The typical decent quality compressed digital music file is around 1 megabyte (MB) per 1 minute of music, which is around 3-5 MB for an average song. 4k quality movie files are around 3.5 – 7 gigabytes (GB) per hour, which translates to 3500-7000 mb for every hour of movie you watch. What do all these numbers mean? Not much if you are staring at them on a blank page, but if you were to take all these MB and GB and then realize the typical 3½-inch floppy disk everyone used in 1994 only contained 1.44 mb of space… well, with this knowledge, suddenly all these numbers begin to take on meaning. Enter the magical Zip Drive — the answer to those who felt the 3½-inch floppy disk memory pinch in the ‘90s.
Released by the Iomega company in 1994, Zip drives were a computer peripheral that would read Zip disks, and computer data could be stored on these Zip disks, but — to better understand exactly what was so magical about Zip drives, let’s step into the time machine and take a trip back to the ’90s where computers had wayyy less storage. The average hard drive in 1994 only contained 200 – 400 mb worth of storage (in 2021, when this article was written, most modern computers have 1-2 terabytes of data or 1 to 2 MILLION mb worth of storage!). And back in 1994, most of that 200 – 400 mb of computer storage was taken up by the operating system and programs, which usually left about 50 mb for storing additional documents and info! Plus, if you wanted to back up your additional 50 mb of precious novels and world-shattering dissertations, you were left putting that info onto disks that could only hold 1.44 mb of data per disk — yikes, that’s nothing! So what was one to do if they wanted to easily, quickly, and more cheaply back up ALL of their computer data in 1994? Nothing… well, not much could be done until the arrival of the Zip drive in 1994.
With the arrival of Zip drives in 1994, consumers finally had a way to back up larger amounts of their data for either safekeeping or bringing on the go. While the popular (and cheaper) 3½-inch floppy disk only held 1.44 mb of data per disk, Zip disks had capacities that started at 100 mb per disk… that’s about 69 3½-inch floppy disks worth of data on one Zip disk! While both the 3½-inch floppy and Zip drive used magnetic media to store data, the larger Zip disks didn’t just allow for more data to be stored, they also allowed for faster data transfer rates. 3½-inch floppy disks had a data transfer rate of about 16 kilobytes/second and given there are 1000 kilobytes in just 1 megabyte — the 3½-inch floppy disks ’90s folk used were UBER sloooowwww. Zip drive disks blazed past their 3½-inch floppy counterpart, zipping about at 2,968 revolutions per minute, which led to a data transfer rate of 1.4 megabytes/second! At this rate, it would take a 3½-inch floppy disk around a minute and a half to transfer the 1.4 megabytes of data the Zip disk could do in ONE SECOND!
It wasn’t just the increased storage capabilities that made the Zip disks so cool, the actual Zip disk drive itself looked hip and different. When the Zip was released — PCs, Macs, and other computer peripherals were mostly the same drab gray/beige colors. The Zip drive, on the other hand, was a vibrant blue, and had rubber feet on the bottom and sides so you could get fancy with the drive and stand it flat or on its side. And unlike 3½-inch floppy disk drives that would not allow you to see what you wrote on the disk label once you inserted it into the drive, the Zip disk drive had a clear window so you could still see the label while it was inside the drive — fancy!
So if the Zip disk was so great, why don’t we hear about them anymore? What the heck happened? Well, CDs happened. When the first writable CD system came out around 1989, the initial systems cost upwards of $150,000 USD and the CR-R media cost about $100 USD per disc. At launch in 1994, Zip disk drives only cost $199.99 and each disk was $19.95 — wayyyy less than CD-Rs. By 1995, a year after the Zip disk’s launch, CD-R drives were coming out that were $995 (a far cry from the $150,000 USD CD-R drive cost from a few years prior). Unfortunately for Iomega, by the end of the ’90s, CD-R drives and Zip drives were both only a couple hundred bucks, but CD-R discs were plummetting in price to dollars a disc, and were cheaper to produce than Zip drives. And, ultimately, CD-Rs would go on to hold more storage at a reduced cost. As the ’90s came to a close, the Zip drive was becoming less and less cost effective for storing large amounts of data — all hail the CD.
