 lacks compatibility with the Zip100 drive and because Zip disks remain very expensive per byte stored. If you must have a Zip Drive, the Zip750 Drive ...