I am not sure which forum this should go in, so I figured to start it here.

Have any of you heard of or used the new Iomega "Rev" drive? It is basically a drive that uses removable 35gb "hard drives" the size of a zip disk.

I am looking for a good solution to backing up all my project files once a project is completed. This way I can easily make changes/corrections/updates as needed. I have used a Maxtor firewire external hdd, but have not been happy with the reliability. So I was thinking of trying this new "Rev". Any thoughts?

Sounds like a good product. I've used Zip and Jazz in past years, they're incredibly useful - it's just too bad they never really caught on. I think it would be worth looking into that, though.

I only recently learned of Iomega's latest removable drives, the "Rev"s. But I have used the Jazz drives in my PC days (years ago) and still use some Zip disks, although rarely. And let's not forget their (in)famous Bernoulli Boxes, although that may be before most readers' times.

Iomega continues to struggle to maintain a proprietary storage architecture as the computing world has long since moved into more open standards for high-capacity storage. Its products' popularity and market shares have withered with the widespread adoption of CD-R/CD-RW and now with the tidal wave of economical Firewire devices.

Only you can decide whether or not the Rev is a good product for you. I would, however, caution you to consider two factors.

1. What is the cost per unit storage of the Iomega product? Some quick comparative arithmetic will likely reveal that the Iomega product is not a winner, as their proprietary overlay factors into the product's price.

2. What do you think the product's support and availability longevity will be? There are countless Bernoulli and Jaz cartridges resting silently in dark drawers and closets like stranded refugees from lost planets with no home.

Alex: how can you say the ZIP drive never really caught on? The
PC's BIOS was basically altered to support the ZIP drive natively
on a PC. One time I couldn't look in the store for a system that
didn't came with a builtin ZIP drive.

Or have I been dreaming? Jazz I haven't really seen much around
these parts of the globe...

i did the math, and its cheaper to just buy hard drives....

Alex: how can you say the ZIP drive never really caught on?

Good point, Rob. I wasn't aware of that, I didn't think they did all that well. They're certainly not around now as much as they were 2 or 3 years ago.

Ken...excellent points, and as Robert mentioned they may in fact not be cheaper.

However...I prefer store my data separate from my pc to protect against fire, damage, theft, etc. I may sound paranoid...but just 3 months ago, half of our office building burned down because someone left a cigarette butt in a trash can. My heart was jumping out of my chest as I raced there to see if my external drives survived. Luckly our offices were spared from the fire.

Anyways...sorry to ramble. It sounds like for basic storage they are not a good choice. But as an option for removable storage they might be.

The longevity is definitely still an issue...

How are most of you backing up your footage and project files?

Footage remains on tape. Special clips, such as roto work, goes to a CD (if it fits) or to a data DVD. As do the core project files (FCP) require to reconstruct the work if needed.

Yeah Ken...that is how I have pretty much handled it in the past. There have been only a few times that I have had to reconstruct titles, etc. If I end up getting the Rev, I will let y'all know how it goes.

rev drive costs $300

rev disks costs $60

you get 30 (90 gigs compressed), usually office documents compress best, video and audio clips won't compress much, so a disk may hold about 35-40 gigs at best, lets just say 40 gigs

maxtor 250 gig drive $200 = about 8 rev disks (non compressed)
usb + 1394 enclosure $55

hardrive solution
total cost for 250 gigs = $255 (about a 1 buck a gig)

rev solution
total cost for 240 gigs (compressed 6 disks) = $660

so for about $250 you have a storage solution that is very fast, versitile, and you keep on your shelf, or wherever else you want to put it...we buy 1 harddrive per month, usually when they are on sale or there is a rebate, last week compusa was having an online special 200 gig maxtor for $99 dollars....need i say more

iomega is struggling, if they sold the drives around $20 bucks and the disks for $30, i may consider it...but even then you need drivers..... and such with a usb/1394 solution it is very plug and play even 5 years from now...

The only surprising part of your figures, Robert, is that Iomega is still trying to play the same game.

Josh, if you like the general idea of having dockable drives, try Wiebetech's "DriveDock" units (http://www.wiebetech.com/products/ComboDock.html). For $170 they provide a stationary Firewire (400/800) dock that facilitates easy interchange of 3.5" IDE/ATA drives. It's not pretty but it makes a great deal of sense. Wiebetech's been selling these for nearly 2 years.

Robert, I think you are right, and your figures drive the point home.

Ken..the drivedock certainly seems interesting.

I guess my hesitency towards the external firewire drives is my recent experience with a maxtor unit. I brought it home, transferred lots of footage to it, the the drive failed. Never could get it to work properly. I am sure it my have been a bad unit or bad experience and I need to get over it :)

Maxtor seems to be accumulating a bad reliability reputation during the recent year or so. I have one, an 80Gb, but only use it as a backup device for my system drive. It's been fine.

Otherwise, my other 6 Firewire drives have operated flawlessly and have been a real blessing.

Maxtor - I have 2 units of the 80GB drives. One unit has the control unit (interface board) failure. I removed the drive (basicallly a normal IDE drive) and brought an empty casing for Firewire/USB 2.0 and plugged the drive back in. No problems ever since. The other unit is still going fine today.

It would be cheaper if you can just purchase an EIDE 3.5" drive (400GB now) and an empty casing with Firewire/USB 2.0 and put the disk inside the box. 10 minutes job. Note you can't use the bus power to run a 3.5" hard-disk ... 500mA is not enough to spin the motors. It has to be external power supply. Only the smaller 2.5" Traveldisk can be bus powered.

Interesting to hear that Ken. Perhaps I should experiment with another brand.

TingSern...that is a good idea. If my drive is totally toast, perhaps I can atleast pull the actual drive out and get at my data. Thanks!

Hi Allen,

You should be careful about what kind of failure we are talking about.

In my case, it was the failure of the interface card between the EIDE drive and the Firewire port. Note that you can't remove the interface card on the actual drive itself. Usually, the electronics are pretty hardy - it is the actual drive (Patters, read/write heads, disk motor, etc) that goes. For my case, it is a rare one - the electronics on the Firewire - EIDE card is dead.

But, all the so called Firewire hard-disks are basically EIDE drives internally. So, instead of buying a "relatively" expensive branded Firewire HD, you could save some money by going the route I have outlined.