Iomega Zip CD USB

Take an unprepossessing CD rewriter drive designed to be hidden away inside a PC, put it in a burly purple case and stick a connecting cable on the end, and what have you got? The answer is Iomega's supposedly stylish Zip CD USB.

In fairness, it's not the ugliest PC add-on in the world, but if it were human we'd give it some friendly advice and tell it to lay off the pies.

It's a USB unit, so you can plug it in and have it working within minutes. Actually, that's something of an over-estimate, because we had our Zip CD up and running in two minutes flat - a big thumbs-up for simplicity there. Setting up the additional software (Adaptec's fantastic Easy CD Creator) takes a little longer, but as long as you can read and double-click your left mouse button proficiently, it's not a taxing business.

There's no mystique to creating your own music discs. Start off by buying some blank media - either CD-Recordable discs (CD-Rs),which you can write to only once, or more flexible CD-Rewritables(CD-RWs), that can be used time and time again - and the software does the rest. Easy CD Creator enables you to copy audio CDs with a single mouse click, or you can spend more time arranging track lists before running off a disc.

Data CDs are a little more complicated, but only in that you need to decide beforehand why you're creating one. If you want to make a permanent archive of some important files and documents, for instance, then you'll probably do just fine writing the information to an under-a-pound-sterling CD-R discs. On the other hand, if you see yourself wanting to regularly update the stored data, then a more expensive CD-RW disc might be more appropriate.

As far as performance is concerned, the Zip CD USB can write and rewrite discs at up to four-speed (which means you can copy an hour-long audio CD in just a quarter of an hour). But for lomega's sake, we'd best gloss over the read speed - this is just six times faster than the very first CD-ROM drives.

See also:

MicroSolutions Backpack USB CD-RW

This USB version of an established external CD-RW drive could prove useful for desktop set-ups or those who are more mobile.  08 Oct 2000

Creator of PKZip dies at 37

The man who developed computer file compression software used around the world has died at the age of 37.  03 May 2000

Iomega ZipCD 650

Creating your own CDs has never been easier with this CD-R and CD-RW drive from the people who bought you the Zip drive.  12 Jan 2000

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