The Syquest EZDrive is an external disk drive that connects to your parallel port and is identified as your D: drive or, if you have a CDROM, your E: drive. The installation is simple, comes on 3.5inch disks for DOS, OS2, NT, Windows 3.1 or Win95. You get one Syquest removable disk, which includes demo applications for file management (Personal Archiver), multi-media design (Wrangler) and a game or two.

I got the EZDrive 135 at CompUSA, on sale and with a rebate that resulted in a final cost of $100. Additional 135 meg disks are $20. I believe that the 135 drives are discontinued because all I see advertised now are the 270 meg drives, around $300 and the 270 meg disks at $30.

The software includes disk scan, formating, file manager and diagnostic tools, all very easy to use. The EZDrive can be used without an Archiver program. You can move applications into it from your hard-drive, or install them directly. You can then run them by changing the command path to its drive letter.

The Personal Archiver demo gave a sample of file archiving, the directories remain on your C: drive in File Manager, but the files are copied to the EZDrive, freeing up space on your hard drive. It worked flawlessly. Unfortunately it is just a demo and allows you to archive only 100 files, then tells you how to call an 800 number for an upgrade, which I did. I learned that Personal Archiver had been sold to Cheyenne Software and incorporated into their Infinity Disk CD, and it was available for a $5 shipping fee. (Not bad, I saw it for a $40 in CompUSA) I ordered it, installed it, and easily configured the EZDrive and my hard drive files to work with it. I wanted to move some of the large programs to make room on the HD, which it did with no problems. It has a lot of bells and whistles I haven't used yet, such as scheduled archiving, (Cheyenne calls it *migrating*), and automatic migrating of older files. It keeps track of your file use and migrates those that you don't use often.

I can recommend the EZDrive external removable disk drive for its simple installation and operation. An additional or larger internal HD would be better or faster, but would require the know-how to install them. Anyone can use the EZDrive, just plug the cable into the printer port and be off and running, adding as much storage as you want with additional disks. The big disadvantage is having to change the disks to access all of the programs they can hold. The EZDrive can also be used for backing up your hard drive. You could keep copies of all your programs on the disks, and if the HD crashes, it would be a simple matter to format it, reinstall DOS/Win3x or Win95 and copy all of the applications from the EZDrive back to the HD. I haven't done it, but it sounds easy, doesn't it?