

To fill this emerging niche, the Zip Drive was released in 1994 by Iomega and was capable of reading and writing to specialized disks called Zip Disks with a capacity of 100mb. The rise of the 3 1/2 inch disk brought about the development of high capacity magnetic media device, as many people needed a more practical option than using 1.44mb capacity disks. The 3 1/2 format was extremely popular well into the new millenium and you can still find them in computer retail stores today. This 8-inch floppy soon evolved into a smaller 5 1/4 inch size, which then evolved to the more common 3 1/2 inch disks, with a maximum capacity of 1.44mb.

The floppy disk was considered a revolutionary device in the early days of computing for its portability which allowed users a new and easy physical means of transporting data from computer to computer. The nickname “floppy” came from the original disk’s flexibility. The first floppy was an 8-inch flexible plastic disk coated with magnetic iron oxide which allowed the computer to read and write data from the disk’s surface. In the early days of computing, in order to transfer data from one computer to another, we used what was called a floppy disk. This is especially true with data storage methods and devices, as many people today are looking for methods to transfer Zip Disks and floppy disks to their hard drives. The computers and electronics we build today are seemingly obsolete within months. It’s no secret by now that technology evolves at an incredible pace.
