Clik! sets portable standards

One of the perks of writing a column about travel technology is that you get to test all the new gadgets first. Last week Iomega sent over its latest innovation in portable storage, the tiny Clik! drive, and asked me to take it for a test drive.

So here it goes.

The Clik!, for those of you who haven’t seen all the ads, is a removable PC Card that holds a tiny disk drive capable of storing 40MB, or about 27 times the storage capacity of a standard 3 1/2-inch floppy disk. Its system requirements are minimal: all it needs is a notebook computer with a type II PC card slot, a 100 MHz processor of faster and 16MB of RAM – meaning that it’ll take to just about any PC laptop.

Indeed, the Clik! is meant to replace the clunky old floppy drive, which has been around since 1981 and has clearly outlived its usefulness.

Can it? I think so. The Clik! is a snap to install and as easy to use as a conventional disk drive. It took me less than ten minutes to run the CD-ROM with the driver software and a few seconds to tell the Clik! software how I wanted it to behave on my desktop.

My Gateway FireAnt (yes, I still haven’t gotten around to returning the notebook) accepted the PC card without any complaining. But I had to eject the DVD card to make room for it, which was a minor inconvenience. I was pleased that the Gateway lets you swap devices while the computer is still “hot” — it will save me a lot of time and headache when I want to switch from working on the latest chapter of my book to watching that copy of the movie Virus.

Here’s my standard disclaimer: I’m not done testing the Clik!, so bear in mind that all of my observations are based on a first impression of the disk drivelett.

I’m thrilled at the way the Clik! backs up all of my work without any additional prompting. Its QuickSync software, which ships with the drive, instructed my notebook to save all of my work at regular intervals. I found this far more efficient than using an Internet-based backup system – a procedure that forces my computer to log on every day at a given time to transfer updates of the files I’ve been working on.

Big drawback: you have to remember to remove the disk when you’re done. I’d wager that it’s easier to remind yourself to take an old floppy with you than one of these little guys. And it’s probably much easier to lose a Clik! than a floppy.

The Clik! is wicked-quick. With an average seek time of 25 milliseconds and sustained transfer rates of up to 620 KB per second, I hardly had to wait for the unit to jump into action. While we’re talking specifications, I noticed that the drive has a storage temperature tolerance of between 40 and 60 degrees Celsius, meaning that you’ll expire before it does.

But the Clik! isn’t without its disadvantages. There’s the cost, for starters. At about $200 a pop, you’re paying a premium for storage space. Factor in the cost of a disk ($10 apiece, assuming you’re buying a pack of 10) and you’re down $300. Worth it? Perhaps.

A decision to buy a Clik! should rest on two considerations. The first, obviously, is whether my follow-up story favors the gadget or not. By all indications it should unless the thing spontaneously combusts inside my laptop. I’m not expecting it to blow up.

The second is whether this new storage device will be able to become the next notebook PC storage standard. Is the Clik! really the next floppy disk? Iomega hopes so. In fact, the Roy, Utah, company is stuck in a downward spiral, recording a second quarter net loss of nearly $20 million. Revenues are off after a massive restructuring, and its pretty clear that the suits are pinning their hopes on the Clik! rescuing them.

There’s word that Agfa is collaborating with Iomega to include Clik! disks in digital cameras, a step that would drive the format one step closer to standardization. But Iomega faces formidable competition from memory cards, memory sticks, CD-RW and DVD-RAM systems that often outperform it and cost less.

So what does the Clik! have going for it that the others don’t – and is it enough to buy into this technology?

· The Clik! is cool. It’s very Mission Impossible. It’s sexy. I like that.

· It’s built by Iomega, which has a solid reputation for reliability.

· It’s smaller than DVD or CD drives, which still consume obscene amounts of space.

· It’s less fragile than optical storage systems (but not memory cards).

I don’t know if that’s enough of an argument to buy into the Clik!, but as I use the technology during the next few months, I will keep you posted with my observations. If you’ve got any of your own words of wisdom on this emerging field of microstorage components, I’d like to hear them. Write to our technology columnist with your comments. Remember, your messages might make it into a future column on the subject.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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