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Re: [OM] Re: Syquest Sparq

Subject: Re: [OM] Re: Syquest Sparq
From: Dave Haynie <dhaynie@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 14:46:44 -0500 (EST)
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 11:52:18 -0500, John Hermanson <omtech@xxxxxxxxx> jammed 
all night, and by sunrise was overheard remarking:

> The Syquest Sparq (1 gig backup disc system)

DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!

> recently went on sale at local
> office supply stores for $49 (!) Down from the original price of $199.

Ouch! I bought one at $199 or thereabouts. This isn't really a backup
disc (well, folks do use them for backup, but it's among the most
expensive forms; tape and CD-R are each much cheaper), really just a
cartridge hard drive; you replace the cartridge, the heads stay with the
drive, like a CD or a floppy. It's nearly as fast as a standard EIDE
drive, and actually has special media streaming modes that make it
faster than the best EIDE of only a little while ago. It's essentially
the same drive technology as the SyJet, only with a more advanced media
(one platter, versus two for the SyJet, hence the lower prices). 

> Has anyone heard if Syquest has been bought out by Iomega or Imation?

Nope. Last I heard, SyQuest is in dire straights, considering or having
files chaper 11 or some-such. Check out this one:

     http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28223,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh
     
That's a little old, I suspect they're already in bankruptcy, but I
don't have a pointer to it.

Sadly, a quick perusal of a SparQ support list at

    http://www.juip.com/sparqboard/sparqboard.html

shows that, if not most, quite a few SparQ users have found their drives
just up and die. It's also true that, several months after I got my
drive (lured in by the "3GB for $99" deal), they raised the price of the
discs, so now it's more like 2GB for $99. As it turns out, I don't have
enough invested in SparQ now to go any further with it, and while mine
still works, I would be worried to use it with the chance of failure
apparently so high and SyQuest apparently approaching defunctdom. 

You're better off with something else. The main reason I didn't use my
SparQ much is that, with HD's so cheap anyway, I haven't recently had a
disc crunch (though I haven't had much time for music, which is where I
get the disc crunch -- digital photography hurts for awhile, but I
usually dump cleaned-up scans out to CD-R). Meanwhile, for data exchange,
it's email or ZIP, since everyone has a ZIP. IoMega apparently plans a
new ZIP for next year, which supports 250MB ($15.95 per disc) but also
reads the 100MB format. ZIP has been very reliable in my system, though
not fast enough for anything but archivals. 

And there are others. It's almost crazy:

        - Olympus and others back the ISO standard MO (magneto-optical)
        discs, little floppy sized 3.5" discs. These, being optically
        based, are (like CDs) immune to magnetic or x-ray radiation, and
        they're generally more rugged than mechanical discs. You get
        120MB or 230MB per disc, at near-hard-drive speeds. See
        
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cgi-bin/section.cgi?name=storage&product=SYS_230
        
        - SuperDrive, aka LS-120, this Imation thing which delivers a
        super floppy with 120MB per disc, with standard 1.44MB support
        as well. LS means laser-servo, these are optically positioned
        with magnetic read/write heads. This is something of an emerging
        standard, though ZIP is still more popular. These are faster
        than floppies (you need that, obviously, for the size), but
        slower than ZIPs.
        
        - Sony 200MB floppy, coming Real Soon Now, is basically the same
        idea as LS-120: it reads your old discs, works big with new
        technology discs. It's not compatible with LS-120, of course.
        
        - CD-R/CD-RW. Everyone should know what this is. You get 660MB
        or so per disc; CD-RW discs are heading down to under $20 price
        points, CD-Rs (write-once) are nearing the "cheap as sand"
        category. Like CDs, they're not especially fast; in fact, the
        heavier heads on CD-R/RW drives make those drives much slower
        than modern CD-ROM drives. CD-Rs play in many CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
        players, the formats are all standardized, etc. 
        
        - DVD-RAM, etc. This is the rewritable format of DVD, which you
        would love, since it does 2.5GB or more per disc. Unfortunately,
        you'd have to sell off a few Zuikos to afford one, still pricey but
        dropping. And while DVD-ROM and DVD-R formats are stabalized  there
        are still a handful of rewriteable DVD formats (DVD-RAM, DVD-RW,
        etc), each as incompatible as the next. Basically, the dust hasn't
        settled here yet. 

--
Dave Haynie  | V.P. Technology, Met@box Infonet, AG |  http://www.metabox.de
Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One



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