Drive price, cost per megabyte and reliability all factor in consumers’ minds when choosing a removable storage system. And, with so many of us now downloading huge files from the Internet, scanning colour images on our shiny new scanners, and creating monster files with audio or video capture cards or some other new multimedia gizmos, it doesn’t take long to realize that we should have an external backup system. And once a PC user has felt the need to reinstall Windows or reformat his or her drive, the lack of a backup system beyond a floppy drive starts to look pretty dumb indeed.
Even the most math-challenged consumer doesn’t take long to figure out that a floppy disk costing, say, 70 cents, holds 1.4 megabytes of data -- a 50 cent per megabyte cost. And they know there’s going to be an awful lot of disk-swapping when it comes to backing up that big new hard drive. Other issues, including the lacklustre read/write speed and diminishing availability of plain old diskettes make an Imation SuperFloppy, Iomega Zip or other removable media system an attractive alternative to new buyers.
Unfortunately, there have been enough troubles with SuperFloppy-based diskette subsystems over the past few years that some early adopters aren’t big fans anymore. As the article LS-120 Caveats describes, there are a number of caveats that may result in diminished user satisfaction with these units. However, their ability to read legacy floppies does make them attractive and, at least for some, a viable alternative to the floppy drive.
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The cost-per-megabyte and reliability equation, of course, added up to the demise of SyQuest, whose customers found that SyQuest disks not only cost too much, but weren’t reliable either. The drives, especially the older 88MB-capacity models, had a very poor cost-per-megabyte ratio. Just before SyQuest went under, 88MB disks were selling for $89 dollars at my local computer store, for an appalling $1+ per megabyte. This old "make the money on the razor blades" just didn’t wash with the consumers, many of whom were also struggling with the design flaws that made the SyQuest media so prone to catastrophic failure.
Mac users in the graphics and publishing business were the group perhaps most directly responsible for the one-time popularity of the SyQuest system. They’d use them to send large graphics files down to service bureaus. From our perspective, it looks like the Jaz drive and, to a lesser extent, other magneto-optical storage, is currently traveling down this same rocky road – propelled, as it were, by the momentum behind CD-recordable and rewritable alternatives.
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Other "traditional" storage media face challenges, too. Tape backup, which has a very low cost per megabyte, was never as convenient as a disk, as it doesn't have the same "random access" abilities -- despite innovative software such as Desktape" that made it appear as a virtual drive on the user’s desktop. But , now tape backup is under siege by another emerging alternative: Internet backup systems. As Net-based storage achieves a value equation in the order of a few pennies per megabyte, tape – and, indeed, local disk-based storage -- is threatened, particularly as bandwidth increases. Here's a link to more info on Internet backup
Still, high-capacity disk storage systems are quite attractive for a lot of people. For those with simple needs, a 120MB Superdisk or a low-cost Iomega Zip drive (whether it’s the original 100 MB model or the new 250MB version) might do the trick. All but the most math-challenged know, however, that a 100 MB Zip disk carries a moderately high per-megabyte cost.
At this point, we see an increasing number of IT decision-makers and standards-setters recommending against (Iomega) Jaz systems. While the disks are still relatively widely available, and the cost per megabyte is moderate, reliability – worst with the original 1 gig models -- remains an ongoing issue.
And thus, many consumers end up standing in front of the stack of CD Recordable discs in their local store. This media, at least until DVD-RAM gains popularity, has an impressive cost per megabyte, at about 3 cents per meg. However, CDRW hasn’t fared as well. Although the cost of the rewritable media has declined significantly this year, many consumers have found that their drives don’t read the discs as easily as they’d like -- a situation resolved, for those with recently manufactured drives, with the addition of Adaptec’s freely available UDF Reader software.
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However, there is a wild card factor with CD-recordable drives, too. Remember the hoarding frenzy that happened in December 1998, as the threat of a "CD Recordable Tax" caused consumer panic? It could happen again.
Malcolm Gray, an outspoken opponent to the the levy and the organizer of what is now the largest Internet petition in Canadian history (www.sycorp.com/levyinfo.htm), testified on Friday, Sept. 3, at hearings on the subject in Ottawa and presented his petition. The hearings, says Gray, were open to the public and media, but almost no one attended but the CPCC and CSMA, the two main groups fighting the levy. These groups represent the "collectives" (i.e., SOCAN, etc.) and the manufacturers of CD/tapes, respectively.
The decision is reportedly being made by a panel of three people led by a former judge. They have very little power, thanks to the law itself. They can only set the rate of the levy, nothing else. The "zero rated" option being pushed by the CPCC is separate from the copyright board, and the board has no powers to approve or disapprove it.
The board has said that they cannot set the rate to zero. It is unlikely the rate for CD-R would be the full $2.50/CD. But it could be anything in between. As soon as the board announces their decision, anytime from October -December, it comes into effective immediately. The rate is only good for 1 year however as it must be reviewed at the end of next year.
Most likely. claims Gray, there will be a repeat of the confusion and hoarding of CD-R at the end of the year, unless the rate is set to something like 2 cents, but that's anyone's guess.
Meanwhile, the constitutional challenge by the ICMRC group, a coalition started in Vancouver, failed to get an injunction from the Supreme Court in late August and the ICMRC have pretty much run out of money to continue fighting. For more info about them and the issue, visit www.sycorp.com/icrmc.
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