This is OT, I guess, but directly deals with how I can use Poser. I'm in a dilemma. I need (badly) to reformat and install Win98 (don't ask LOL). I have a Zip disk (100 MB) but have many, MANY disks full of Poser (and Bryce). I'm wondering what others use for storage. I thought I wanted an external CD-R, but the costs of the recommended ones are putting me off (Phillips and Smart and Friendly). A friend suggested a second HD (BTW, my HD isn't full-yet) but I'm not sure. I'm using a Gateway 300, 128 mg RAM, 8.1 GB HD. Finding Poser related files easily is important and zip disks are nice, but get fairly expensive when you use a lot (and I've used a LOT). Any suggestions? Diane

I had to get a CD-R/RW because of 3D stuff. I got a HP external one for like $300 on eBay. The money you shell out for the drive will be made up for the sheer cheapness of the media. $2 for 650 megs, cheaper if you buy them in bulk. Just my 2 cents ;) -Trav

Well, you're talking to a guy who went and brought a 17Gb hard-drive especially to put his Bryce/Poser software and stuff on. I may not be the best person to advise you here :o) I also find that with that much space, you tend to be more likely to devote space to more folders so stuff (textures for females; textures for males; animal textures; other textures) are way easier to find. Plus, of course, you don't have to remember which of a hundred ZIP-Disks the model/texture you're looking for actually is the right one :o)

I would recommend a CD/R or DVD/RAM. The cost will be offset by the cheaper media. If you have lots of zip disks, you know what I mean. Plus, Zip disks tend to NOT be a reliable archival storage medium. Seems I throw away a few disks a year because of repeated corruption problems, the click of death, etc... I'm waiting for my G4 with DVD-RAM. Word has it that you use it just like any other disk storage medium. No burning sessions, etc. Plus, each disk holds over 5 gig. I think the disks are around $40 each, but just one gives you a lot of storage. That's my $.02. -ScottK

Higher Cost = Cheaper Media? I have to go with the gang on this one Diane, CDs can be found for 88 cents if you look hard enough. Sure beats the price of a Gig-a-pack ($100+) You get more storage and it's for so much cheaper. You are probably going to spend the same on a whole bunch of zips as you would getting a CD-R. I'd say invest now...and it will be worth it in the long run.... My $25 ... hey I get paid alot for my time... PAN~

This may or may not help, I get calls like this on a daily basis (I work in tech support. We recommend that our employees use a second hard drive to store their critical data, in the event that we need to format and reload the OS we still have all of their files on a secure location. The prices on good hard drives have become increasingly affordable. If you are looking to archive the files for a short period of time (until Poser 5 comes out) this might be a viable option for you. If, however, you plan on keeping the files around for many years, then the kind folks on this forum that have been pointing you towards the CD-R/RW have the correct sense of things. I hope this helps, Elfsong

I went from a syquist 135ez to a Lacie cdr-w for the same reasons lobouk & scottk mentioned. If you don't need, or want, the hard plastic cases you can get the cd's for less than a buck a piece. Take the plunge, you won't regret it.

Okay ... I have a different idea based on what you've told us. You have a Gateway. Upgrade to a new one. get the 27 gig + CDRW + Zip drive. (That's what I'm doing.) you can use their credit plan and just pretty much trade in and request a transfer of data. Hea, it's worth a shot and get you into a newer system all the way around. Just a thought. Boni

Okay, you've convinced me that a CD-R is the way to go. I was particularly curious about using a 2nd HD. I'd already decided that Zip disks are NOT economical-altho' they were a logical choice when I bought the computer and specified an internal zip drive. I know the CD's are cheap-its that initial investment, but I've already seen that it will be recouped eventually (over zips). Thanks for all the input. It really does help when you get feedback from folks actually having to deal with the same problem. Diane B.

My 2 cents Zip disks are very unreliable. The only archival media is optical. I would suggest a Yamaha external SCSI CD-R. It comes with software and you can hook it up to a Mac or PC, and at Buy.com it is only $265.00.

