The zipper bags are thinner material and are OK for a short time in the freezer, but for me, they are just not heavy enough to offer freezer protection when I make 20 pounds of sausages. FS bags and rolls are 3 mils thick. Zipper bags are, at best 1 mil thick. I even mentioned to FS that they would do well if they offered some bags with attached zippers at one end, that also had tear off seals behind the zipper. You fill from the open bottoms and seal as usual. Once you need to open the sealed package, simply tear off the seal at the zipper end and unzip. Then if the contents is not all used at one time, it can zipped up and returned to the freezer again. Any of the FS sealers can have problems if the bags are not totally flat in the sealing area. I always leave an extra 1-2 inches of bag material as you can't easily seal too close to the food product. I also make sure the sealing strip is clean, the rubber strip above it is free of any debris, and the foam rubber seal around the open trough, that the ends of the bags rest in is also clean. Never had any problems with mine, and its now over 4 years old. I also buy bag material on sale from FS, or from some of the other companies that offer it for similar machines. Seal A Meal is now owned by the same company Jardin. A hand pump was used on a small marinator I used to have. It was clumsy and hard to deal with for anything bigger than a single chicken breast. It was heavy plastic, and you had to pull on teh hand pump to draw in a vacuum, which, at best, as minimal. A seperate impulse type bag sealer can also help as it can seal a bag in less than 2 seconds. I have one that I also use to seal two sheets of Remay white plastic fabric used as plant covers outside.

I've used have both of the cheaper vacuum things. One is Ziplock and I think the other is the Glad one.

I remember that the battery operated one worked better than the other. Not sure which was which. The veggies I froze last summer are still going strong. But I am scrambling to use them up quickly because I can't imagine them lasting too much longer.

If you have the money, go for the better food sealer. If not, get the battery operated cheap one. It was much easier to use.

When I have used zip loc bags or grocery store type stuff, I always double bag because I get freezer burn if I don't. I put up enough veggies in the summer to last until the next summer so some of my stuff sits in the freezer for a long time and grocery store bags just don't cut it.