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	Disadvantages of Other Backup Options

Iomega Zip and Jaz Drive Backup

Jaz and Zip drives are fragile, unstable, and outdated storage technologies best known for the "click of death" class action lawsuit that forced Iomega to offer refunds to its customers for drive failures back in 2001.

Backing your critical data up on a Jaz drive provides only minimal protection against only one type of data loss...hard drive failure and nothing else. Jaz and Zip drives can easily be damaged, lost or stolen. Jaz drive backups are rarely taken offsite, and are not secure, automated or full featured.

1. Affordability: Obsolete Storage on Clearance

100-250 MB Zip disks cost $10-15 each;
1-2 GB Jaz disks cost about $15 each;
You can pick up Iomega drives on eBay for $30-100;

2. Reliability: Failure-Prone Media and Drives

The "Click of Death" is the distinctive sound that the drive read head makes when it becomes misaligned and cannot read a Zip disk.
This motion can also ruin the disk, making it impossible to retrieve data from it without professional intervention. Trying to read the damaged disk also can ruin other drives; a destructive loop can be created between detecting a error and attempting to clean the head upon encountering an error. Related links: I & II
Zip / Jaz drives are subject to the same risks as internal hard drives. are notoriously failure-prone, vulnerable to degradation by the environment (oxygen, heat, sunlight, humidity, liquids, dust) and human mishandling (dropped, stuck in drive, misplaced, etc.).
Like other magnetic backup media, Zip / Jaz disks are frequently damaged by electromagnetic fields emitted by a variety of devices.
Other common causes of data loss: bad sectors, operating system-dependent formatting, CRC error, corrupt/unreadable file or directory, or even the file/directory disappearing entirely, in extreme cases the disk may not be readable by the device.

3. Data Protection: Not Offsite is Not Alright

Unless they're taken offsite every night (which rarely happens regularly), Iomega backups fail to protect data offsite against natural disasters (fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, lightning, solar flares and earthquakes), not to mention theft, disgruntled workers and sabotage.

4. Data Security: Portable Media = Inherent Risks

Where do you store your Zip / Jaz backups -- a safety deposit box, a glove compartment, a purse, a night stand, or don't you know? Proper storage is in a climate-controlled environment.
Is your data encrypted or even password protected?

5. Convenience: Manual Process

Daily Zip / Jaz backup administration is time-consuming manual process requiring human interaction (inserting disks, selecting files or running backup software, labeling & cataloging, taking offsite, etc.).

6. Data Capacity: Limiting and Cumbersome

Zip disks store 100MB to 250MB; Jaz disks store 1-2GB.

7. Remote File Access: Not Available

You can only access your data backed up on Zip / Jaz through your local network if the disk is in the drive and shared.
You may have problems if try to access the data from an operating system other than the one that formatted the the disk.
You may be down for a full day if you store your backups offsite.

8. File Versioning: Complicated and Unreliable

Finding and accessing specific data backed up on Zip / Jaz can a hassle, and does not use delta block incremental technology.

9. Full System Backup: Cumbersome, Failure Prone

Backing up your full system to a Zip / Jaz requires specialized software and often multiple disks. Recovery typically is an extremely cumbersome, time intensive and failure-prone process.

10. Support: Iomega won't help

What will you do when a backup Zip / Jaz holding data you desperately need to recover no longer works, can't be found or is destroyed along with your PC?

Remote Data Backups is the most affordable, convenient, secure and reliable backup solution available.

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Which obsolete backup plan are you using or considering?

	Tape Drive Backups
	Zip/Jaz Backups
	CD & DVD Backups
	External Drives
	Mirrored/RAID Drive

Just the time you spend on manual backups will probably cost you more than a year of RDB's 10 GB auto backups.

5-10 minutes / day
* 260 weekdays / yr
* $20 / hr (tax etc.)
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$433.00 – $866.00 / yr