EZ135 Followup

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             EZ135 Followup: The Search for Storage Continues
  Paul Idol                                     76375.1776@CompuServe.COM
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In Which the Search Ends in Disaster and the Author Likely Winds Up Dead of
a Shot in the Back, and for Good Cause

                            --- --- --- --- ---

Mea culpa.  Mea maxima culpa.

Some time ago, I told all you readers out in Amiga-Report-land to go forth
and buy SyQuest's EZ135 removable hard drive in quantities of a hundred.  
Probably a mistake.  Since that time, I've had to take a total loss on my
EZ and all the many EZ disks I bought.

If any of you have been burned by SyQuest's drive because of my review, my
apologies.  If you were burned because of my very late followup, you have
my permission to shoot me in the back if you see me on the street.  Yet I
claim innocence on the first count: the drive worked EXACTLY as I described
it for practically a month before I wrote that review!  Then, shortly after
the review was published, things went straight to hell.  The drive stopped
mounting disks.  So I tried it on my partner's 4000 (outfitted with a
Fastlane AND an Emplant), I tried it on a client's A3000 (I have an A3000,
so I figured this would be a good test) and on the Emplant SCSI port of my
own A3000.  Then, for reasons I won't get into here, I bought an A3000T and
tried the EZ on THAT machine.  Again, no dice.  I even broke open new EZ
disks I could otherwise have returned and tried the drive with them, to no
effect.

Naturally, during the course of all this frenetic testing, I called
SyQuest.  They got back to me after a couple days and told me they couldn't
help, that I'd have to contact the dealership from which I purchased the
drive.  Fair enough.  Except that during the time I was waiting for SyQuest
to return my call, the dealership's free return period lapsed!  So J&R
Computer World (an excellent place in NYC; I don't hold this against them)
reasonably enough told me to contact SyQuest.  But SyQuest was no help, and
I don't plan to ever buy one of their products again.

So anyway, to make a long story short, there I was, stuck with a useless
drive, some lost software, and a hole in my wallet approaching $300.  What
did I do?  I needed a largish removable-medium drive, so I broke down and
bought a Zip.  So far (and this time, the testing period has been rather
longer) it's worked fine.  It's slow as a dead dog, small, and the chassis
feels like it could crack open at any time from its own weight, but I have
no significant complaints.  (I'm dimly aware of the irony of that last
statement.  Dimly.)

My problem with the EZ appears to be part of a pattern of total
unpredictability.  I know a couple people who've had absolutely no trouble
with the EZ on the Amiga.  I know some people who can get the drive to work
on the Mac but not the Amiga.  And I know some who, like me, are just
screwed.

If the world were a better place, there'd be a cool-looking drive like the
Zip with its excellent load/eject mechanism and reliability but the speed
and capacity and solidity of the EZ.  But we all know the world isn't a
perfect place.  So for all you out there who haven't been conned yet, I
warn you: buy a Zip.  And for all you who have EZ drives and are content: I
envy you; stay away from me.

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