I just looked at Amazon and other places, still selling them but at expensive prices (like $70 and up). I've got 6 or 8 players. Also Zip drives. Hundreds of Jaz and Zip cartridges. I should open a store. I get stuff at recyclers, for pennies on the dollar. Jaz players cost me a couple bucks each. People are constantly throwing out stuff as they upgrade, so one doesn't need to buy new. Local recyclers sell stuff cheap before it goes to the dumps. I've bought vintage computer stuff cheap this way. One purchase was 14 iMacs for about $100. Resold half and recouped costs, keeping the best. Wife has been after me to whittle down my collection, reluctantly selling much. Had bought a box of 16 motherboards for $10 total, sold one for over $300. People throw away stuff that's pure gold to others, in their quest to keep current with newer technology. I don't need the money, I like playing with vintage stuff, including cars and furniture. But vintage computer stuff is a whole different thing. This conversation reminds me, I need to convert a Betamax tape of my kids.
I donated most of my old PCs to work and I have a happy wife. Lol. Funny to see some of the equipment on the line and in the IT closet with my son's Sponge Bob Square Pants stickers. Glad that the old PCs are being used.
Is there valuable data stored on your Jaz disks? Or the more specific question: how long will the data last on the disks? If you do have valuable files, you should probably move them to your NAS drive. I don't have to tell you this of course. You know. :)
There may come a time in the distant future, when people will be looking for the Jaz drives and will pay a pretty penny for them. Or the means to get the data off of the disks. Of course, they will probably be plentiful on Ebay even 20 years from now.
Betamax? — convert it as soon as possible. The tape doesn't have a long shelf life! Let me know if you need recommendations for how to get it from tape to your computer.
I have an old higher end VHS player that I will keep forever. It has come in handy a couple of times for converting old videos to modern formats.
A few years back, I converted a reel-to-reel audio recording of my inlaws wedding vows. I didn't have a reel-to-reel player laying around so I hunted around and I found a place that had one. So there is a demand for the old equipment. Interesting that the tape was still in good shape after 50 years. The tape was well taken care of.
Some observations about the different media types and long term reliability and data integrity.
Jaz? — unknown.
Floppy disks — okay.
Recordable CDS (both write once and rewritable). — very poor. Suspect that writable DVDs are the same. That probably includes Bluray. Store them in a dark (no UV), cool place to extend the life.
Magneto Optical — very, very good. Surprising. Disks from dads old MO drive were still readable after 23 years.
Hi8 tapes. 20-30 years max. Some of my 30 year old tapes are not in good shape. Glad that I transferred them to my NAS.
VHS/Betamax tapes. 20-30 years max.
Ink Jet printed pictures — poor. There may be different grades of printers. Places do offer old tech style prints (processed/silver prints). The color dye in old style prints will fade but the black and white photo will last a very long time if stored out of the sun (in a dark, cool place).
Vintage stuff? Cool. I have a 1929 Ford. Long story but it doesn't run well on the ethanol based gasoline.