November 30, 1998 (rev.1, originally posted 9/19/98)

Pros: Easy to set up and use, flexibility to use 1.4 MB floppies or 120 MB SuperDisks, uses Mac or Windows-formatted disks, excellent documentation, small size of 120 MB media, iMac matching colors and style

Cons: Generally slower than other 100 MB+ removable media storage solutions

Rating: 4 of 5 Exclamation Points !!!!

Brought to you by Macs Only! Copyright 1998 by Bill Fox

Apple's terrific iMac has taken the personal computing public by storm. It comes with a read-only 24X CD ROM drive and a 4 GB hard drive for storage. It also comes with 10/100base-T ethernet, 56K modem, infra-red and Universal Serial Bus ports. However, the iMac is not made with a removable magnet storage device (i.e. no 1.44 MB floppy SuperDrive nor even a more modern Zip Drive) that has been the staple of personal computers since their inception--oh, horror of horrors! Apple's decision was a look to the future, a floppy-less future that depended on CDs, the Internet and ethernet to take care of the floppy's chores. Apple's argument is that most applications now come on CDs, updates and small utilities are downloaded mostly from the internet and ethernet networking (as opposed to slow LocalTalk) for moving files quickly among computers has become relatively cheap. Ethernet costs roughly $10 or $35 or $45 for two computers, depending on the ethernet capability of the older computer--see here for a two-computer ethernet or here for a larger but cheap network posted by MacsOnly.Com. Apple is right but still it appeared that many people feared this floppy-less future and their fears were seized and played upon by the Wintel hucksters. After all, Apple did not include a serial, parallel or SCSI port so no existing removable magnetic media storage device on the market could be attached to the iMac. In addition, there may be other instances of outdated organizational policy that requires floppies for correspondence, etc.

Well, it's Imation to the rescue! Imation shipped its brand new USB-port SuperDisk Drive for the iMac on September 11, 1998, and officially announced such on September 17th. The SuperDisk Drive can read and write to Mac and Windows-formatted 1.4 MB 3.5" floppy disks and Imation's special 120 MB disks. So the SuperDisk Drive is more like the ubiquitous Zip drive and better in many way except one, i.e. a lot of people have Zips but few have Super Disk Drives. While both Iomega and SyQuest have announced USB-port versions of their drives, the USB SuperDisk Drive is available now and, furthermore, it can use 1.4 MB floppies and is perfectly color-matched with the stylish iMac (see front view photo above).

What You Get

In the box with the SuperDisk Drive is a 120 MB SuperDisk, a USB cable, an AC/DC power converter/cord and a CD with the latest USB port drivers for the Mac OS, a manual in portable document format (Adobe Acrobat) and a color icon to paste over the SuperDisk icon if your Mac OS renders it in simple back and white. The SuperDisk Drive is about the same size as a SyQuest SyJet or an Iomega Zip drive (roughly 5" x 7" by 2") but seems a bit heavier and like them, the SuperDisk Drive needs an external power supply. The SuperDisk's is nice because it is small, light (no brick) and plugs into a powerstrip without hogging the two adjacent (or more) outlets as many power supplies do.

The 21-page manual is surprisingly detailed and complete for something that is no more complicated that a simple floppy drive. It covers a pre-installation check, installation, operation, maintenance, troubleshooting and specifications and it is illustrated very well. The principal warning is to not eject a disk when the green light is on and the only maintenance recommended is to clean the head every once in a while, i.e. after 40 hours use.

Not much trouble is expected as the troubleshooting section is a page with another page of support contacts. Telephone support is free for 30 days and there are FAX back and FAQ options. There's no charge for a call on something covered by the warranty. Actually, I couldn't find the drive's warranty so I can't tell you what it is but the 120 MB SuperDisk has a lifetime warranty. The specifications claim a transfer rate of up to 25 MB per minute. This claim is optimistic but at that rate a 1 GB transfer would take some 40 minutes or more not counting the swapping of 8-9 120 MB SuperDisks. I cover speed later in this review.

