PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Choosing a SuperDisk Drive

If, despite our discouragement, you decide to install a SuperDisk Drive, keep the following in mind:

Choose the LS-120 SuperDisk Drive

The LS-240 SuperDisk Drive is expensive. Its only advantages relative to the LS-120 are that it has twice the capacity and supports FD32MB, which allows using 1.44 MB diskettes as 32 MB write-once media. If you must have a high-capacity FDD larger than 120 MB, choose the Zip250 Drive, which is much cheaper than the LS-240 and uses readily available disks. As far as writing 32 MB to a 1.44 MB diskette, we wouldn’t trust our data to such a scheme and suggest you don’t either.

Choose the internal ATAPI model whenever possible

Our readers report many fewer problems with the internal ATAPI SuperDisk Drives than with USB, parallel port, and PC Card models. ATAPI models are supported natively by Windows 95B and later, and usually just work. The USB, parallel port, and PC Card models require drivers, and we’ve had reports of driver conflicts and other problems with them. The ATAPI model running under Windows 95A and earlier also requires drivers, so we expect similar conflicts might occur with that configuration.

Choose the USB model if you have a notebook

The external USB drive can be transferred easily between a notebook and desktop system—assuming, of course, that both systems have USB ports and a USB-aware OS—allowing you to move data back and forth in relatively large chunks. The same might be true of the parallel port model, but ...