Zip
drive
The
Zip drive is a medium‐capacity removable
floppy disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994.
Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions
increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB.
A
Zip drive is a removable, magnetic disk storage system for computers.
Introduced in the mid‐1990s it provided much
more storage capacity than floppy disks. By the early 2000s Zip drives became
largely obsolete with the advance of USB flash drives, recordable CDs and
external hard disks.
Introduction
In
the early 1990s, the 3 inch‐floppy
disk was the most widely used removable storage system for personal computers;
however, a typical floppy could not store more than about 2 MB of data. That is
really small by today's standards ‐ you could not even fit a single MP3
song on a floppy. Even at the time, many computer users had a need for larger
removable storage. In 1994, the company Iomega introduced the first Zip drive.
Much sturdier than the 3‐inch
floppy, it had a storage capacity of 100 MB. This represented a breakthrough
for removable storage, and Zip drives quickly became very popular.
How
a Zip Drive Works
A
Zip drive system consists of a disk drive with a slot for a Zip disk and the
Zip disk itself, also referred to as a Zip cartridge. A Zip disk is about the
same size as a 3 inch floppy, but much thicker. The plastic casing
is also much stronger. The actual disk itself relies on magnetic storage, much
like hard disks and floppy disks.
ZIP
disk with a storage capacity of 100 MB
When
the first Zip disk with a storage capacity of 100 MB was introduced, it
represented a very good alternative for computer users who needed more
removable storage than floppy disks could provide. In addition to a larger
storage capacity, the Zip drive had several other advantages. The data transfer
rate (or how fast data can be moved between the disk and the computer's
internal storage) was higher. The seek time (the time it takes to find a particular
location on the disk to read or write data) was much faster. And, the disks
themselves were much stronger and less vulnerable to damage.
There
are two types of Zip disk drives: internal and external. An internal drive is
installed inside the actual computer case, similar to how an optical drive
(CD/DVD) is installed. The drive is directly connected to the motherboard of
the computer, and the drive itself cannot easily be removed.
Internal
Zip drive
An
external drive has its own separate casing and connects to the computer using a
separate connector cable. Earlier models used a parallel port connection, while
later models used a USB connection. Drives with a parallel port connection also
needed their own power supply.
External
zip drive
Zip
disks work in both types of drives.
The
Rise and Fall of the Zip Drive
After
its introduction, the Zip drive quickly became very popular. The storage
capacity was greater than that of a floppy disk and the cost per unit of
storage was lower than that of hard disk drives. Iomega also released larger capacity
disks of 250 MB and 750 MB. Several computer manufacturers started putting
internal Zip drives into
A
Tape Drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic
tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data
storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and a long archival
stability.
A
device, like a tape recorder, that reads data from and writes it onto a tape.
Tape drives have data capacities of anywhere from a few hundred kilobytes to
several gigabytes. Their transfer speeds also vary considerably. Fast tape
drives can transfer as much as 20MB (megabytes) per second.
The
disadvantage of tape drives is that they are sequential‐access devices, which
means that to read any particular block of data, you need to read all the
preceding blocks. This makes them much too slow for general purpose storage
operations. However, they are the least expensive media for making backups.
