Hard-Disk-Size Removable-Media Drives
The following drives have capacities of 1GB or larger and are fast enough to be considered removable-media hard drives:
Iomega Jaz.
Features 1GB and 2GB capacities
Castlewood Orb.
Features 2.2GB and 5.7GB capacities
Iomega Peerless.
Features 10GB and 20GB capacities
You can install an entire operating system and a major application on these cartridges and boot from them to completely customize your system's operation. Unfortunately, these drives use proprietary designs, so the drives and media are available only from the manufacturer and are not interchangeable with other companies' products. I usually do not recommend proprietary products, preferring instead devices that are more industry standard.
Because of the popularity of external hard drives that interface through USB and IEEE-1394a (FireWire/i.Link) ports and rewritable DVD drives, this category of removable-media drives has also been declining in popularity over the last couple of years. Iomega discontinued Jaz in 2001, and discontinued Peerless in 2002, although it continues to provide media and support for these drives. In addition, some dealers might still have limited quantities of these drives for sale. Castlewood Orb drives are still sold by Castlewood, even though most retail stores don't carry them.
For more information about Orb, Jaz, and Peerless drives and media, see the Technical Reference section of the DVD packaged with this book.
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