Whew, Boni, that's not in the cards at all, I'm afraid. I just can't justify it for what I do. This system works great for my real design needs and our business needs (plus my husband has a 'cheapie' 400 mgz and I have an old 486 in my studio for CAM work--so YOU bring the issue up in this household LOL) and Poser/Bryce are hobbies. A new computer is down the road a bit, I'm afraid. I remember when I decided to buy the Gateway-several on the Gateway ng and list made a statement that I've taken to heart-as long as your system does what you need to do, then you don't need to buy a new system. I try reeaaaal hard to remember that VBG. (However, I do need a new video card). Diane B.

Well, since I already started an OT thing, if anyone has any preferences about the CD-R they've bought-pluses or minuses, I would love it if you would email me directly so we don't clutter the forum any further. picnic@twave.net Thanks, Diane B.

chuckle Seems to be a recuring problem....IE POSER EATS YOUR HARD DRIVE! :) Anyways, since I'm a CS major, and was researching a project, I found out some good info about image files. I managed to half (or more) my space for textures. If you use the PNG file format, you can have an image with the same quality as a normal TIF, BUT it's combressed as part of the file format. I found that these PNG images are the same size as the ones I pkzip'd up origionally. It'll take a bit of time, but this really does save you alot of space. Now then...my question....Can someone out there tell me the policy of MetaCreations about add-ons? I would VERY much like to modify Poser 3..(or 4 when I get it) to accept PNG files in the same way it accepts BMP and TIF ones. Anyone know if we can do this?

Don't forget, If you have a friend with a burner, you can just borrow it for an evening, produce your archives, and return it.

I hear you ... as for the video card, I've ordered a 32 mg video card. Shop arround, the price of those things are going down, but also please contact Gateway on compatability, better to know before you buy. (I sold computers and software for four years retail and did tech work after that). The campatability issue goes with any periferal you buy. 'Plug'n'play" is a nice term, but it doesn't always work that way. Good luck. I've just done my budgeting and still can't get my system for a couple more months. sigh, it'll have Poser 4 and Bryce 4. Wow. Boni

I have a LaCie cd-r at work. It was relatively inexpensive when we got it. It claims a 4x write speed, but will trash the cd if you try it on a slower computer. Stick with 2x, and everything works great. -ScottK

One more reason to use CD-R/RW for backup (which I use): Adaptec has just put out Easy CD Creator 4, which is their software you use to burn your CDs. It now incorporates their Direct-CD product. If I understand correctly, Direct CD is supposed to allow you to treat your CD-RW like a floppy, i.e., you can write, delete, rename files directly to the CD rather than having to actually do a full burn. This floppy-like flexibility is one of the attractions of Zip or Jazz, but I keep hearing about their instability. Anybody have any experience with Direct CD or care to comment? If it does work like this, its enough to get me to upgrade from version 3.5 (which works very well). Street price for CD Creator is about $99, with a $20 rebate for upgrades.

www.pricewatch.com has awesome deals on video cards, and everything else. Voodoo 3 for only $71.

One more post-I really didn't mean for this to get long. If you are like me, it isn't even so much that Poser and Bryce are eating my harddrive-I actually still have quite a bit of room. Its the backup that concerns me more. I will be really upset if I lose all the downloads I've collected in just several months-let alone what some of you have. I know I have to reformat and so these 2 issues sort of coincide. I've been putting Poser things on Zips, but have gotten a bit lax the last few weeks, so---. And--just to wade through them is a pain. To have so much storage space all on one where you can see what you have-well, youall have convinced me. I've been looking at prices-I bought my Wacom Intuos at buy.com and after a lot of research, found they were absolutely the lowest there. I suspect they may be on a lot of things. But--I'll take my own advice and shop around. I have found that most everything seems less on the net though (And-for checking with Gateway--just ask me LOL. When I tried to upgrade my RAM, I had all kinds of problems. Ultimately, it was just easier to buy from them--and I learned the hard way-mostly with time spent piddling with it-that compatibility IS an issue). Are we done? Should I delete now??? Diane B.

