ARTICLES
JAZ DRIVESby William Coakley 01/11/2001
If you can't afford to lose your data, don't put it on a Jaz drive!
Although fast and convenient, my experience with the Jaz 2 gig has been very costly.
I have one of the first Jaz 1 gig drives. It still works although there's a little problem with getting it going sometimes. The performance of the 1 gig drives was sufficient to interest me in buying into the 2 gig drives when they came out. I wondered why they announced the release a year before they became available ...it never occurred to me that there might have been a technical problem that caused the delay.
In mid 1998, I bought two 2 gig Jaz drives and about 10 platters. I wanted to store audio data on the platters for processing and back up. In the first month of use, I lost 3 weeks worth of precious work because of some design problem that corrupts large files. Suddenly, and from nowhere, your drive locks up. You think it's 'just another crash' but, later you find when accessing the same file ...another lock up. If you put that platter in another drive, sooner or later it will do the same thing. This problem begins during long read and/or writes to the same file. There don't seem to be many problems with typical word processing files and other small file types but there is sure a problem with larger files like audio or video files or large amounts of data like a complete hard drive dump.
My analysis leads me to believe that a small defect in the media causes the heads to heat up in read/write mode. If left long enough after the lock up (seconds), the heads become compromised in some way and can then create defects in other good media that is not flawed. Its like a virus that spreads. One piece of media with a slight flaw causes the heads to go bad and then the heads make other media go bad. What made matters worse for me was the LACK of tech support on this issue. I actually had to wiggle my way into the president's office before Iomega personnel finally responded with other than a packaged response denying the problem. In addition to the three weeks of work lost, I spent hours on the phone trying to see to it that Iomega would fix the problem. I identified specifics and would call with that information. I offered to continue to work with engineers to find and solve the problem. They agreed, but never followed through.
After two drive replacements and numerous media replacements one of the replacement drives has now again gone bad and I refuse to spend more money on such an unreliable system. Hard drives (IDE) have gotten so cheap now that you're far better off buying a hard drive, filling it up and buying another instead of chancing your data with a Jaz drive.
Why Bigger Isn't Better
What Makes My Pianos Different
Roland A90 Controller
A Simple Test For Good A/D D/A Converters.
Ampex Tapes
Batteries… the irresistible cash crop for large companies
The BIT 3 PCI Expansion Chassis for ProTools
Shopping for Hard Drives and Power Supplies
Jaz Drives
Miele Vacuums
Opcode StudioVision Pro
Preamps: Focusrite Red 1 vs. Mackie
Schoeps Sphere KFM 6
Sennheiser MKH80 Multi Pattern Microphone
Smartscore
Wind Controllers
Amazing Instruments: Yamaha: VL1, VL7 and VL70m
Yamaha Support
Clean Indoor Air ... But at What Cost?
Ozone
Watches
all articles copyright and unauthorized duplication in any form is prohibited
