Sony’s 200MB floppy disk was supposed to bury Zip drives—then it all fell apart in one month
The 1990s were a wild time for portable storage media. Companies left and right either tried to iterate on the tried-and-true 3.5-inch floppy design by creating larger, faster drives that dwarfed the puny 1.44MB floppy, or came up with entirely new solutions that promised to revolutionize the portable storage market.
A lot was at stake because the home PC market was taking off like crazy in the second half of the 1990s. There was also the nascent market for portable digital devices such as MP3 players and digital cameras, which also needed some form of portable storage.
Sony hedged its bets by working on multiple projects based on different technologies. The company’s flash memory product, the Memory Stick, was shaping up nicely, but its early versions could only hold 8MB of storage. The second project, dubbed HiFD (High Capacity Floppy Disk), was developed in cooperation with Fujifilm.
HiFD had held a lot of promise, but it ended up being one of the hardest storage flops ever for Sony. That’s saying something considering just how many failed storage media formats the Japanese conglomerate has developed throughout its accomplished history.
Sony and Fujifilm were ready to usher in a new era of the 3.5-inch floppy disk
A promising start
In 1997, Sony and Fujifilm released a joint statement announcing a new type of portable storage media that boldly aimed to replace the good old 3.5-inch floppy disk Sony itself had developed. Dubbed HiFD, which stood for High Capacity Floppy Disk, the drive would be backward-compatible with 1.44MB floppy disks, while also supporting HiFD diskettes with a capacity of a whopping 200MB. This was huge at the time because competing storage systems such as Iomega’s Zip drive and Imation’s SuperDisk could only store 100MB and 120MB of data, respectively.
The technology that allowed for such a high-capacity floppy disk was Fujifilm’s ATOMM (Advanced Super Thin Layer and High-Output Metal Media). In a nutshell, ATOMM was a magnetic recording technology that used a dual-coating process to create an ultra-thin layer of metal particles over a non-magnetic layer made of a titanium compound. The two layers were placed over a flexible base film, just like in a regular floppy disk. The key advantage was superior durability provided by the titanium layer. ATOMM was already a mature technology back in 1997 and was also used in other storage products, including Zip disks.
The original design promised lofty specs: 200MB capacity, a maximum transfer speed of 3.6MBps (compared to a floppy drive’s ~0.06MBps), a dual-head design that allowed backward compatibility with 1.44MB 3.5-inch diskettes, and high reliability thanks to using an HDD-like flying head for reading and writing data. HiFD disks used dual-layer media spinning at 3,600 RPM, and Sony also promised both external and internal HiFD drives. The high capacity allowed HiFD media to store more than 15 minutes of video and about 45 minutes of stereo-quality audio. Thanks to the high data transfer rate, the disk was also suitable for video playback.
Quiz
Storage Through the Ages
From ancient clay tablets to modern SSDs — how much do you really know about the wild history and quirky facts of data storage?
HistoryHardwareCapacityOdditiesModern Tech
What was the storage capacity of the very first commercially sold hard disk drive, IBM’s 350 RAMAC introduced in 1956?
Correct! The IBM 350 RAMAC stored a whopping 5 megabytes — and weighed over a ton. It was the size of two refrigerators and leased for around $3,200 per month, which is roughly $35,000 in today’s money.
Not quite. The IBM 350 RAMAC, launched in 1956, stored just 5 megabytes of data. Despite that tiny capacity by modern standards, it was a revolutionary machine that filled an entire room and cost thousands per month to lease.
Which of these has genuinely been used as a data storage medium by researchers and engineers?
Correct! DNA storage is a real and rapidly advancing field. Researchers have successfully encoded entire books, images, and even operating systems into synthetic DNA strands, which can theoretically store 215 petabytes per gram of material.
Not quite. The answer is DNA molecules. Scientists have encoded movies, books, and even malware into synthetic DNA strands. DNA storage is extraordinarily dense — theoretically capable of holding 215 petabytes per gram — making it one of the most promising future storage technologies.
What does the ‘SSD’ in SSD storage stand for?
Correct! SSD stands for Solid State Drive. The ‘solid state’ refers to the fact that it uses solid-state electronics — NAND flash memory chips — with no moving mechanical parts, unlike traditional spinning hard disk drives.
Not quite. SSD stands for Solid State Drive. The term ‘solid state’ comes from electronics jargon meaning the device uses semiconductor components rather than moving mechanical parts, which is why SSDs are faster, quieter, and more durable than HDDs.