Just a word of warning to give the opposite view. I've never had any problems with 100MB Zip disks, but I have had a 640MB CD-R become unreadable. Also I find that my HP CD-R goes through unreliable patches when all I can produce is a big pile of plastic drinks coasters. When it's working CD-R is wonderful, but when it goes wrong you can lose 640 MB instead of 100MB. Hopefully new machines are more reliable than the early one I got.

I recently discovered the existance of USB external hard drives (10 GB and 20 GB flavors). A very tempting option, especially if you use multiple computers.

Wait I'm in the market for a burner too...Do I need to get a scsi to run my burner or can I get one without it? PAN~

CEBrown, now that interests me. I'd really like to use USB (not until I have Win98 installed however). Could you point me in the direction of where you found that? I initially was hoping that I would find a CD-R in USB, but I guess technically that is asking a lot now. (Pan, everything I read points to scsi for the better CD-R--I'm kind of illiterate about scsi, altho' I can learn). Diane B.

I found the USB hard drive in a catalog from APSTECH. They are at http://www.apstech.com I don't know if they list the drives there. Neat stuff though.

Put a magnet beside a 100meg zip disc and you may wipe out anything you have on it. Put a magnet beside a CD and it won't do anything. I have the zip drive and I don't trust it enough as a back up. Heck, even a subway ride can wipe out those discs, (any strong enough magnetic field can erase!). You can buy your own CD burner, (be prepared for lots of learning, and lots of frisbees as it's not always easy to get the hang of making good readable CD's.), or make good friends with someone that will back up all your stuff on a CD whenever you end up with 650 megs worth, (and by them a pack of CD's as payment for they're time). I know several people that have CD burners and they all have there collection of frisbees from when they first started. Also, a word of note: CD burners wear out after time, so be prepared to replace it every so many burns. The more you use it, the more wear and tear. I don't have one myself, but I have picked up this knowledge from all the Tom, Dick and Harry's around me that seem to have one. Hope this helps?? Radart.

Diane (B. that is), I've got an external 2X HP at work and have had no problems. My home system has a 4x2x24 internal IDE HP. Again, never had any problems. Both came with the Adaptec CD Creator Light software. You just mount the CD-R or CD-RW, and drag and drop files in Explorer. They're multisession, so you can copy a couple of hundred meg and come back next week and add a couple of hundred more. I use 'em all the time for Bryce and Poser. I've seen the 2X internal IDE HP model in local stores for about $170 and the 4X for about $230, but you can probably find 'em cheaper by mail order. Mike K

My HP CD-R/RW has never had any problems with the CD-R discs but HAS lost data when doing the Drag&Drop funtion on the CD-RW's. My version of Direct-CD is about a year old though. btw - Adaptec also has a free utility at their site that will allow any (high speed) CD-ROM drive to read their CD-RWs. Being able to copy directly from the CD-ROM drive to the burner has sure made my file management a lot faster & easier.

It sounds like modern CD-Rs are more reliable than the one I've got. Maybe I'll ditch it and get a new one. It is possible that mine is troublesome because of all the other hardware I've got hanging off my computer including a home made extender board so I could add three external ISA boards, and maybe the fact that I modified the external CD-R to be internal! The point about magnets and zip disks is valid. My zip disks rarely travel more than a few inches betwen the computer and the shelf beside the computer so they should be fairly safe. Maybe I'd be telling a different story if I took them on the tube (subway).

I'm with Maz, my zips don't go very far...and when they do it's not on the subway (yet). I guess the question here is not what's more reliable..but what's bigger storage. I've used zips both at work and at home for several years and have had no problems. I have heard all of the horror stories but can't contribute since they haven't happened to me. CD's won't be erased with a magnet but you do risk scratching one EVERY time you pull it out or place it back into it's case. So both media have their weaknesses. I do however still want to get a burner because I feel the cost is more economical in the long run. Not to mention I'll have more storage space on one cd than on 6 zip disks. My question is I can't seem to decide on which to buy! Is it possible to replace a floppy disk drive with a cd burner? I've got my DVD-ROM hooked up and there is no way in 'eck I'm replacing that for a burner..I'd much rather replace the floppy disk drive and have both the dvd and burner while using my zip drive as my 'new' way of bringing in files (in replacement of the floppy) PAN

