Iomega Zip 750

There was a time when Iomega could do no wrong in terms of storage.

Its 100MB Zip drive released in 1995 became a huge seller and a staple of designers' desks the world over.

However, with PCs now sporting massive hard drives the humble Zip disk is too weedy to act as an effective backup or data transportation tool.

But Iomega isn't quite ready to phase out the trusty Zip disk just yet. Instead it has tripled the storage capacity of the 250MB version to create this USB2 Zip 750 drive.

The drive is attractive to look at, with its blue and silver colour scheme; it is slim and, on the whole, it is tastefully sculpted. However, it doesn't feel as solidly built as previous Zip drives.

Obviously Iomega sees this offering as a natural upgrade for those with older Zip units, so the drive can read both 100MB and 250MB Zip disks, but it can only write to 250MB disks.

The drive is reasonably fast with a quoted transfer time of 7.5Mbps when using a USB2 port, which equates to a 50-speed CD-RW.

However, we found that it was a touch noisy in use, especially when the drive is constantly spinning to stream music or video.

However, the biggest issue with any new drive is the cost of the media. After all, CDs offer 700MB of storage for about 20p a disk.

Unfortunately the Zip 750MB disks are expensive, costing around £11 per disk. That puts them more on a par with DVD-Ram discs.

In fact for around £100 more you can get a DVD-Ram drive with the same priced media and similarly fast write access time but offering five times the storage capacity.

And that's why we find it difficult to recommend the Zip 750.

SPECS

• 750MB storage per disk
• 7.5Mbps transfer rate (50x CD-RW equivalent)
• USB2 connection
• £34.99 for three-pack of 750MB disks

DETAILSPrice: £169.99 (£143.83 ex VAT), media £34.99 for pack of three

Contact: Iomega 020 7365 9527