ZIP Drives

Zip drive is a removable disk storage system. It was introduced by the Iomega Company in late 1994. Later, it was also licensed to Epson of Japan. In the early years of innovation in storage media, the random-access, low-density storage of disks was complemented by the sequential-access high-density storage provided by magnetic tape. Vigorous improvement in disk storage technology, coupled with less vigorous modernization in tape storage, has reduced the density and cost per bit gap between disk and tape, reducing the importance of tape as a complement to disk.

Toward this end, a number of businesses moved toward disk storage technology. Zip drive is a high-density disk that makes use of the random-access data access (Hoffmann and Christensen, 1999). Iomega designed the Zip as a sort of hard-drive-within-a-cartridge. The individual cartridges use old thin-film hard drive heads and a single media packaged within a plastic shell. Conventional hard drives have since moved on from thin-film to magneto-resistive (MR) to giant magneto-resistive heads, cramming dozens of gigabytes onto a single disk platter (Hoffmann and Christensen, 1999).

The Zip system was introduced with a capacity of 100 megabytes, and quickly became a success as people used them to hold large files that regular floppy disks would not be able to handle. As time went on, Iomega eventually increased the capacity to 250 and later 750 megabytes, while improving the data transfer rate and seek times. Background Research Information Zip drive provides a convenient way of backing up important files and eliminating floppy disk clutter.

It fact it's a lot like having a mega floppy or mini hard drive hooked up to the computer. As it is an external drive, it offers portability, allowing it to be used at multiple locations with relative ease of installation. Internal drives do not require extra workspace or a power outlet, and they reduce the chance of theft or accidental damage (Ponder and Ropog, 1997).

However, unless the drive is on a network, the internal drive is limited to backing up a single system and can be more difficult to install. Because of its light weight and transportable convenience, a Zip drive can be used on different machines. For example, a user can use it to transfer those big files that won't fit on a floppy, or to transfer files from work to home computer.

Moreover, unlike a floppy drive the ZIP drive is faster, and stores a whole lot more information on its disk, which is just slightly larger than a 3.5inch floppy disk (Ponder and Ropog, 1997). The Zip's popularity started to fade around 2000. On this front, Iomega has suffered because PC hard drives have gotten significantly bigger in the last five years. When the Zip drive first hit the market, PC hard drives that held about one to four gigabytes in contrast to the current standards of 40 to 80 gigabytes were fairly common.

That made a 100-megabyte Zip disk a useful tool for backing up data and sharing files with other people. That was also before CD drives that can record or "burn" data for a fraction of the price of Zip disks became prevalent (Mohnsen, 2001). While the CD drives themselves, which range in price from about $150 to $350, are more expensive than a sub-$100 Iomega Zip drive, the discs are the problem. A single 100-MB Zip disk sells for more than $10, but one can buy a pack of 25 CD-R discs, each with 650.