Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett From: r23076@email.sps.mot.com (Keith Barkley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Zip drive, ZipTools, and SquirrelSCSI Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 21 Feb 1996 17:37:19 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 619 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <4gfl8g$r31@kernighan.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: r23076@email.sps.mot.com (Keith Barkley) NNTP-Posting-Host: knots.cs.umass.edu Keywords: hardware, SCSI, storage, removable media, commercial X-Review-Number: Volume 1996 Number 5 Originator: barrett@knots.cs.umass.edu PRODUCT NAME This review covers 3 closely related products and how they work together: SquirrelSCSI PCMCIA SCSI interface Version: 1.12 (As stated in the Readme file) Iomega Zip100 100MB Removable Cartridge Drive (SCSI Version) ZipTools, a WorkBench Commodity that provides disk utilities for the Zip. Version: 1.5 (As stated in the Readme file) BRIEF DESCRIPTION I am reviewing all three products together because, at least for the A1200/A600, the real story is how well they perform as a system, not just as each stands alone. The SquirrelSCSI has already been reviewed, but I felt that someone with no SCSI peripherals would tend, like me, to buy all three at one time. In some ways this goes beyond the bounds of a review and leans towards a tutorial. But most of the additional information can be considered what I had to do to get good performance out of the system. The SquirrelSCSI provides a SCSI interface that plugs into the seldom used PCMCIA port. Indeed, now I know that mine actually works! It is a full featured interface that supports most SCSI storage devices, though scanners and printers may need additional drivers. The Iomega Zip100 Drive is a small (1.5in X 5.35in X 7.26in ), light (1.05 lb.), inexpensive and relatively fast (1.4 MB/sec) removable cartridge disk drive. It uses proprietary beefed up disks slightly larger than a 3.5" floppy. Each disk stores 95MB of data. 25MB disks should also be available soon. While the Zip Drive has no Amiga specific support (from Iomega!), it is standard SCSI and can be used like other SCSI removable. ZipTools, provided by the makers of the SquirrelSCSI, is a WorkBench Commodity that lets you manipulate your Zip Disks in several ways. It allows you to mount, format, write protect, password protect and eject your Zip Disk. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION SquirrelSCSI and ZipTools in the USA: Name: Oregon Research Address: 16200 S.W. Pacific Hwy, Suite 162 Tigard OR, 97224 USA Telephone: (503)620-4919 FAX: (503)624-2940 E-mail: orres@teleport.com SquirrelSCSI and ZipTools everywhere else: Name: Hi-Soft Address: The Old School Greenfield Bedford MK45 5 BR UK Telephone: +44 (0)1525 718181 FAX: +44 (0)1525 713716 Zip Drive: Name: Iomega Address: 1821 West Iomega Way Roy, Utah 84067-9977 USA Telephone: 1-800-456-5522 801-778-3000 FAX: 801-778-5763 (Note: This is a voice line to order a number of informational faxes) E-mail: info@iomega.com World Wide Web: http://www.iomega.com/ LIST PRICE Zip Drive: $239.95 US 100 MB Disk: $22.95 US SquirrelSCSI: $139.95 US ZipTools: $29.95 US I paid $200 US for the Zip Drive, $60 for 3 extra Zip Disks, $99 for the SquirrelSCSI and $19.95 for ZipTools. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE There are no special hardware requirements except for a working PCMCIA port. As far as I know, it will work with any hardware that you can cram into the belly of your A1200. However, I have heard that some accelerators use the PCMCIA reserved memory for fast RAM expansion beyond 4MB. If you have problems and have more than 4MB of fast RAM, then look into this possibility. I have also heard that some AmigaDOS 3.1 upgrades for the A1200 do not support PCMCIA. A hard drive is not required. In fact you can use the Zip Drive as your hard drive. In order to do this you must create a boot floppy since the SquirrelSCSI does not allow a SCSI hard drive to be a boot drive. SOFTWARE SquirrelSCSI: No special requirements, though it is assumed that you will have AmigaDOS 2.04 or above. ZipTools: The back of the manual says "Compatible with all Amigas!" and "Compatible with all Amiga SCSI cards!" COPY PROTECTION None. Hard Drive Installable. