Small designers Jaz up their storage systems
Gone are the days when architectural and urban designers simply drew up a blueprint and passed it on to a client. Now, being a good designer requires not only strong conceptual abilities, but also a level of professional presentation that can only come with mastery of a range of CAD and design software programs. As the demands placed on designers increase, so do the demands these designers place on their computing equipment.
However, with the high costs involved in constant computer upgrades, many designers are having to seek out more cost-effective alternatives to expanding their computing capabilities.
A prime example of this is urban designer Robin Bradley who has solved this dilemma by using an Iomega® Jaz® drive to launch and run applications, leaving the hard disk space on his company's three computers free for storing everyday files and work in progress.
Robin heads up an architectural and urban design company specialising in the design of overall schemes, site layouts and buildings for clustered and medium density housing. With a list of past clients including Lend Lease, Jennings Homes and Long Homes, Robin Bradley Residential Design has built a strong reputation within the building industry for being able to deliver stylish, functional and professional designs, even under the pressure of tight deadlines.
"In the last few years urban designers such as myself have had to adapt to the fact that we are working in an increasingly computer-based industry," he said. "We now need to be proficient in a whole range of computer applications, and having the facilities to work on these applications is pretty much a given.
"In addition to the standard range of CAD programs, we now need things like PhotoShop, Painter and a whole range of other tools, just to get the job done. We are currently doing a lot of 3D rendering work, which requires the creation of several design layers, and results in extremely large PhotoShop files."
While access to a larger range of applications has enabled designers such as Robin to provide their clients with a more detailed and 'finished' product, the use of these applications is not without its drawbacks. For many smaller designers, the ability to run what can be extremely memory-intensive applications has always been limited by how often they can afford to upgrade their PC or buy more hard disk space.
However, by connecting a Jaz drive to his computer, Robin has been able to rapidly and cost-effectively expand his hard drive and avoid the expensive process of completely upgrading his computer system.
"We currently use several 500 MB computers to do all our design and rendering work," said Mr Bradley. "While these may seem like quite small hard drives by today's standards, running the majority or our applications directly from the Jaz drive, allows us to leave the majority of our hard drive space free, and we are able to get excellent performance from these machines. In this way, we are effectively getting the performance of a much more expensive computer system, and there is no urgent need to go out and spend several thousand dollars on an upgrade."
Jaz drives operate in much the same way as the hard drive on a computer, enabling users to expand the storage capacity of their Mac or PC incrementally, with additional one gigabyte disks. With speeds matching many existing hard drives, Jaz disks are ideal for storing and launching large CAD/CAM and design applications directly from disk.
Apart from the convenience of an extended hard drive, Robin's Jaz drive has enabled him to simplify his day to day back up functions and to transfer large files between computers with ease.
"Before the Jaz drives were released about 2 years ago, I had been looking around for a suitable storage and backup solution but had not been able to find anything with the speed and size I was after. Jaz proved to be the ideal storage method for my particular needs, and, as most of the people I work closely with now have Jaz drives, it has also become one of the most convenient ways for us to transfer and share information."
At only $599, Jaz 1GB drives are fast becoming an indispensible tool for design professionals and those involved with audio/video development, CAD/CAM applications and financial data management. Jaz 2GB drives and disks, which provide twice the capacity and up to 40 percent higher performance than the original Jaz drives, are also available in the market.
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