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ZIP 100 Mass Storage
Folks,
While this isn't quite a 'beamline' controls issue it is a computerish
problem that I have suffered with for a long time and now there is a cost
effective solution to it. I am refering of course to the fact that 3.5'
floppies breed faster than rabbits around Intel machines. Iomega
now has a product they call a Zip Drive which stores about 100 Mbyte
of data in what looks like a thick 3.5' removable floppy. They have
two versions (one that runs off a PC printer port and a SCSI-2 version.
The SCSI zip drive is selectable between device numbers 5 and 6 and uses
a DB25 connector).
Drive cost is $199 and each disk is $19.95 in single quantities and $14.95 in
a 10 pack. You do get 1 disk with the drive which contains about 20 megs
of their own tools/utilities. If you buy their SCSI card for 50 bucks,
you get an Adaptec 1502 SCSI controller so it might be best to purchase
a higher end SCSI card if you want to run other SCSI devices.
I'm not real sure. The software that comes with the SCSI version has both
Mac and Dos software, but be warned:
When you run the installation on a Dos machine, it wipes out the Mac software
on the 100 Mbyte disk, so if you want to then use the drive on a Mac,
you need to purchase another tools disk ($40.00). Of course, you don't
find this out until after you install the software.
They sell various connectors and adaptors for the Mac Powerbook as well
as a power supply for international travel (the Zip drive is external
and separately powered) etc... They do have an installation floppy
for OS/2 although it isn't bundled with the drive.
I don't know if the final formatted disks are compatible between DOS and Mac.
Of course, I wouldn't touch this thing if I couldn't use it with a real
OS and Linux is quite happy with the device and even the Adaptec 1502
controller once you set up the boot configuration to recognize it
(the 1502 doesn't autodetect very well). It has no problem reading and
writing the disk as a DOS disk, and rumour has it that you can even
reformat it in its own native format. I'll try that when my other
disks arrive. These disks might
be a cost effective solution for Linux-Epics or even Design Exchange
updates/distributions since not everyone has access to an Exabyte tape
drive...
Actually, this would be particularly appropriate for the
APS Design Exchange since all of the dwg files fit in about 286 Mbytes
uncompressed. Using pkzip, we should be able to get the files down
to less than 200 Mbytes so the entire Design Exchange would fit on two of
these 3.5' disks, and be directly readable by DOS where a lot of people
do AutoCad work.
In any event, it certainly seems like a fine tool for those who
want to use Linux and/or Dos/Windows together for mediumish sized
projects. I'm not sure how easy it would be to have a Sun system
understand this drive but it might be worth a try. The price is
certainly right.
- John
--
John Quintana Internet email: jpq@nwu.edu
DND-CAT Synchrotron Research Center Voice Phone: (708) 252-0223
APS/ANL Sector 5, Bldg. 400 FAX Phone: (708) 252-0226
9700 South Cass Avenue WWW: http://tomato.dnd.aps.anl.gov/~jpq/
Argonne, Illinois 60439