From - Mon Dec 8 20:24:02 1997 Path: news2.cais.com!out2.nntp.cais.net!in1.nntp.cais.net!korpc!uunet!in1.uu.net!ais.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!151.164.1.34!swbell!not-for-mail From: Rubywand Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: Zip Plus Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 17:29:49 -0600 Organization: Southwestern Bell Internet Services, Richardson, TX Lines: 55 Message-ID: <348C82ED.148C@swbell.net> References: <348c2c35.3339133@news.bconnex.net> Reply-To: rubywand@swbell.net NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-207-193-10-17.hstntx.swbell.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: nnrp3.rcsntx.swbell.net 881623737 12326 (None) 207.193.10.17 X-Complaints-To: usenet@nnrp3.rcsntx.swbell.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C-SBXA (Win95; I) Xref: news2.cais.com comp.sys.apple2:128110 Jeff Blakeney writes ... > > On Fri, 05 Dec 1997 22:59:41 +1100, mfumu@alphalink.com.au (Bill > Robbins) wrote: > > >Can anyone tell me if it's possible to use an Iomega Zip Plus External > >Drive with a IIgs? They claim to be 50 times faster (up to that is) than > >a floppy drive, are they faster than the older Zips? I can't find the > >specs on that one. > > The only thing I know about the Zip Plus is that is is both SCSI and > parallel. This would be great for people wanting to share data > between their IIgs' and IBM compatibles that don't have SCSI cards. > > Hook it up to the SCSI card on your IIgs and write some data to it > using MS-DOS Utilities or MUG!, then hook it up to the parallel port > of the IBM and read the data off. Or vice versa. > > As to your question about speed, I believe that the 50 times faster > than a floppy is only when using the SCSI interface. Unless of course > they've somehow sped up the parallel transfer rate. .... The main difference between a Zip and a Zip Plus Drive seems to be that Zip Plus can connect to SCSI or parallel. (Somewhere, I've heard that the parallel Zip is a SCSI Zip with the parallel interface tacked on; so, evidently, Zip Plus just adds a way to select interfaces.) Regarding speed, the "up to 50x faster than diskette" claim is, probably, true-- on a PC with a SCSI interface. The key words here are "up to". PC can send/retrieve lots of bytes very quickly to/from a peripheral under ideal conditions. The usual difference in speed for most accesses is likely to be a somewhat lower multiplier. On our GS, I did a few SCSI Zip Drive speed comparison checks which involved copying files from RAM disk to the Zip Drive and to a mainly empty 3.5" diskette: For a single 92K Teach file ... Zip- 1.35 sec Diskette- 9.62 sec For 8 Teach and Txt files (308k) ... Zip- 5.06 sec Diskette- 31.19 sec So; on the GS, the Zip Drive user can be pretty confident of getting a 6x - 7x speed increase over diskette in normal use. The advantage would be greater were we to compare diskette-to-diskette transfers with Zip-to-Zip transfers-- i.e. the kind of boost a user might experience moving from an all-diskette system to one with a Zip Drive. To this we can add the considerable convenience of, usually, not needing to be concerned about whether a transfer will produce a "Disk Full" error message. Rubywand