While the Iomega company tried their best to compete with the cheap and booming CD-R movement with a 250 mb drive in 1999, CD-R discs were cheaper and cooler, dooming the Zip drive. Iomega did try some last ditch attempts to get more creative with marketing their Zip technology and in 1999 released a smaller 40mb format “clik!” disk intended to be used for portable music players and digital cameras. However, even the clik! was a major fail for Iomega, as not only were they competing with flash media cards able to do the same storage tasks without moving parts — the name clik! ended up being a PR nightmare when Zip drives started failing and a clicking sound came out of said dead Zip drives that became known as “the click of death”… yikes! Iomega tried to save the clik! by changing the name to PocketZip in 2000, but as goes the story with the history of Iomega as a whole — the change was too little, too late.
The Zip drive was truly dead in the water when Iomega was forced to join the competition with its own CD-R drive and “ZipCD” in 2000, but even that was not as popular at its CD-R counterpart (and Iomega’s CD drive had reliability issues). Iomega did try a last ditch attempt to save their Zip disk format with a 750 MB drive in 2002, but it was too late to save the company. While the 750 MB Zip drive did hold more space than the 650 MB CD-R discs at that time, the power of the CD disc was too popular and cheap to overcome. And with new technology coming out like DVD drives and removable flash media, it got worse and worse for Iomega and their Zip disk as the 2000s wore on — the glory days of the Zip disc were clearly stuck back in the ’90s. Even so, every ’90s kid who did have a Zip disk growing up can still think back fondly on that short period of time in the mid-’90s when that silly blue Zip drive was such a big technology leap from the popular 3½-inch floppy disk… and for a brief moment at least, remember when Zip disks were the coolest tech around.
Did you have a Zip disk growing up? Did it make you feel uber cool and tech-y to own one, or did you think kids that had them were uber geek-y? Share your Zip disk memories in the comments below so we can all back up our memory data for future generations to share.
- Founded in 1980 in Roy, Utah, Iomega started as a data storage company and released its first product in 1982 called the Bernoulli Box. This first Bernoulli was a “high capacity” floppy disk that could store 10 MB of data.
- Iomega released the Fotoshow in 2000, which was a 250mb Zip drive disguised as an AV peripheral that allowed you to watch photos on a television set.
- In 2001, Iomega released the HipZip, a portable MP3 player that used 40 MB PocketZip discs to record media onto.
- At its height of popularity in the 1990s, Iomega’s stock price was over $100 USD per share, but by the mid-2000s had gone down to $2 USD a share.
- In 2008, EMC Corporation bought Iomega for $213,000,000 USD. In 2013, EMC started a joint venture with computer tech company Lenovo to rebrand all of Iomega’s products under the LenovoEMC name. In 2018 Lenovo discontinued the LenovoEMC product line and with it, the history of Iomega products came to an end.
- Founded in 1980 in Roy, Utah, Iomega started as a data storage company and released its first product in 1982 called the Bernoulli Box. This first Bernoulli was a “high capacity” floppy disk that could store 10 MB of data.
- Iomega released the Fotoshow in 2000, which was a 250mb Zip drive disguised as an AV peripheral that allowed you to watch photos on a television set.
- In 2001, Iomega released the HipZip, a portable MP3 player that used 40 MB PocketZip discs to record media onto.
- At its height of popularity in the 1990s, Iomega’s stock price was over $100 USD per share, but by the mid-2000s had gone down to $2 USD a share.
- In 2008, EMC Corporation bought Iomega for $213,000,000 USD. In 2013, EMC started a joint venture with computer tech company Lenovo to rebrand all of Iomega’s products under the LenovoEMC name. In 2018 Lenovo discontinued the LenovoEMC product line and with it, the history of Iomega products came to an end.
