IMO the Zip disks, Jaz disks, and MiniDiscs were the last really satisfying physical media formats (UMD was also really cool, but somehow even more niche given it was PSP-specific).
There was something about them that just made you feel like a secret agent using them. Like a prop out of a James Bond movie where the villain keeps their plans.
CDs and DVDs had nothing on them.
I’m still running a 2010 Iomega NAS. Swapped the Lenovo OS that they updated it to to plain Debian, because the “upgrade” from Iomega OS to the version they released under Lenovo had ads in the admin menus.
I still remember all the data I lost when the drive embedded its entire head assembly into the disk I was using. Fuck Iomega.
Despite the fact that click death was avoidable with a simple bracket OR an updated driver AND only affected their very first product, I won’t really miss them.
If Jazz drives had been their first product and at a reasonable price point, things probably would’ve gone differently for them.
yeah at the time I REALLY wished I knew the easiest fix was a stupid bracket I wouldn’t have gone through so many. I loved my zip drive but after like the 4th or 5th one dying on me I gave up.
One of the designers I worked with my first year at the college paper went on to design the packaging for Zip and Jaz drives. It paid well enough that he was able to afford to buy a condo in San Diego in his early 20s.
I miss my Zip drives.
I have a zip drive in a closet with a zip disk with most of my class work from college.
I worked in the tech dept at my school part time and I got to keep all the Zip disks that had no name and no one claimed after the end of the semester.
I had shelves.
I maintained a Mac lab and all the computers had built in zip disks. I didn’t get any leftovers, but had a bunch loaded with media on slow days.