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga A1200, 2 MB Chip RAM. GVP Turbo 40 MHz 68EC030, '882 FPU, 8 MB Fast Ram 1 internal 880K floppy. Seagate 350 MB internal hard drive. AmigaDOS 3.0. INSTALLATION The SquirrelSCSI plugs in to the PCMCIA slot on the left side of the A1200, After some initial confusion deciding which end was up, the card slid right in and seemed to make good contact. If you have any doubt, I suggest using a flashlight to check on the ears on the SquirrelSCSI which slide in the slots on the A1200. A glance confirmed what I suspected, that the cable exits the SquirrelSCSI toward the rear of the A1200. There is a problem connecting the Zip Drive to the Squirrel when you have no other SCSI devices. The Squirrel has an attached cable with a Centronics 50 pin male connector which plugs right in to almost every other piece of SCSI gear that exists. The Zip Drive has a DB-25 female connector which, until now, has generally been found only on the SCSI host adapters. Cables abound that will connect the DB-25 to a *female* Centronics 50 pin connector but not to a *male*. My first solution was to use an old 20 MB Apple hard drive that wasn't much good for anything else. Since it had two 50 pin Centronics female connectors I could plug the Squirrel's pigtail into the hard drive and a standard 50 pin Centronics male to DB-25 male on the Zip Drive. Finally, I found a female 50 pin Centronics gender changer at a local computer store that advertised in the yellow pages under "Computer Cables." With this adapter I was able to connect the pig tail of the SquirrelSCSI to the standard 50 pin male Centronics to DB-25 male. (Usually found in the stores as a "Macintosh SCSI cable.") Not as clean as I would have liked, but it was cheaper than most alternatives and, when I finally get my CD-ROM drive, it will simply replace the gender changer. Software installation is simple. Just run the Commodore Installer and go. I would suggest that you not install the CD32 support unless you need it, since it includes a lot of unnecessary files and adds things to the startup-sequence that won't need to be there. You can always install it later if needed. Since it modifies the startup-sequence, the installer saves a copy of the old startup-sequence in a directory named "Old" in the SYS: partition. This is a nice thing to do, but was not documented. (In case you can't tell, I do not like installers changing my startup-sequence file without my knowledge.) Along with Old, the installer creates a CD32, nonvolatile and SquirrelSCSI directory on your SYS: drive. The Installer also adds a SquirrelHDToolBox front end and icon for HDToolBox which is a polite thing to do and saves me having to switch tooltypes in HDToolBox. The installer also adds several programs that make SCSI life a little easier. The SquirrelSCSI also comes with two disks full of Public Domain Files that include CD filesystems, Disk repair and reorganization tools and other SCSI utilities. Installing ZipTools is even easier. There are only a few files and the Commodore Installer puts them where you expect. The ZipTools program goes in the WBStartup drawer and several MountLists are placed in the DEVS/DOSDrivers drawer. It does not change startup-sequence or User-Startup. I do suggest that you have your Zip Drive hooked up when you install the software. It really wants to Amiga format the disk supplied with the Zip Drive. USE AS A BIG FLOPPY Once installed the software makes working with Zip Disks a breeze. They work with the system as easily as a floppy disk. Even if you start up the system without a disk in the drive, as soon as you insert a Zip disk the icon shows up on the WorkBench. The system recognizes disk changes flawlessly and a tap of the hotkeys brings up a commodity that shows the mounted Zip Drive(s) and provides 6 buttons: 1. Write Protect. Allows you to make the Zip Disk "read-only." Optionally, you can use a password so that you are the only one who can remove the protection. 2. Read/Write Protect. Makes the entire contents unusable unless you have the password. The manual warns that if you forget the password the only solution is to format the disk. The Macintosh software states that even Iomega cannot recover your data. 3. Eject. Ejects the disk. This option did not work reliably for me. Sometimes, I had to click it several times to eject the disk. However, since I could just press the button on the drive, this is no big deal. (Unlike the Macintosh!) 