Zip Drives: What are they?
Lately, people have been hearing about a product called a Zip Drive. This FAQ will help shed some light on this particularly useful piece of equipment.
- What's a Zip Drive?
A Zip Drive is essentially a high capacity floppy drive. A normal floppy drive/disk can hold from just over 1 to 2 Megabytes of information, depending on the type of disk and density. However, a Zip Drive (and its disks, called Zip Disks) can hold 100 Megabytes of information per disk. It is important to note that physically Zip disks are only slightly larger than normal 3.5 inch floppies. Note that Zip drives come in internal and external models.
- How will this improve my life?
Actually in several ways. In pre-Zip days, people were not able to load large files onto floppies for easy transport. In addition, backing up information was considerably more difficult, since people had to use much slower tape drives. Now, one can load big files onto Zip disks and take them everywhere. And, since external Zip drives are portable, the Zip drive itself can be taken and set up when information on a Zip disk is needed. Knowing this information can also improve your life, since you can now show off at cocktail parties by showing off all the computer knowledge you have acquired at the PING 127.0.0.1 Computer Services site.
- Why doesn't everyone have one so I don't have to bring an external drive all around town?
Unfortunately, not everyone yet has a Zip drive on their computer. But Zip drives are becoming an emerging standard on newer PCs, which are including Zip drives in their store-bought configurations. Until then, having an external drive will continue to give you a competitive advantage, since you can move large files to and from PCs that do not have their own Zips.
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