Sunday, February 7, 2010

Purchase Iomega 31714 100 MB USB-Powered Zip Drive


I had to replace a non-working iomega 100 usb zip drive and I didn't want to pay full price. Finding this on Amazon.com was easy and the product I received for about half the price of a new one works great. Thanks!Get more detail about Iomega 31714 100 MB USB-Powered Zip Drive.

Order Cavalry Storage CAXM Series 1 TB USB / eSATA External Hard Drive CAXM3701T0 - Includes eSATA Kit


I have purchased three of these units (Mar 2008 500GB, Jun 2008 500GB, and Nov 2009 1TB). I use only the SATA connection.

The first one is still working fine, and contains a Western Digital Caviar drive (WD5000AAJS).

The second one reported itself to software as being a Western Digital drive, but it failed after 16 months and when I opened it up, it actually contained some no-name Platinum PWD5000 drive, masquerading as a Western Digital drive - not ethical!

The third one arrived with the SATA connection not working at all, only the USB. It had a "Hitachi inside" sticker on the box and this time indeed did have a Hitachi drive inside.

In conclusion, Cavalry cannot be trusted to put decent drives in these enclosures, and indeed used a no-name unreliable one pretending to be a decent drive. Furthermore, the part that Cavalry makes (the SATA/USB card inside the enclosure) is not reliable.

For my latest drive (Dec 2009), I bought a bare drive (Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB) and the Vantec NexStar CX NST-300SU-BK enclosure, so far so good.

By the way, as a backup strategy, I use two 1TB drive enclosures, one of which is stored at a friend's house. I copy all the drive partitions on my computer to a 1TB drive (using Macrium Reflect free imaging software) which takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes for 360GB of data, using SATA. Once a week when I go to my friend's house, I swap the two drive enclosures.
Get more detail about Cavalry Storage CAXM Series 1 TB USB / eSATA External Hard Drive CAXM3701T0 - Includes eSATA Kit.

Where To Buy Kensington MicroSaver Twin Lock for Notebook Computers, Monitors K64025F


It's a well made product at an excellent price. It'll keep both your screen and your laptop safe. It really saves you the trouble of gettin two, more steel cables, more inconvenience. I am using it with a new 13" macbook pro and it's great. The only disadvantage is that the cable follows the axis of the locking cylinder, which means you have a steel cable popping out of your laptop like an antenna. With the macbook pro it's on the right hand side, and I find myself bumping into the cable with my mouse . Get more detail about Kensington MicroSaver Twin Lock for Notebook Computers, Monitors K64025F.