4. Unprotect Until Eject. Removes any protection while the current cartridge is still in the drive. When the cartridge is removed, protection reverts back to the original protection mode and password on the disk. This allows you to make several accesses during a single session without entering your password all the time. 5. Remove Protection. Permanently removes protection from a disk. 6. Format. Allows you to prepare a disk for use. A separate requester allows you to choose either "Quick" (Create a fresh new AmigaDOS root directory) or "Format" which does a full format and verify and will replace bad sectors. One thing to note is that the ZipTools commodity lives in the WorkBench Startup directory and does not install itself if there is no Zip Drive present. So, if you buy ZipTools before your Zip Drive, do not expect to be able to even open the ZipTools window! If you plug in the SquirrelSCSI after WorkBench has started you may need to double click on the commodity in the WBStartup directory to run the program. The software adds the exact functionality as the Iomega supplied software for the Macintosh and is just as easy to use. I did not try any of the protection options. One problem is that a full format with verify takes about 10 minutes and during that time the Amiga is locked up and unable to do anything else. This is a big problem in my eyes. After all, the main reason I bought an Amiga is that it multitasks! Interestingly, formatting a RigidDiskBlock prepared Zip Disk with the AmigaDOS Format Disk command does *not* lock out other tasks. ZipTools is not required for day to day operation. The Zip Disk shows up as a standard drive on the WorkBench that can be used like a floppy disk. DiskMaster II, and all other disk utilities, can use it with no problems. While it is noticeably slower than a hard drive, it is still much faster than a floppy. I was able to download files at 9600 BPS to the Zip Drive with no errors. I tried using the standard DiskCopy to make a duplicate of a Zip Disk and got a "Not Enough Memory!" error. However, getting an error is better than 200 500KB-at-a-time swaps, in my opinion. ZipTools works fine with RigidDiskBlock prepared disks. If you insert such a disk after you boot, you will need to use something like SCSIMounter (a custom registered version is included with SquirrelSCSI) to tell the Amiga that the disk is there. Once mounted it can be used like a Zip Disk mounted with the ZIP0: DOSDriver. If you boot with the RDB prepared Zip Disk in the drive, it is automatically mounted by the SquirrelSCSI. At this point I should mention that the SquirrelSCSI software has been changed. Now the default startup-sequence command scans each SCSI address for a device and mounts it. In the past there was a separate command to mount a device at each address. This does increase the boot time by a few seconds. ZipTools comes with MSDOS MountLists for PC Formatted Zip disks. Since I could not attach my Zip Drive to a PC, I did not try this option. Oregon Research warns that CrossDOS bundled with the Amiga is buggy and that better results are achieved with the commercial version. Since I did not have CrossMac, I did not try to read a Macintosh formatted Zip Disk, either. PERFORMANCE Here is a performance comparison chart. I have included my internal IDE Seagate and several flavors of Zip Disk for comparison. I only included three File Create/Write/Read Buffer options in this chart because of space considerations. All tests were done with DiskSpeed 4.2, and minimal loading on the machine. Internal Default Tuned RDB Units AmigaDOS Buffers: 130 5 100 30 MaxTransfer: 0xFFFFFF 0x100000 0xFFFFFF 0xFFFFFF Directory Manipulation Statistics File Create: 42 10 18 16 files/s CPU Available for above: 73 0 0 0 % File Open: 147 22 45 31 files/s CPU Available for above: 30 0 0 0 % Directory Scan: 279 48 48 48 files/s CPU Available for above: 30 0 0 0 % File Delete: 292 48 86 54 files/s CPU Available for above: 22 0 0 0 % Seek/Read: 649 16 703 60 seeks/s CPU Available for above: 10 0 0 0 % 262KB FAST Buffer Statistics Create File: 656 