Set Up

This is no problem. First, insert the CD and click on the installer. It completed its job in seconds with no input necessary. However, the manual had to be dragged and dropped from the "English" folder to copy it onto the hard drive. Next the USB cable is attached to the back of the drive. It's the big bondi blue connector in the photo to the left and it snaps on easily. The other end of the cable plugs into a USB port on your iMac or on the keyboard. Plug the power cord (at far left) into the SuperDisk Drive and an outlet. There is no on/off switch so its powered when the AC adapter is plugged into the outlet. That's it.

Use

What's to say that is new or different? It works exactly like any floppy drive except that it has a light in the front that glows green when the drive is reading or writing just like an external SCSI hard drive. I tried various 1.4 MB floppy disks, both Mac and PC and it worked just like a Mac SuperDrive. The 120 MB SuperDisk is surprisingly just like a 1.4 MB floppy disk. Unlike a Zip disk, the 120 MB SuperDisk is the same size and thickness as a 1.4 MB floppy.

Insert the SuperDisk and an icon mounts on the desk top. It can be published on a network just like a hard drive and used by any other computer on the network.

Speed: USB ports are faster than Apple serial and ADB ports. However, the main rap of a USB port is its speed relative to a SCSI port. I compared the transfer (copy) speed of the SuperDisk Drive using a 1.1 MB file (the iMac System Enable 462 file) and a 113.5 MB folder with 877 files (the iMac's System Folder) for the 120 MB SuperDisk. The test platforms were:

iMac

• 233 MHz G3 CPU w/512K Backside Cache at 2:1 speed ratio
• 67 MHz System Bus Speed
• 32 MB RAM
• Imation SuperDisk Drive w/USB port
• 4 GB Internal EIDE Hard drive
• 10/100base-T Ethernet connected to a 10base-T Hub

PowerMac 9600

• PowerLogix 250 G3 @ 285 MHz w/1 MB Backside Cache at 1:1 speed ratio
• 47.5 MHz System Bus Speed
• 128 MB RAM
• Internal Apple 1.4 MB SuperDrive
• 4.5 GB Internal SCSI-3 Hard Drive
• 10base-T Ethernet connected to a 10base-T Hub

The resulting test times in minutes:seconds are contained in the table below [Revised 11/30/98 -- original times much slower due to a defective SuperDisk Drive].

Comparing the first four entries, writing to a 120 MB SuperDisk with the SuperDisk Drive is much faster than to a floppy with an Apple internal floppy drive. Writing to the iMac's internal hard drive from a SuperDisk in the SuperDisk Drive is again much faster than writing from the 9600's internal floppy.

In the second four entries, as expected, it is clear that the SuperDisk Drive with a 120 MB SuperDisk is much slower than the SCSI hard drives used with the 9600. Furthermore, writing to the SuperDisk is slower than writing from it. Looking at the next two entries shows that an external SCSI SyQuest SyJet is also much faster than the SuperDisk Drive.

The final entry shows the speed of copying the 113.5 MB folder over a home ethernet network which is faster than copying to the SuperDisk Drive.

Another way of looking at the speed of the Imation SuperDisk Drive is how long it takes to reformat (erase) a 1.4 MB floppy drive with a 1.1 MB file in comparison with an Apple internal SuperDrive floppy drive. The results are shown in the table below:

The SuperDisk Drive takes 16% longer. This is not really significant but it shows that the SuperDisk Drive is slow.

Conclusions

The Imation SuperDisk Drive does the job for the iMac, providing 120 MB storage on SuperDisks in addition to working with 1.4 MB floppy disks. It is easy to set up and use. It looks great. It is slow but not unacceptable so. The SuperDisk Drive will work fine with the small files that some people worry about being able to transfer among computers. So most people should find that it serves the purpose of a floppy drive with the added benefit of 120 MB storage on a single disk like a Zip or SPARQ drive. It is a good interim storage and file transfer device until everyone becomes comfortable with the internet, a local ethernet and CDs to accomplish the same things better and faster.

. . [Macs Only!]