Scott Hanselman

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Possibly the solution to my Backup Problem - the Iomega Rev Drive

May 26, 2004 Comment on this post [5] Posted in TechEd
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So, I just ordered this on the spot.  I talked to Ken Getz and I think he's ordered one too.  It may put Iomega back on top.

It's WAY smaller than you think.  I played with it at the Iomega booth.  It's a 35 Gig cartridge (and of course you can compress it.  I wish they wouldn't sell it as a 35G/90G cartridge.  Hell, if I just stored text files it would be a 35G/1T cartridge.  But I'm storing already compressed JPEGs and Digital Video.  Dorks.)

It's USB 2.0 - which I'm digging.  It's just Firewire, but it's USB. ;)  After being screwed by the Windows Firewire stack twice, I'm trying USB 2.0.

The thing that sold me on this Rev is simple: They keep the Drive Heads out of the cartridge.  You can toss the cartridge around (it's very solid) and the heads stay in the drive itself.  It's really like a Zip Drive, except 35 Gigs - and the cartridge is only $50 each.  That's awesome.  I'm going to backup and SAVE EVERYTHING.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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May 26, 2004 12:36
I don't find $50/35GB terribly cost-effective vs. adding more hard drives to your system and using DVD-Rs for offline backup.
Olivier Travers
May 26, 2004 20:29
It's simple...DVDs are at least $4 each...that's a dollar a gig. Not to mention the time it takes to burn to each one. With this solution I can have an automatic background backup run at night. It's roughtly the same ($1.25 a gig) and it behaves like a harddrive, rather than a WORM (write once/read many) drive.
Scott Hanselman
May 26, 2004 22:58
Prices have fallen dramatically, a spindle of 50 brand-name DVD-Rs now costs about $45 (just check out Amazon.com). At $0.2 a GB, why even bother thinking about rewriting the things? And with 8X burners, it's not too long to burn, unless you need to backup things by 100GB increments, so I'll grant you there's somewhat of a hassle factor involved.
Olivier Travers
May 27, 2004 0:01
Point taken...I guess it's the hassle factor then, for me.
Scott Hanselman
November 15, 2005 2:39
The REV drive is great! I really love it, but I wish their software was better... lots better. First of all, the Iomega Automatic Backup won't run as a windows service! In order for it to run, a user has to login & load the software manually. So much for "automatic"! Second, the logs really don't tell you much. Third, it would be nice to have a "notification" emailed to the system admin.

.... just my thoughts......
Kyle

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.