USB Zip 250 is slower than SCSI 250 drive why?

I notice that my new Zip 250 drive seems a little slower in Tiger, than
my old SCSI zip 250 was in OS 9.1. Why? I know SCSI 1 should be faster
than USB, and my guess is that this drive is a 1.1 drive. What do you
say about this?


John

 

If your new ZIP drive is 1.1, then it has a transfer speed of
11Megabits/second or about 1.3megabytes/second assuming zero protocol
overhead, and that is unlikely.

Even the oldest SCSI interface was 5megabytes/second, or about 4 to 5
times as fast as USB 1.1.

Bob Harris

 

Hi

Don't tell those obvious facts, we are happy with "new technology" USB

Also USB bandwidth is sadly shared. So, plugging 4 usb 2.0 devices to 1
usb port makes it 4 of them (saying plain, ignoring overhead) run 1 usb
2 device speed. I am not familiar with external SCSI arch but I
remember its not issue on SCSI.

Wonder why we TV workers etc buy SCSI, Fiber SCSI etc? No, not because
we are nostalgic freaks, SCSI is a must on some configurations.

The only problem was giving it to home users without any option else.

If you have SCSI devices, find a low price (but good name) SCSI card,
don't bin them falling to the trick that USB is faster, SCSI dead etc.

Oh, Firewire (extreme!) is a good option too. E.g. if you buy a
external DVD recorder sometime, go with the one having Firewire 800
option.

Ilgaz

 

Because USB 1.1 is slower than SCSI 1. Not that it matters, Zip drives are
unreliable and expensive. You can get a 4 GB flash memory jump drive in Radio
Shack or Office Depot or Office Max for $120. WHy waste time and money with a
Zip drive?

<https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/cgi-
bin/iomega_na_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2079> says that Zip 250s
are USB 1.1.

I say that Bible John failed to read the box, and also failed to visit
Iomega's site.

 

I am one who was saddened to see SCSI disappear from the Mac hardware over
the years in favor of the slower ATA crap that the Wintel users got.

 

He has the device and wants to use it.

Now this would be a concern. E.g. if you plug the usb 2 device to
keyboard, it downgrades to usb 1 as keyboard has a usb 1 hub.

USB 1.1 is slower than SCSI, true. The thing is, not to share the
already slow USB bandwidth.

IMHO plugging it to front USB while using it and unplugging is the best way

Ilgaz