[plug] exchangable disks with Linux

[Trevor Phillips]

Brad Campbell wrote:
> 
> I'm looking at an ORB too, but seeing as the bloke who created the orb, is the same guy who
> started Syquest, I guess it's based on the same techology.

Maybe mechanism-wise, but the Orb is new technology, similar to that used in
hard drives. Look at their website, it's one of their selling points. ^_^

> They are great if you put them in the drive, write to them and then remove them and store them
> in a lead box, burried 6 feet deep in the back yard.
> 
> What I'm getting at is they are all MUCH more fragile than a bog stock, cheap Quantum Fireball in
> a removable carrier...

Hmmmm, that's not the experience I've had... I've used both removable HDD's,
and Jaz media a lot, and Jaz are MUCH more shock-proof. I've lost HDD data,
and whole disks from accidental bumps, etc, while I've dropped a Jaz from
several feet onto a hard desk several times over, and not had any problems.
It's fairly simple if you think about the mechanics; HDD's have these
sensitive heads in them that bumps can misalign, or even gouge into the disk
platters. Media like Jaz don't have heads in the unit itself. This doesn't
mean you can play Frisbee with them, but they are more durable to accidents.

On the OTHER hand, the recent Jaz drives have been shocking as far as
quality!! I have an old SCSI External Jaz Drive that's still going strong. I
have a newer internal one at home (SCSI too), and, well, I've had it replaced
with whole new drives TWICE, and I'd do it again, except it ain't under
warranty now. It (and its predecessors) have this bad habit of corrupting bits
towards the end of the disk, and it's the sort of error where Windows and even
Linux when trying to read will churn away at it for ages... This happens in
the last 50 Meg or so, so I now just repartition my Jaz cartridges to 800Meg
(1Gig drives/carts), and this has been reasonable so far...

IMHO: Go the Orb! The tech sounds good, and their marketing features, also
good, plus they're considerably cheaper than Iomega (both drive, and carts:
Only extra carts for Jaz I have I got work to pay for). I'm considering
getting one myself, eventually, but I have many other bits to upgrade before I
can afford an Orb...

-- 
. Trevor Phillips             -           http://jurai.murdoch.edu.au/ . 
: CWIS Technical Officer         -           T.Phillips at murdoch.edu.au : 
| IT Services                       -               Murdoch University | 
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