Jaz Drive + discs = worth keeping for backups?

[Byrd]

Hi,

I'm culling some of my collection, and have been contemplating whether or not to get rid of my Iomega Jaz 1GB drive and about five 1GB discs. I recall it was always pretty fast, but wondered if I used it to back up old Mac software I'm playing with fire - are Jaz discs to be considered reliable media, or not?

I've largely disposed of all my floppy discs recently - having found about half of them dead or with read errors (they hadn't been used for about five years). I've now only kept the original Apple ones and some of my favourite games, from three disc boxes to one! It's quite sad after all those years of collecting software on largely 800K floppy discs gave me only a folder of 50MB in total I backed up to an external hard disk

Thanks

JB

 

[macgeek417]

IIRC, zips were unreliable. Since Jaz drives were basicly Hi-Capicity Zips, i would say no

 

[Unknown_K]

The Zip is based on floppy disk technology, while the Jaz is based on hard disk technology. Jaz carts should last a long time as long as they don't have a head crash (unlikely).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega_Jaz_drive

So yes, I think they are work keeping as backups, especially if you have a drive or two already and good media. You can also pick them up on ebay cheap from time to time so there is no major money investment involved.

For backing up old 68K machines, 1GB is HUGE!

 

[tomlee59]

Jaz drives do have a spotty reputation. Whether or not it's well deserved, the mere fact of its spottiness suggests that reliance on Jaz disks for backup may be somewhat riskier than perhaps you'd like. I'd recommend supplementing the Jaz with a CD burner. Use good media (e.g., Verbatim or Taiyo-Yuden), store in a dark, cool, dry place, and you should be able to read your discs well beyond any realistic time window.

 

[macgeek417]

Then they would be fine as long as you don't hit them w/ a hammer

 

[steve30]

I have a Jaz Drive which i use with ym PowerBook 1400. I only have two 1GB disks which work though. I have two 2GB disks that came with my drive a couple of years ago which don't work.

 

[John Hokanson Jr.]

I apologize for the thread necromancy, but yes, I have found Jaz to be highly reliable. Mind you, the last time I used it was several years ago. It was an external SCSI setup on a PC I used to own. I had it for serveal year, and it never crapped out on me once and saw hours of constant use.

They are based off of HD technology, not floppy. I wouldn't use Zip as my only backup source, but I'd feel safer with Jaz.

That being said though, it depends a lot on what type of Mac you want to use them on. For ubber reliable backups your best bet is either CD-R (which can get expensive if you backup a lot), or an external HD. The later really only makes sense if you're using an IDE external drive via Firewire or USB.

- John

 

[Gil]

Sorry to hijack the thread for a moment, but is using tape-based medias (Ditto, DAT, etc.) a reliable media for backups?

 

[Scott Baret]

The only problem with tapes is that they are magnetic media. Magnetic media does fail over time. I'd say CDs are your best bet for long term.

As far as Iomega disks (Zip and Jaz)--I've found the Zips at least to only be as reliable as the drive they are used with. The USB ZIp drive in particular seems to eat Zip disks although I never had a problem with Zips in an internal drive that was in a Dell I used to own. I have used the SCSI Zip drive but not enough to make a good judgement call. I've never tried a Jaz drive but I'd imagine the drive quality issue exists there too (it seems as though the components were cheapened as the technology aged, sort of like what we've seen with floppy drives).

 

[John Hokanson Jr.]

I think it depends a great deal on the quality of the tape drive, the tapes used, and how often you intend to back up.

CD-Rs are not idiot proof. It's been my experience that they are not quite as resiliant as professionally pressed CD-ROMs. If they get scratched, you stand a better chance of data corruption. This may depend on the disc though. Cyanine discs (used for both CD-R and DVD-R) used a notoriously unstable dye process, and will break down over time. That makes them unsuitable for archival and backup purposes. Chemical stabilizers have been added to the process, but I still wouldn't trust them for anything I wanted to keep long term. Phthalocyanine and Azo CD-Rs are a much better bet, but still not perfect. All CD-Rs are susceptable to oxidation over time, except for certain very high-end gold discs.

All CD-Rs degrade when exposed to UV light, so put them in a dark place (like a folder).

Another problem with using CD-Rs is it's usually not an automated process. You'll have to be there to switch out discs. Where with large magnetic media, such as huge tape drive or external HD, you can automate the process. Even writable DVDs don't have the capacity large enough to back up modern hard drives.

Basically, this means that well-handled and quality CD-Rs might be good for backups you might want to keep for a couple of months, but should in no way be trusted for archival purposes.

Amsuingly, the best backup method for a computer HD is probably another HD. Provided you keep them clear of magnetic sources, avoid shock damage, and limit the read/write cycles, they'll last a really long time.

In 2057, when we're all using holographic memory, this discussion will be academic.

- John

 

[jiffy]

The only problem with tapes is that they are magnetic media. Magnetic media does fail over time. I'd say CDs are your best bet for long term.

Tape is quite commonly accepted as the most reliable way of backing up data, while CDs are unreliable at best. CDRs are susceptible to degrading if exposed to (UV)light, but even when kept in a dark place, they can still fail easily within a year. I have CDRs which I burned well over five years ago still working perfectly, but others have failed within months. A backuptape, if stored under good conditions, can keep its data safe for many, many years.