311 523 522 KB/s CPU Available for above: 55 0 0 0 % Write to File: 1259 516 757 756 KB/s CPU Available for above: 30 0 0 0 % Read From File: 1311 595 933 941 KB/s CPU Available for above: 43 0 0 0 % 4096 Byte FAST Buffer Statistics Create File: 351 149 165 166 KB/s CPU Available for above: 56 0 0 0 % Write to File: 579 159 173 175 KB/s CPU Available for above: 39 0 0 0 % Read From File: 458 159 171 170 KB/s CPU Available for above: 57 0 0 0 % 512 Byte FAST Buffer Statistics Create File: 122 25 25 25 KB/s CPU Available for above: 36 0 0 0 % Write to File: 144 24 25 25 KB/s CPU Available for above: 30 0 0 0 % Read From File: 143 24 24 24 KB/s CPU Available for above: 33 0 0 0 % Average CPU Available: 39 0 0 0 % (All Tests) Notes: My "internal" drive is a Seagate ST9385AG 350 MB IDE 2.5" drive configured as 4 partitions. "Default" is the ZIP0: MountList supplied by Oregon Research. "Tuned" is a modified ZIP0: MountList, with extra buffers and changed MaxTransfer. "RDB" is a Zip Disk formatted with a default SquirrelHDToolBox RigidDiskBlock. All tests performed on a freshly formatted Zip Disk with no other applications running. DiskSpeed, through no fault of its own, is very sensitive to many factors that are difficult to control. One is that the performance will change depending on how much data is already on the disk. That is why I always reformatted my Zip Disk before the test. I found that MaxTransfer did not affect performance very much, probably because the Zip has only a 32KB internal buffer. AmigaDOS buffers, set in the MountFile or by the AddBuffers command, always improved the directory access, but did not affect the File Create/Read/Write transfer speeds once you had more than 15 buffers. The big disappointment is that the SquirrelSCSI takes all the available CPU time. SCSISpeed, included with the DiskSpeed4.2 archive, measures the low-level ability of the device to provide data by using device level I/O calls to read sequential blocks from the Zip Drive. It reports that my internal IDE Seagate transfers data at 1.73 MB/s with 23% of the CPU available. The Zip Drive and SquirrelSCSI transferred data at 1.05 MB/s with 0% of the CPU available. USE AS A BACK-UP DEVICE With a Zip Drive instead of an 880K floppy, I no longer have to put off back-ups like going to the dentist. With QuarterBack 5.0.4 I can use one Zip Disk instead of 40 to 50 floppies. Backing up 46.8 MB of data in 1300 files to a single AmigaDOS file on the Zip Disk with full 16 bit compression took 30 minutes, unattended. The size of the resulting file was 29.6 MB. The verify pass took another 18 minutes. I found that it was much easier to back up to an AmigaDOS file so that I could store multiple back-ups to the same Zip Disk. The Zip Drive also allows you to immediately get to any back-up without having to wait for a tape to wind through half its length. QuarterBack was also able to use the Zip Drive as a SCSI device which created a custom Zip Disk that only QuarterBack could read and wasted a lot of space. As a test, I restored a smaller (12 MB) partition backed-up in an AmigaDOS file to a partition with enough space to handle it. It was quick and painless and had no problems. DISASTER RECOVERY DRILL One of the main reasons I got the Zip Drive was to be able to recover from a hard disk crash. In order to prepare for the worst I created a floppy boot disk that made the Zip Drive the SYS: disk. I had some trouble at first with the startup-sequence hanging during the boot. I finally traced it down to the SquirrelSCSI installed CD0: device in the DEVS:DOSDRIVERS drawer. For some reason, it hangs the system during a floppy to Zip Disk startup, but not when started from the hard drive. I solved the problem by moving the CD0: mountfile to the storage drawer. I suspect that if I actually had a CD-ROM Drive, this would not be a problem. I also copied my WorkBench: partition (12 MB) to a Zip Disk. After installing Reorg and DiskSalv (both came on disks provided with the SquirrelSCSI) I still had over 80 MB left on the disk for other stuff!) After creating the boot disk, I rebooted the system with my new boot floppy while disabling the internal hard drive with the boot options screen. (Another thing to love about the Amiga!) Using the Zip Drive as the system hard drive was not as bad as