Poll: Castlewood 2.2 Gb External USB Orb Drive for $122+ Tax (Removable, Zip type Disks)

[safaar]

They have the orb drive at ecost for $152 ...
Ecost Link

Price match it at staples and use $30 off coupon and it comes to $122 plus Tax...

Staples Item Here

PS: unfortunately they dont combine the tv with dollar off coupons anymore... tried 5 times and also talked with CS.

Need to see a review of the drive??? Go HERE!!!

 

[safaar]

oh forgot to mention... vote for the poll..

 

[randomlinh]

heard some reliability issues w/ this drive/media.

I'd rather stick w/ cdr/w, or just buy another ~40GB hd or so

 

[safaar]

hmm... Can anyone confirm that either way? i couldn't find anything bad about it besides it having problems with some drives being damaged at arrival, and some having trouble in win98, with manual eject... wasnt able to find anything about reliability issue...

 

[xqqqme]

I owned an Orb and sold it.
I had two disks one worked and one didn't.
I have heard other people having the same problem including Leo from TechTV,
he doesn't use his anymore.

My vote is to skip it and use CDRW or get another HD for backup.
You could even get a removable harddrive if you want off-site backup.

 

[gr8snakee]

This drive is wonderful for the scsi music workstations for ya midi freaks. This drive rocks with a korg triton. thanks for the info

 

[VH2000]

Only problem with the pricematch is,
unless you get a good CSR that doesn't tack on shipping fees,
they will add ecost's $8.20 shipping fee + ecost's $7.95 handling fee.

It would then be $169.03 - $30 = $139.03 + tax.

 

[safaar]

I Checked the shipping on this and it comes down to like $6.00 ... still not a bad deal at $128.00+ tax

 

[safaar]

Anyone confirm the problems???

 

[zaad]

We have eight of these drives at work that's used more or less constantly. These are not anywhere near as reliable as Jaz drives, but not nearly as costly either (drive and media).

They've been in use for over a year. Since then, we've had to RMA 3 drives and over 10 disks.

You definitely have to treat the media gingerly. For the speed/capacity/price point, they're a bargain. However, they can be problematic depending on how well you treat the disks.

 

[smensch]

My friend at school had one of these drives, and it sucked. Sure, the disks held a lot of space, but the drive was erratic. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it would crap out. He ended up selling it on [thy auction site thou cannot sayeth on thy forum] for almost what he paid for it (gotta love [thy auction site thou cannot sayeth on thy forum]...). In his words: "What a piece of $#%@..."

 

[stonerdave]

Yes, i remember when these drives came out. castlewood seemed like they'd come up with an awesome storage solution, but 2 diff reviews I read complained about their orb breaking/disk not being readable. One was maximum pc (magazine), I can't recall the other. I'll try and find a link.

I'd buy a 8x cd-burner. CD-R's are dirt cheap and have very few compatibility issues.

 

[safaar]

I got the drive... just tested it out.. and it is FAST!!!... i used the SCSI chain setting... and it works fine... thank god... i was starting to worry after all the bad things i heard it is virtually noise less... i barely even hear the drive.. and it works fine.. so far at least... i moved to to three diff comp and 1 notebook to check and it worked fine on all of them... USB is a bit slower than scsi but that is expected.. also installed and ran and then uninstalled 4 diff games.. and so far no probs... only thing i dont like is the color.. teal green... seems like it was made for the iMacs.. (no pun intended )

 

[JackMDS]

Just a tip.

Floppy, and Zip disks are basically a piece of plastic covered with ferric substance rotating between two other pieces of plastic. If they fall, or rattle in your bag, 99% of the time nothing happened to them.

Jazz and orb are small portable Hard Drives i.e. there is a metal platter rotating inside the disk The jazz is built relatively heavy so it is secure, but costly, and hard to carry around. The orb disk is a hard drive that was build to look, and have the size of the floppy, but it is a HD so it is very vulnerable. Put it ?strongly? on the table and the probability that it will not work any more is very high. Put it in your bag with books etc, drop the bag to the floor and it is gone.

As long as you are aware of the nature of the orb disk, and are careful, it is a good cheap storage solution.

 

[safaar]

True.. I opened the floppy up just for the pun of it... and their retension mech is not that great... but ofcourse you should know that if you are carrying basically a hard drive around.. you treat it with respect..

 

[VH2000]

I just picked one of these drives up & I think I'm gonna make a little carrying case for the disks (or the drive & the disks). Some small slots or something in a foam-rubber type of block to keep them from getting rattled. Similar to the way hard drives are shipped!!

Hope this helps!!