IMATION SUPERDISK SOFTWARE ZIP
Iomega orphaned the project around the time they decided to release the Zip drive in 1994. It is one of the last examples of floptical technology, where lasers are used to guide a magnetic head which is much smaller than those used in traditional floppy disk drives.
The design of the SuperDisk system came from an early 1990s project at Iomega. SuperDisk worldwide ceased manufacturing in 2003. It was more successful in Asia and Australia, where the second-generation SuperDisk LS-240 drive and disk was released.
The SuperDisk had little success in North America with Compaq, Gateway and Dell being three of only a few OEMs who supported it. The SuperDisk hardware was created by 3M's storage products group Imation in 1997, with manufacturing chiefly by Matsushita. The SuperDisk LS-120 is a high-speed, high-capacity alternative to the 90 mm (3.5 in), 1.44 MB floppy disk. RED - The drive eject motor allows the disk to be under computer control so that it normally will not eject until the computer has completed its read or writing tasks. YELLOW - A secondary smaller coil primarily acts to keep the head mechanism aligned parallel with the disk surface. Two voice coil servomotors move the drive heads precisely across the disk surface.īLUE - The main servo with a large coil provides the primary force to move the head mechanism. SuperDisk should not be confused with SuperDrive, which is a trademark used by Apple Computer for various disk drive products.This shows the technology of the SuperDisk drive. All drives can read and write 1.44MB and 720kB MFM floppies, as used on PCs, 1988-1998 Macintoshes, and many workstations. SuperDisk drives came in parallel port, USB and ATAPI variants. A variant of the technology, the LS-240, is still sold in Asia and Australia it has double the capacity and the added feature of being able to format regular floppy disks to 21MB capacity. The biggest problem, though, was that Iomega's Zip drive had been out for 3 years at that point, and was popular enough that few people wanted to switch formats.īy 2000 the entire removable-disk category was quickly being obsoleted by the falling prices of CD-R drives, and the SuperDisk was no exception it has since been quietly discontinued, and the special disks, while still being made, are hard to find. Most SuperDisk drives suffered from slow performance and reliability problems.
The system was not a huge success, however. 3M/Imation mainly sold Matsushita-built drives under the SuperDisk name other companies tended to use the LS-120 name, and sold the Mitsubishi drives. The idea eventually ended up at 3M, who cleaned it up and licensed the design to established floppy drive makers Matsushita and Mitsubishi. The design came from a early 1990s project at Iomega, who was one of the last proponents of Floptical technology it was orphaned around the time they decided to release the Zip drive in 1994. SuperDisk's main claim to fame was that it could read and write regular floppy disks just as well as its special disks. SuperDisk was introduced by 3M's storage products group (later known as Imation) circa 1997 as a high-speed, high-capacity alternative to the 3.5", 1.44MB floppy disk.