Rating: 
Summary: Not the wisest choice for most users
Review: This device has essentially been eclipsed by its own success. Now the solution-of-choice only for older machines (more than 2 years), or for mobile professionals who want to make absolutely sure that they'll be able to connect a ZIP drive to any PC they encounter, this most basic ZIP drive should be avoided by most purchasers.Fact is, if you need to be mobile with your ZIP, you should go the USB route these days. Every new PC and Macintosh comes with USB connectivity, and the difference in access speed is great enough to justify the minimal extra cost. This parallel port machine is the very slowest ZIP drive available. If you download files of any size (1M or more) you will notice the difference. You'll also notice the difference between this model and an internal model. Make sure that you really need to be mobile with the drive itself before you choose an external model. As has been stated in other reviews, the ZIP-100 has become something of a standard nowadays, and many machines come with a ZIP drive pre-installed. Also, even though the price is attractive, think carefully about choosing this model if you plan to do much printing. Most printers use the parallel port, and although you can hook up both a printer and this drive to the same port, you can't use both simultaneously. This is disasterous if you attempt to print a file from the ZIP drive. It can be done, but it takes a lot longer than printing from other drives. Also, forget about accessing the ZIP drive if you've sent a print command. Your parallel ZIP drive will be unavilable for the duration of the print. Having said all this, I absolutely agree with other reviewers who praise the ZIP-100 format. It's got the broadest-based installation of any ZIP format, so chances are you'll be able to port your data more successfully with a ZIP-100 than any other format. True, 100mb is starting to look like small, but it's still an awful lot of room for almost everything but full-motion, full-sound video. Still, I have to give this product fewer stars than it would've deserved two years ago, simply because Iomega has come out with better stuff in the interim. For many users, it would be wiser to buy an internal ZIP-100. Or, better still, buy an external USB ZIP-100 for current compatability, and leave the internal bay available for future installation of a JAZ-2MB. That way, you'll create a removable media solution that handles both past and future needs.
Rating:
Summary: Buy a CD-R instead
Review: This model is quite slow, but it's not Iomega's fault, but just a result of it using the parallel port. The usage of the parallel port also uses CPU cycles, so while the thing is copying data, you might not be able to anything else but watch the egg timer. Spend your money on a CD-R instead. A CD-R drive might cost a little bit more, but the media is MUCH cheaper, holds MUCH more data, and is more durable than the Zip format. If you must buy a Zip drive, don't buy the parallel port model, it's far too slow for impatient people (like me.)
Rating: 
Summary: Reliable, But Slow
Review: Very easy to install and operate. Data transfer with larger files is slow. The zip disks and drives are very reliable!
Rating:
Summary: Served us well.
Review: We bought a parallel port Zip 100MB about three years ago for backups at home. Although we've since migrated to CD-RW (and soon a homebrewed fileserver), I have to say the Zip was a trouper. No problems, no errors, no bad disks (out of 18-20), no click of death. It's one slow mother, but hey, that parallel port connection worked on every PC I connected it to without a hitch. It served us well.
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