I feared. The response time was not that much slower than using the internal. All the programs I tried worked. Since AmigaDOS keeps libraries around until memory is tight, as long as you have plenty of RAM, the Zip Drive is not accessed all that much. At least with QuarterBack, it was possible to restore from a back-up file on a Zip Disk with no disk swapping due to SYS: being on another Zip Disk. The secret was to switch Zip Disks *after* hitting the "Disks" button in the requester that lets you select the back-up file. After that point Quarterback no longer required the System disk. USE AS A SHAPESHIFTER MACINTOSH SYSTEM DISK One of my secondary reasons for getting a Zip Disk was to be able to use it as a system disk with the Macintosh emulator, ShapeShifter. On my hard Macintosh, I used the Iomega-supplied ZipTools disk and installed System 7.1 on it. ShapeShifter recognized the drive with no problems and as soon as I made the Zip Drive the Startup Disk, ShapeShifter booted from the Zip Drive with no complaint. The Zip Drive functioned adequately as a Macintosh system disk, but working with a relatively slow drive through an emulation proved to be slower than I find acceptable. The Macintosh accesses the hard disk much more often than AmigaDOS which puts a heavy burden on the system drive. Even still, I was still able to run all the applications and games I tried, I just had to wait a while for them to load. DOCUMENTATION The SquirrelSCSI comes with a 60 page spiral bound manual. It starts with a good though brief discussion of SCSI and continues with information about the SquirrelSCSI and its operation. It seems written at a good level for the expert and beginner alike, and does a good job explaining the set up of an external SCSI drive with SquirrelHDToolBox. In my opinion it is only deficient in explaining the way the CD32 emulation works and what it does to your Amiga to make it work. The Zip Drive comes with several booklets that describe the set-up and operation. Most of the information is PC or Macintosh specific. The most important one for Amiga owners is the Zip Owners Guide that describes the drive itself. The information is designed for real beginners, with pictures of cute little guys plugging things into computers and everything. ZipTools provides a 16 page booklet which is all it really needs. The manual is written clearly and should be useful for the beginner and expert alike. In fact, you can use the ZipTools manual instead of the supplied documentation from Iomega. The ZipTools manual takes you through the Zip Drive hardware hookup and software installation and will prepare the supplied Zip Disk for you. (However, if there is ever a chance that you may want to use your Zip Drive on a Macintosh or PC, you should *not* erase the supplied disk. It is expensive to replace!) There is also a little SCSI tutorial based on the "What is SCSI?" section of the SquirrelSCSI manual. My only complaint with the ZipTools manual is that it does not contain any detailed technical information. A discussion of the ZIP0: mountfile, how to tune it up for accelerators/faster SCSI interfaces and how ZipTools works with RigidDiskBlocks would be helpful. LIKES I am pleased with all 3 products and how they work together. The system meets all the requirements I have for archival storage, internal hard disk back-up and disaster recovery. It will even function as a system hard drive in a pinch. Do not be alarmed by the fact that the "LIKES" section is shorter than the "DISLIKES" section. Like any good storage device, the Zip Drive just does its job competently and invisibly until you run across some little thing that could be improved. