News EMC buys Iomega for $213M

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/04/10/emc_buys_iomega_for_usd213m/1

Storage manufacturer EMC has bought Iomega - creators of the Zip drive - for $213M in an attempt to crack the all-important home user market.

 

I have very fond memories of my parallel port connected Zip drive. God it was slow but all that storage, how was I ever going to fill 100MB’s??? How times change. My internet connection is now quicker than my zip drive was and my mobile phone has 80 times as much storage.

 

if they had actually released their Click disks which were supposed to be around the size of a 50 pence but hold 1/2 gb and be cheap, they would still be a presence but no, they never came out.

 

I've got that very same Zip250 model sitting on a shelf at home. Bought it to back up and transfer my final project for Uni after a disaster (known simply as my kid brother) nearly wiped all of my final year project.

 

FIrst new product they can make.... a NAS - RAID1 system with a built in tape drive, DVDR or some other mechanism for creating a offline/offsite backup of the data. For home or small remote offices, having a NAS device that can also be backed up, and doesn't cost a fortune like the higher end products that do this cost.

 

The IOMega Click disk originally held 40MB, and was the size of the round glass disks used in "Minority Report" (Exactly the same size - They used Click disk cases for the holders). I know, I was working in retail at the time and got to play with IOMega's prototype Click disk MP3 player. They also had a "media to click disk" unit for digital cameras, so you could fill your memory card, then transfer the pics to a (larger) click disk, emptying the card in the process. And, of course, Wikipedia has all the info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega_Pocket_Zip_drive

 

I did not have a PC till I hit collage 4 years ago. I used to surf on my beloved Dreamcast on a 56k connection. So when I think Iomega I cannot help but remember the planned zip drive addon for the DC. I wanted it so bad.

 

They still use Zips in our uni. The need to make em bigger a few gigs

 

We had to use zip disks at my high school. This was when flash drives first started coming out. Once I had my first 64mb flash drive, I never touched my zip disk again.

 

ah the good ol' Zip drives. i've got a Zip drive at home somewhere. was considered HUGE!

i still use one of Zip drive's case as storage for my 2 floppy disks for flashing BIOS.

 

i have an Iomega Click disk MP3 sat right next to me lol dont know when i last used it though

 

ah yes.. i still have 2 100MB zip drives hanging around at home.. old parallel port models .. i even bought a pack of about ten 100MB disks.. at the time i felt it would replace hard disks, as you could just continue to buy more and more disks and still rub apps off them.. oh silly me Also remember when I was working in college.. the company I worked for had tons and tons of Jazz drives for backups.. 1 GB models ...... Well, good luck to EMC if they can breathe life back into the brand, all the better

 

I had a zip drive way back on my first computer when I was still in college... got it free from a buddy of mine along with 2 100MB disks... never really used it all that much though.

I can't live without my flash drives these days. Got four of them ranging from 32MB to 4GB. Handy little buggers.

 

...the drives and disks were too expensive to really replace the diskette. And they were no match for the then upcoming CDR's, so they missed their golden entry point into the market.

 

If they can get an Affordable tape backup solution for consumer use at the current storage capacities that would kick ass, How many people have 500+ gig drives loaded with music/movies/software/etc.. that is a nightmare (read: impossible) to backup to DVD, External or secondary HDD's are ok, but what if your place goes up in a puff of greasy smoke? Redundant HDD's don't help much there, but a couple of tapes that can be stored elsewhere would be great. I'm running an old SCSI tape backup at home, but tape capacities are a little low for what I need so it takes several, and to upgrade to a new setup would cost THOUSANDS at for the type I would run (I'm a little spoiled as a Net Admin, we have a 100 tape 4 head library that kicks ass for backups at work (as long as Comvault doesn't crap out)). They need to pump out something like the Jazz drive on steroids. Firewire connections, 50-100gig capacity per tape, and some good backup software (with network support!!!).

 

my family had a first gen Zip drive parallel port and all. ( loved it but it got the click of death) and i had the click disk player i think it was called the hip zip. I liked it, and my dad used the compact flash to click disk drive to store digital photos back when a 32 meg cf card was an arm and a leg. i liked my zip, and click drives.... but then came the ipod and flash drives.


ah the memories