8.2 Cartridge-Based Removable Hard Disk Drives
Cartridge-based removable hard disk
drives were an odd product category. They provided the capacity and
performance of an obsolete hard disk, but in removable form. In
previous editions, we covered such cartridge-based removable hard
drives as the Iomega Jaz, the Iomega Peerless, and the Castlewood
ORB, but we (and the market) have now declared them officially dead.
The availability of cheap, huge, fast hard disks and such
technologies as CD writers and DVD writers has killed the demand for
cartridge-based removable hard drives. Cartridge-based drives still
find limited use for such tasks as transferring image files and other
prepress material to service bureaus, but even those uses are
dwindling fast. Most people are far better served by standard hard
drives in internal, external USB 2.0, or frame/carrier-based
removable form and by writable technologies such as CD-RW, writable
DVD, and tape.
8.2.1 Dealing with Orphaned Cartridge-Based Drives
Even the best-selling cartridge-based removable hard drives have
always been at best a niche item. Some manufacturers have used the
King Gillette model—giving away the razor and selling the
blades—and so have sold their drives for less than what it
costs to make them, expecting to make large profits by selling
high-margin proprietary disks. Unfortunately, it often
hasn't worked out that way, as many manufacturers
apparently greatly overestimated the number of cartridges that people
would buy.
The predictable result has been bankrupt manufacturers and orphaned
drives, such as the 230 MB EzFlyer, the 1 GB SparQ, and the 1.5 GB
SyJet (all from SyQuest), and the 250 MB Avatar Shark. Although
support, maintenance services, and media are still available for some
orphaned drives, either from the original manufacturer or from a
third party, these drives and disks are on their way out and
it's foolish to depend on them, let alone throw good
money after bad. If you have an orphaned drive, we recommend taking
the following steps:
Transfer all data from the orphaned drive to hard disk, CD-RW,
writable DVD, tape, or a similar standard technology while you can
still do so. Neither your drive nor your disks will last forever.
Your data is rotting as you read these words. If you have valuable data on disks you cannot read because your drive
has failed, search the Web for data recovery services that can read
the type of disk you use. There are many such services, and most of
them are reasonably priced. Or at least they're
reasonably priced if the drive is the problem and the disks
themselves are readable. For disks with read errors, expect to pay a
high price to have that data recovered, if indeed it is recoverable.
Alternatively, search online auction services to locate a functional
drive that will read your disks. If you have many disks to transfer
or if you're concerned about security, buying a
working used drive is definitely the less expensive way to go. Once you have good copies of all your data (or all that can be
recovered), stop using the orphaned drive. Do a full format of all of
your disks, and put the drive and disks up for sale on one of the
online auction sites. Not only can you recover some of your
investment, but you may be doing a favor for someone
who's searching desperately for a way to read his
own disks. If you're concerned about someone
recovering your data from the disks you formatted, use any of the
"secure erase" utilities you can
find on the Internet to overwrite your data such that it cannot be
recovered. If you simply must be able to read orphaned disks of a particular
type on an ongoing basis, stock up on spare drives that will read
those disks. For example, we know of one service company that told
all its clients to buy SyQuest SparQ drives. That company frequently
exchanges data with its clients on SyQuest SparQ cartridges, and so
has bought several used SparQ drives to guard against drive failure.
Recognize, however, that those with whom you are exchanging data are
also subject to drive and disk failures. Encourage them to upgrade to
something sustainable and standardized, such as CD-RW, writable DVD,
or DDS tape (see Section 9.1).
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