SimpleTech's USB/FireWire 30GB External Drive

It's no wonder that we haven't heard much from Iomega recently. The once ubiquitous Zip drive has gone the way of the dinosaur, being trounced out of existence by smaller, higher capacity, more reliable means of storage. Among the Zip destroyers are the solid state storage devices, which can give you more storage with less hassle in a device the size of a fat pen . Now, we're starting to see reasonably priced solid-state storage devices in capacities a bit more suitable for backing up larger amounts of data. SimpleTech's SimpleDrive Deluxe is a plug-and-play storage device that can add up to 30GB of storage space to Macs and PCs and is compatibility with USB 1.1, USB 2.0, and FireWire. The gadget weighs less than 16 ounces and is available in 6GB, 10GB, 20GB and 30GB capacities starting at under $200. SimpleTech has done the math and boasts that a 20GB unit provides storage equivalent to 200 100MB Zip disks at 128kbps. Math on price comparisons per 100 MB is left to the consumer, but it seems like 6GB worth of Zip disks would cost around $600. I simply refuse to estimate how much I managed to spend on the things back when I was doing print production work, but I've got a pretty good sized stack of them that I haven't touched in a really long time. And technology marches on...