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS The MountList supplied with ZipTools is not optimal. I added 95 AmigaDOS buffers and changed the MaxTransfer which increased the speed of the drive by 40% according to DiskSpeed4.2. (100 buffers is about 50K of RAM) Information on how to use a ZipTools formatted Zip Disk as a System disk would be helpful. By trial and error I discovered that the ENV: directory in RAM: must be created first and then the drive must be MOUNT ZIP0: 'ed. Then the assigns to the Zip Drive can take place. An example startup-sequence would be nice. This is one place where the RDB format excels over a MountList. The other problem is that the squirrelscsi.device is a CPU hog. I never got more than 0% CPU available. I had hoped that the POLLEDIO option, documented in the README file, would do something to alleviate the resource drain even at the expense of Zip Drive performance. Alas, I saw no difference at all between the two. One simple thing that could be done (I think!), would be to lower the priority of the ZipTools commodity during the full format. I would much rather have the format take a little longer than to lose access to a multitasking machine. The Macintosh software tools disk provides a utility to perform a Zip Disk to Zip Disk copy using as much RAM and hard disk space it can grab to minimize disk swaps. I feel that this would be a nice utility to have in order to make back-ups of back-ups. Minor nit #1: An option for a ZipTools appmenu item or appicon would be nice. Hot keys are fine, but I can never seem to remember them. Minor nit #2: A custom WorkBench icon for the Zip Drive would have been cool. Since it seems that Oregon Research worked with Iomega to write ZipTools, they could have probably gotten permission to create a disk icon based on the Iomega "i." COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS The Syquest EZ drive is similar to the Zip100 Drive. It is physically larger, stores 30 MB more (on reportedly more fragile disks) and is faster, however at this time there is no software package similar to ZipTools. I've heard that HDToolBox is able to format and prepare the drive just fine. I won't get into the great Zip vs. EZ debate here! BUGS The only thing I found resembling a bug was the occasional problem I had ejecting the cartridge with the Commodity's "Eject" button. It never refused to eventually eject and I believe the most it ever took was three clicks. I did not report it to Oregon Research. VENDOR SUPPORT I sent Oregon Research a letter, requesting some clarification and assistance with the MountList vs. RDB issue. I used a letter to test the response time if you do not subscribe to one of the upgraded product support plans. After 20 days I heard no reply. (I did provide my email address.) Since I wanted to get this review published, I felt I should not wait any longer. If I do hear anything in the future, I will post a correction to this review. Oregon Research (and Hi-Soft, too I believe) offer "Gold" and "Silver" support plans. You have unlimited support for the first 60 days by phone, letter or fax. After this time, if you do not subscribe to one of the upgraded support services, you can only receive support by letter. The "Gold" support allows unlimited support and free inter-version upgrades. $70 US The "Silver" support allows fax support. $40 US Both support packages apply to all software that you buy from the company. In other words, one upgrade fee allows you to get support for SquirrelSCSI software, Squirrel Zip Tools and all other Oregon Research packages you may own. I am ambivalent about this method of support which is why I am intentionally hazy about the details. However, I have found that Oregon Research products are pretty solid and do not require much support, and represent good value for your money. WARRANTY SquirrelSCSI: I could find no hardware warranty information. Zip Drive: 1 year limited warranty Zip Disks: Limited lifetime warranty Squirrel Zip Tools: (See Vendor Support, above.) CONCLUSIONS I rate the combination of the SquirrelSCSI, Iomega Zip Drive and ZipTools very highly. It represents a good value getting into SCSI. It is also extremely easy to set up and use. At $0.20 US per megabyte, it also represents a good value. If I do move up to a new Amiga, I can take the bulk of the investment with me even if the SquirrelSCSI is no longer needed. The Zip Drive did everything I asked and is good for archival storage, back-up, a substitute hard drive and as a Macintosh system drive for ShapeShifter. I highly recommend all three products separately, but together they represent a great solution to removable storage. If you have an A1200 and are looking to dive into SCSI this is a good way to begin at a $350 US price tag. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1996 Keith Barkley. (r23076@email.sps.mot.com) --- Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews