Rating: 
Summary: Excellent choice for portable, removable storage
Review: The 250MB USB-Powered Zip drive is great for backing up personal data (obviously not entire hard drives) and, thanks to the easy portability, for transferring data between computers. This drive costs the same as the Zip 250 USB drive that draws power from an AC adapter instead of the USB bus, which is of course less convenient, but that other model has a couple of advantages: 1) it can be upgraded to a FireWire interface using a... adapter from Iomega, which Iomega says doubles the read spead over using the drive in USB mode; and 2) the AC-adapter-powered drive can be used with USB hubs operating in unpowered mode, while this USB-powered drive has to be used with a powered hub or a PC's built-in USB port. But I think that the convenience of the USB-powered model outweighs the disadvantages, especially if you travel a lot. The stand that allows the drive to be oriented vertically (see the photos) is a nice touch that saves desk space.
Rating:
Summary: Fast, convenient, and a bit sexy too!
Review: I fell in love with my internal 100 MB disk on my prior computer. My current computer was sold as a package on HSN for a tremendous price, but had not Zip drive. So, for the price, I went with this drive.The set-up on my XP machine was a snap. I just attached the included cable to the drive and my machine. Voila! Instant success. (Later, I realized that there was a set-up CD included. Everything works just fine, so I haven't bothered to use it.) For those of you, who like me, haven't been keeping up with the technolog, USB-Powered means just that. There is no separate power cable for which to find a plug. ALL that you do is to attach the drive to a USB port. And, oh yes, then you put a disk into the drive. Zip drives are aptly named. Copying files is a quick thing indeed. Quicken backups are so quick that I thought nothing had happened. I can't speak to how reliable this version of the zip drive would be. My prior drive never had a problem in five years. No backup was ever unreadable. In summary, the drive is consumer-friendly. It just gets assigned the next available drive letter by the system. You use it exactly as you use a diskette drive except there is no waiting around and no formatting. The drives come pre-formatted. And did I say that they're quick? Oh, I know, you're waiting for the "sexy" part. Well, just look at it. It fits in your hand and is . . . well, cute! There is just one warning. Have nothing in front of the drive when you eject the disk. It ejects less like a dampened CD drive than like a jet. The disk is spit out five-sixths of its length with a quite of bit of force. It may well harm the mechanism should it meet some resistance, but I haven't tried to find out. (They must have gotten a low bid on the eject mechanism from the same company that makes the ejection seat.) I think you'll like it. I've paid far more from tape drive back-ups that were far slower and no fun whatsoever.
Rating: 
Summary: Warning! Read the tech specs before you buy!
Review: This device's warranty is limited to one year. And mine stopped working properly shortly after one year from the purchase date. I asked a few other people from the university I am going to now who had this zip drive. They had encountered the device failure around a year or a little over a year as well. It was stupid of me for not reading the tech details. This zip drive's lifetime also depends on how many times you insert or remove a cartridge. Unless you are planning on throwing it away shortly after the warranty expires, purchase the internal zip drive. It's much faster and reliable.
Rating: 
Summary: Didnt work with NT4 but great for Linux and Windows ME
Review: I bought this because I needed a good solution for sharing personal data. It is kinda pricey, but I figured that there was a price to be paid for convenience and portability. I initially tried to get this to work on a laptop powered by NT4 SP5. It never worked. After a moderate hold for tech support they said that I must enable the USB port in my BIOS. Except there was no USB option in my BIOS even though there was a port. My lesson -- since NT does not natively support USB, it will not work without a lot of troubleshooting. My experience with RedHat 7 was very pleasant. All I did was to run two little commands and it worked fine. No extra software needed. The two commands were modprobe usb-storage mount -t vfat /dev/sda4 /mnt/zip250 The drive with accompanying software was just as easy on my Windows ME desktop. Bottom line: Excellent, compact file storage devide. Pro is that it is very small, disks seem sturdy, and no external power supply. Cons are that it is expensive, and has trouble working under Windows NT4.0
Rating:
Summary: No More Floppies!
Review: It's so nice to finally be out of Floppy Disk Hell. I had so many files on floppy disks, I lost count. They were in containers, boxes and drawers. Now, after using my new zip drive, all of those files fit on one zip disk, with room to spare. I can't believe I'm in love with a machine! (And, in case anyone is interested, I have a Dell 8000 Notebook with Windows ME.) The Iomega Zip Drive is easy to set up. You install the CD software that comes with it and it creates a new drive just for your zip. Then you plug one side of the cable into the zip drive and the other side into the USB port on your computer and you can copy folders and files immediately. How can you beat simplicity like that? Another thing I like is that the space requirements of this little dynamo is practically nil. It can either sit unobtrusively beside your computer or you can even unplug it and put it in a drawer until you next need it. It's much smaller, thinner and lighter than the previous model (wish I could say the same for myself, haha). If you're looking for an extra drive, or just a great way to store needed files, I highly recommend the Iomega Zip Drive.
Rating:
Summary: Superb!
Review: I needed an external drive in a hurry, and initially turned to external CD burners. However, after reading numerous reviews across a variety of sites, it quickly became obvious that none of the external burners were up to the task. According to reviews, most of them (HP 8000 series, Iomega Predator, etc...) suffered from reliability problems, and to exacerbate the matter further, transfer speeds were reportedly slow. Hence, in desperation, I turned to other forms of storage. To my delight, Iomega's Zip 250 USB drive has performed excellently! I haven't had a chance to test out the firewire capability, but all I can say is that I am extremely pleased with its USB performance! I have successfully transferred all my files from my work computer (running on Windows NT) to my home computer (running on Windows 98), and there have been no software or reliability issues at all. Good going, Iomega! Now, if only they could pull their stock out of the pits........
Rating:
Summary: Reliable and easy to use, but getting dated
Review: --We've used a Zip 250 for well over 2-1/2 years now and are on our 33rd disc, and can't think of a single technical problem with the drive. After reading the horror stories about other electronics gear on Amazon, I can't believe this has been such a troublefree device (when reading about burnable CD's, words like "frisbees" are often used, and software is often cursed, but I don't think we've ever lost a photo or a file with ours). We haven't dropped ours or sat on it, like some reviewers have with theirs, but we have covered over 20,000 bumpy miles in an RV and live in a dusty climate, and it's been as eay to set up, as easy to use, and as reliable as an anvil. We bought ours because we heard editing photos was easier than with a CD, and have not been disappointed.
--Having said that, we may be switching over to a CD burner. For one thing, I'm not sure how long the format will last and I don't want to be stuck with a bin full of zip discs if our machine ever breaks. The discs are more expensive and more bulky than CD's, and it's tough to share files with a friend unless they have a zip, too. We won't be getting rid of our zip but will probably relegate it to editing photos.
--I rate this product highly because of its simplicity and reliability, but be aware it is getting dated (it's hard to stay one step ahead of storage formats). It makes a very decent backup system for files and some photos, but if you have tons of photos, you may want a CD or DVD. Hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: More convenient and compatible than the alternatives
Review: I've become dependent upon zip disk technology through years of using the older models but found the parallel models tedious to use because of competition for the only printer port, incompatibility with most printer switches and scanner ports, the touchiness of the software and slow performance. This USB model is an amazing upgrade because of its ease of use with Windows XP and the USB ports. I cite particularly the built in support in XP; no need to deal with the cumbersome IOMEGA software. XP will recognize its availability or removal quickly, and can format it as well, leaving no real need for for IomegaWare. I love the fact that it's powered by the USB port, obviating the need for an adapter and extra wire. The power requirement is 498mA and the standard USB port delivers 500mA. Compared to backing up files on CD-R there's more instant gratification and less media handling to just copy files to the Zip drive, just as I would a hard drive. I develop web sites and want the security of having immediate copies of changed files on a removable medium and this fills the bill adequately. In my view it beats recording on multi-session CD-R's, waiting for the CD to finalize, and ... in all, can be a faster process actually. Why the 250MB model? I wanted compatibility with the old 100MB media, and there are plenty of those out there. Otherwise I would have purchased the 750MB Zip for its USB 2.0 capability, but it can only read, not write, 100MB media. I primarily use 250MB media for my own purposes and I've noticed that it seems much faster on this drive than with the 100MB media. I don't know why yet. Capacity? All of my web sites and important data folders are much less than 250 MB so that's not an issue for me. On a daily basis I backup only the active web sites, my email files, and spreadsheet data. For more voluminous data I use the nicely designed "Backup My PC" program from Stomp Software. This used to be the Seagate Backup Exec supplied with Windows 98 as "MS Backup". With compression the 250MB media can hold up to 400+ MB, nearing the capacity of a CDROM disc. Performance? I can live with USB1.1 technology though I surely would have preferred 2.0 since my hardware (new Dell) supports it. Using a backup program like I often do, the writes to the Zip drive are kept to a minimum and I can backup/verify a 72MB web site in less than 2 minutes, far exceeding the promised maximum speed of .9Mbps of the USB 1.1 model. Initially the Zip drive ran very slowly and I was quite unhappy with that. Turns out that Windows XP has a setting in Device Manager under the Policies tab to "Optimize for performance". That was not being defaulted to. My performance increased 5 to 7-fold with this setting. Also, I was having intermittent media errors which disappeared when I unchecked "Enable write caching on the disk", again under "Policies". In summary, I consider this USB Zip to be very convenient owing to its strong support from XP, freedom from confining power adapters, and hot plugability (on or off) to the USB port. I also like the Iomega Brand. Most important it offers me compatibility with most other computers I interface with and with acceptable capacity and speed. If you do buy this drive, consider favoring the 250MB media for yourself (performance, as well as capacity) and the 100MB for compatibility with others (if this applies to you). Hope this information proves useful and that you find the 250MB Zip to be worth your $$$.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the Parallel port model!
Review: I originally had a zip drive hooked up by a parallel port. It was a piece of junk. The software for that one kept falling out of my computer and I could hardly use it at all. I decided to think about getting a new one and saw this USB-powered model. One review that almost scared me off was the one where the person'szip drive kept whirring and whirring and froze the computer. I decided to go on a limb and get it to see how it would work and I have no complaints at all. I haven't had one problem with it since I opened it and installed it. Imoega, you redeemed yourselves with this product.
Rating:
Summary: Rod from the Big Apple
Review: Just bought the zip 250mb drive, why, the zip 100mb drive I've had since 1996 refuses to die, the only problem was with capacity. Followed the instructions and was loading data onto the 100mb disks, it takes 100mb disk,downward compatible,the folks at Iomega did a great job. Haven't used the 3 250 mb disks that came with the drive yet, but don't anticipate any problems. Those folks that are having problems, it could be hardware issues, but most likely operator error. Just follow the steps and enjoy
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