Your best bet for keeping long term backups is making several backups on different types of media. One backup on an external harddrive is useless. One backup on CD/DVD ditto.

I make a backup of my most important data (about 7-8 GB) once a month. I copy it to a different computer, which copies it to an external harddrive and to DVD. This gives me the original files and three backups on different independent media: one on DVD, one on the external harddrive and one on the backupcomputer. If any of the backups fails, I still have the others, including older backups made in the months before.

Make backups. Your computer _will_ fail eventually.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The Zip is based on floppy disk technology, while the Jaz is based on hard disk technology. Jaz carts should last a long time as long as they don't have a head crash (unlikely).

Don't forget, Zip is also based upon the Bernoulli technology Iomega originally developed. IIRC, it's probably best described as the "ground effect" that tends to keep aircraft airborne as they approach landing. The closer the head might get to the Zip's disk's surface the greater the Bernoulli effect, so a crashed head on a Zip Drive ought to be well nigh impossible.

IIRC, there was some cross pollinating with Floptical Drive Technology thrown into the mix. This accounted for the unheard of storage density of the Zip Drive at the time of its release and made it everyone's product of the year.

jt :b&w:

 

[Unknown_K]

As far as I know ZIP disks are just magnetic. Floptical is Optical technology (phase change). While there are new ways to store data on old machines I just think it is cool to use the old technology on them as well. Nothing is cooler then backing up a GB or so on huge 5.25" MO disks that will probably outlive me.

I have a stack of ZIP 100 disks and a bunch of drives that makes it easy to sneakernet files around as needed for the few machines I have without ethernet. Don't think I would use them for long term archives but they are great for short term projects. For long term archives I use MO and DDS/DAT drives. I also have a bunch of QIC tapes that I have old (1990 or so) data on that I keep even after I dumped the data to new media, never had an issue with reliability either.

One of these days I will get a jazz, but I prefer messing with the older types (Syquest 44/88/230, Bernouli 150, ZIp 100, MO, etc).

 

[macgeek417]

As far as I know ZIP disks are just magnetic. Floptical is Optical technology (phase change). While there are new ways to store data on old machines I just think it is cool to use the old technology on them as well. Nothing is cooler then backing up a GB or so on huge 5.25" MO disks that will probably outlive me.
I have a stack of ZIP 100 disks and a bunch of drives that makes it easy to sneakernet files around as needed for the few machines I have without ethernet. Don't think I would use them for long term archives but they are great for short term projects. For long term archives I use MO and DDS/DAT drives. I also have a bunch of QIC tapes that I have old (1990 or so) data on that I keep even after I dumped the data to new media, never had an issue with reliability either.

One of these days I will get a jazz, but I prefer messing with the older types (Syquest 44/88/230, Bernouli 150, ZIp 100, MO, etc).

Floptical is a mix of magnetis andoptical. iirc its called a "magneto-optical"

 

[macgeek417]

FlopticalFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

The 21MB Floptical 3½-inch disk

Floptical refers to a type of disk drive that combines magnetic and optical technologies to store large amounts of data on media similar to 3½-inch floppy disks. The name is a portmanteau of the words 'floppy' and 'optical'. It refers specifically to one brand of drive, but is also used more generically to refer to any system using similar techniques.

The original Floptical technology was introduced late in 1991 by Insite Peripherals, a venture funded company set up by Jim Adkisson, one of the key engineers behind the original 5¼-inch floppy disk drive development at Shugart Associates in 1976. The main shareholders were Maxell, Iomega and 3M.

Contents

[hide]

* 1 Technical aspects

o 1.1 Technical specifications

* 2 Market performance

* 3 Operating system support

* 4 See also

* 5 References

[edit] Technical aspects

The technology involved reading and writing data magnetically, while optically aligning the read/write head in the drive using grooves in the disc being sensed by an infra-red LED. The magnetic head touched the recording surface, as it does in a normal floppy drive. The optical servo tracks allowed for an increase in the tracking precision of the magnetic head, from the usual 135 tracks per inch to 1,250 tracks per inch. Floptical disks provided 21 MB of storage. The drive had a second set of read/write heads so that it could read from and write to standard 720 KB and 1.44 MB (1,440 KiB) disks as well.

To allow for a high degree of compatibility with existing SCSI host adapters, Floptical drives were designed to work as a floppy, and not as a removable hard disk. To ensure this, a "write lockout" feature was added in the firmware. This effectively inhibited writing (including any kind of formatting) of the media. It was possible to unlock the drive by issuing a SCSI Mode Sense Command, 1A 00 20 02 A0. It is unclear how much of a problem this was, and Insite also issued EPROMs where this "feature" was not present.

At least two models were produced, one with a manual lever that mechanically ejected the disc from the drive, and another with a small pinhole into which a paperclip could be inserted, in case the device rejected or ignored SCSI eject commands.

 

[Gil]

REV drives: discuss.

These are the successor to Jaz drives, correct?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Nope, Flopticals were precursors of the Zip Drive, along with the Bernoulli Drives that Iomega was marketing with little success against Syquest's products, IIRC.

The lil' Zip kicked Syquest's tuchus right out of the removable storage market for all practical purposes.

jt :b&w: