Popular Products > Computers > Iomega

Iomega is a San Diego based company that manufactures storage media devices for computers that are portable, light, compact and also aim to be as cost effective as possible. Its most notable products have been the Iomega Zip drive and the Iomega Jaz drive which have, at varying stages, been the preferred choice of backup media for many people around the world.

The Iomega Zip drive was first introduced in the mid 1990s with 100MB storage space, but this was quickly upgraded to 750MB. At that time, the 3.5-inch floppy disk was a popular portable storage device, but the Zip drive was seen to give it some competition. However, these days everyone prefers to use other options to transfer or store data like flash drives, CDs and DVDs, instead of using a floppy drive.

The Iomega Zip drive was almost as convenient to use and carry as the 3.5-inch floppy, but it could hold larger amounts of data and could also process this data faster and more efficiently. The first Zip drive could handle and transfer data at about 1 mega byte per second (mbps) The Zip drive had a seek rate of 28 milliseconds (ms) whereas the floppy drive had a seek rate of 100 plus ms making the Iomega Zip drive a much faster alternative. The Zip drive was also cheaper and had a higher capacity making it the preferred alternative for home users to back up their

data. At a certain point, it was also thought to be one of the most preferred storage devices for all types of computer users.

Soon enough, PC manufacturers jumped onto the Iomega bandwagon and began including internal Zip drives in their machines in order to improve saleability. However, Iomega Zip drives still have a faithful band of loyalists. Even today, Zip drives can store files over longer periods of time in comparison to optical media storage devices and flash memory.

Another great product from the Iomega stable has been the Jaz drive. This was an improvement on the existing Zip drive since it offered 1GB and later even 2GB storage, an astounding leap from the storage solutions available at that time. Unlike the Zip drive, the Jaz drive was just two hard disk platters which were inserted in the PC and could be removed later.