I've seen people have their Zips zapped by having them stored too close to their computer monitor. Seems to me that's a pretty common place to store media... but I digress. I've never thought of Zip drives or disks as reliable. I've had too many problems. 3 drives died of the "click of death" in one year at work. That's 3 drives out of 3. Iomega replaced them, but it took a lot of screaming to get it done. As for disks, I NEVER put my only copy of something on a Zip disk. I've had too many problems to trust it. Zips are great for transporting files from place to place - because almost everyone has a Zip drive. And that's the only reason I have one. I have a SyQuest EZ135 kicking around that's always been faster and more reliable. Unfortunately there is no longer any support for this drive, and media is getting hard to find. -ScottK (waiting for DVD-RAM)

I hear ya ScottK, I've heard of that 'click o' death' as well...I guess it's something to keep in mind for all us zip drive owners. Beware..if your zip starts clicking...it may be on it's last legs! As for the DVD-RAM, I hear that's awesome but aren't you afraid it will leave you non-compatible with others who don't have the DVD Reading abilities? I had thought of getting one (a dvd-burner) but changed my mind on that reason. If I was planning to simply store my items for just me...it would be great but since I do a great deal of sharing (of my files etc) I would run into problems if the others didn't have dvd ability. As it is my biggest issues are getting stuff from pc to mac and vice versa! Are you planning on using the dvd for your own storage or to distribute files with others? PAN~

In my book there is only one CD-R burner that has the reliability that I require, and that's the Plextor 820Ti. Atleast I think that's the product code. Anyways, it's the one that burns at 8 speed, so it's one of the fastest burners on the market. It's SCSI, has 4 megabytes of internal cache memory which = reliability and it'll damn near burn on a slice of pepperoni! It's not cheap, and it requires a SCSI controller on the side, but it'll burn reliably for years, and it's cheaper than an external drive! Another thing about the media that you burn on, is that it doesn't pay to buy the cheapest no-name brand you can find. Shell out a bit more on decent media, like Verbatim, Pioneer, Kodak and soforth and your data will last alot longer! The cheapest ones have a tendency to A: Produce more failures when burning, and B: fall apart and get scratched terminally alot faster than the Quality brands!That's my 100$ Hey, I do this shit for a living and professional advice doesn't come cheap, you know! Regards Ronin

Pan, re:DVD-RAM Frankly, I'm hoping that it's backward compatible and will burn CDrom media as well, though I haven't confirmed that. I still do have (gasp) Zip media for sharing with others. My primary uses will be threefold: hd backup, archival storage, and DVD-Video. I don't really plan to distribute data on DVD-ROM, but will likely want to store video accessible by a standard DVD player. (Video is my line of work - and having an efficient way of storing digital video and cg animation in a transportable standard will be a dream come true... heck, right now more people have DVD players than DV-CAM/mini DV video cassette decks... hmmm... $300 & up vs. $1500 & up... I wonder why that is...) Besides, I suspect that before my computer's useable lifetime expires, DVD-ROM drives will be much more prevalent than they are now. I imagine in two years, everyone will have one (well, almost). -ScottK

Thanks group. I've saved this whole conversation and will access it as I do some more research on which one (you've convinced me-a CD-R). Diane B

CD recorder We have a full time Mac tech person. About a year ago he researched CD-R and it seemed Yamaha was probably the top machine. The Yamaha is 4x4x16x. I have a lower end P2 266 at it works perfectly at 4x. I don't think there is any learning curve. The first CD I made worked fine. The problem with the drag and drop software (using it like a floppy drive) is that the disk can only be read in the same environment that it was created in. I would definitely not do this. If you are using Windows 95/98 and change to NT you will not be able to read your CD! External and SCSI will cost more than internal and IDE, but the Yamaha ext. SCSI is "only" $265.00 anyway. The advantage of external is that you can move it from machine to machine and also, I was told, they work better out of the computer because they stay cooler. At work we have lots of zip drives and lots of drives and disks fail. They are great for moving data, but don't store anything on them unless you make at least 3 copies. This adds to your cost and storage space. CD's can be ruined if you mistreat them. Zips go bad all by themselves.