Iomega Clik! disk

Above is the Iomega media formerly known as the Clik! disk. When I first heard about them a few years back, I was ecstatic. Iomega was promoting the Clik! as a way to expand digital camera capacity by allowing field downloads from CompactFlash media or Smart Media cards to a Clik! disk. The original media can then be erased and reused in your digital camera. The images copied to the Clik! disk can be downloaded to your PC at a later time.

Most importantly, Clik! disk were cheap when compared to the other media. It cost only RM 40 for 40MB compared to RM 400++ for a 16MB CompactFlash card (This was a few years back when CF cards were really scarce).

When the original Clik! drive was released here, I bought it immediately for RM 1100 (!). It proved exceptionally useful whenever I brought my DigiCam with me on extended trips. So, I bought a few more disks - 5 more to be exact. :)

Clik! disk next to a 50 sen coin

The Clik! disk is about 2.5 inches across. You can see how it compares to a 50 sen coin. Anyway, as you can see, size doesn't matter here since the disk is quite small. You can easily keep a few of these comfortably in your pocket. And since each disk comes with a protective case of its own (as shown below), there's little need to worry about it getting damaged. Besides, Iomega swears that they are tough and reliable. This is mostly due to the fact that the disk itself is mostly metal.

Clik! disk in its protective case

Recently, I was pondering what I could do with my Clik! drive since other than as a digital film roll, the original Clik! drive had a few limitations that made it unfeasible as a portable storage device :-

The original Clik! drive

1. It's BIG, the drive is almost 6 inches long! That makes it very hard to lug around easily.
    
2. The drive won't work on the battery when connected to the PC and the AC/DC adapter is this really BIG power block.
    
3. It uses a parallel (slow!) interface and the parallel port adapter is this BIG ungodly piece of plastic!
    
4. Iomega has STOPPED supporting it!!!! The new Iomegaware does not support the parallel interface in Windows 2000. That was definitely very bad news for me when I saw it!

At about the same time I found out that I won't be getting drivers in Win2K, I read that Iomega was going to release a USB dock for their PC Card Clik! drive. I was seriously considering buying both of them just to keep using my Clik! disks. (This is due to past experience, as I have 2 EZ-Flyer disks which I can't use due to a faulty drive and Syquest being dead!). Then I saw something in the shops earlier this year.....