Removable Media
by
Nathanael Smith

With the multitude of options currently available to the person in search of removable media, it gets difficult to decide which option is best. In my research, I've found a couple devices which will answer the general population's removable media questions, namely the Zip drive and the CD-RW drive. It is my goal to compare and contrast these two options.

Looking at the CD-RW drive first: it is practically everywhere, from personal computers to heavy-hitting business machines, which fact makes it one of the most versatile and popular formats ever. The media is extremely inexpensive and hard to damage, and it lasts practically forever. The average CD is capable of holding 650MB of data, nearly seven times as much as the Zip drive, and the labeling is much easier and attractive. CD-RW drives come in internal, external USB and external Firewire flavors.

The Zip, meanwhile, is not without it's share of good points. It, too, is a nearly universal format, though possibly not quite as universal as the CD. The media itself, since it is magnetic in nature, is not quite as durable, though scratching is not so much of an issue as it is with CDs. However, Zip disks are much more expensive than CDs, and they don't hold nearly as much. And the labeling, which for such things as electronic portfolios is very important, is somewhat limited. Zip drives come either as internal or external USB hardware.

There is a good reason for internal drives; that of portability. True, I could port around an external drive with me all the time, but that would be a waste of space and I couldn't use it without first finding an outlet. The internal option defeats both of these obstacles, and makes it quite easy to do work at, say, the library while researching a paper. They also take up less desk space.

External drives are generally faster, cheaper, and there is no need to constanly swap drives to get information from one disk to another. The downside is that they take up more space and they are difficult to use on the go. External drives come in two styles: Firewire and USB. The Firewire is faster, but the USB is more universal, and cheaper as well.

The long and short of it is that you get what you pay for: If you want the ultimate in PowerBook usefulness, you will be paying much more than if you just get the bare bones. Somewhere between these two extremes is the happy medium: Where you have the functionality you need at a price that doesn't break you.

Prices:

Internal Zip drive: $300
External USB Zip drive: $80-$100
Internal CDRW drive: $400
External USB CDRW drive: $230-$250
External Firewire CDRW drive: $300

Summary:

Internal: Is more portable, I don't have to find a plug if I need to do something on-the go.
External: Cheaper, and since I'm not going to be doing much work on-the-go anyway...

CDRW: EVERYONE has a CD drive, so if I need to exchange information I can. Also more permanent and holds more.
Zip: Cheaper, and nearly everyone has a zip drive.

Firewire: Faster.
USB: Cheaper, and who needs a kazillion speed CDRW anyway? It's not like flash memory, or anything.