Approximately how many standard 1.44 MB floppy disks would you need to match the storage of a single modern 1 terabyte hard drive?
Correct! One terabyte equals roughly 1,048,576 megabytes, and dividing by 1.44 MB per floppy gives you about 728,000 disks. Stacked, that pile would be taller than most skyscrapers — a humbling reminder of how far storage has come.
Not quite. You’d need approximately 700,000 floppy disks to match a single 1 TB drive. That stack of disks would reach over a mile high if laid flat, which is a staggering way to visualize the enormous leap in storage density over just a few decades.
What storage medium did NASA use to store data from the original Apollo moon missions in the 1960s and 1970s?
Correct! NASA relied heavily on magnetic tape reels during the Apollo era. In fact, thousands of original Apollo-era data tapes were eventually lost or accidentally erased and reused, leading to a massive archival effort years later to recover what footage remained.
Not quite. NASA used magnetic tape reels to store Apollo mission data. Tragically, many of these original tapes were later lost or even deliberately erased and reused due to tape shortages, which is why some original high-quality Apollo footage is gone forever.
What is the name of the technique used in modern NAND flash storage that stores multiple bits per cell to increase density?
Correct! QLC, or Quad-Level Cell, stores 4 bits per cell and is used in high-capacity, budget-friendly SSDs. While it offers great density and lower cost, QLC NAND typically has lower endurance and slower write speeds compared to TLC (3-bit) or MLC (2-bit) designs.
Not quite. QLC stands for Quad-Level Cell, and it’s a real NAND flash technology that stores four bits per cell. It allows for very high storage densities at lower cost, but trades off endurance and write performance compared to older, less dense cell types like MLC or SLC.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway stores seeds for agricultural preservation — but what famous tech company also operates a nearby ‘Arctic Code Vault’ to preserve software?
Correct! GitHub operates the Arctic Code Vault in Svalbard, Norway, where they stored a snapshot of all active public repositories on film designed to last 1,000 years. The project is part of GitHub’s Arctic Vault Program to preserve open-source software for future generations.
Not quite. It’s GitHub — owned by Microsoft — that runs the Arctic Code Vault. In February 2020, they photographed every active public repository onto special archival film and stored it deep within a decommissioned coal mine in Svalbard, designed to last a thousand years.
What was the primary reason early floppy disks were called ‘floppy’?
Correct! Early floppy disks — especially the original 8-inch variety from IBM in 1971 — used a thin, genuinely flexible magnetic disk inside a soft protective sleeve. You could literally flop the thing around. Later 3.5-inch versions came in rigid plastic cases, but kept the ‘floppy’ name.
Not quite. The name ‘floppy’ came from the physical flexibility of the magnetic disk inside the sleeve. The original 8-inch IBM floppy disks introduced in 1971 had a noticeably limp, floppy disk that you could bend. Even the rigid-cased 3.5-inch disks that followed kept the iconic nickname.
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The HiFD drive debuted in late 1998, but it was recalled the same month
A launch catastrophe
Unfortunately, the HiFD development faced a few obstacles. Despite plans to launch the drive as early as spring 1998, development and production issues pushed the HiFD debut to late 1998. The drive was shown in late November at COMDEX in Las Vegas (a now-defunct trade show focused on IT and computer hardware) and launched shortly after, in early December 1998.
The launch happened with little fanfare. The drives were available in extremely limited quantities, with the drive itself priced at $199 (about $404 in today’s dollars), a single disk selling for $14.99, and a three-pack for $39.99. While Sony promised to later release an internal IDE version that would support the advertised 3.6MBps transfer speed, the initial offering only included the external serial-port version with maximum speeds of just 0.6MBps.
Less than a month later, Sony stopped selling HiFD drives due to a read/write head misalignment issue that affected all units. The defect was serious enough to trigger a full recall, but Sony still kept faith in its new storage media and promised to relaunch it as soon as possible.
Sony reintroduced HiFD in late 1999 but stopped producing it just two years later
Doomed from the start
“As soon as possible” turned out to be almost a year later. In November 1999, Sony reintroduced HiFD with a redesigned drive that fixed the issues with the original design. The refreshed version introduced a soft head-loading mechanism and better protection for diskettes against dust and small particles. Unfortunately, this also meant incompatibility with older HiFD disks, but Sony did provide free replacements for everyone who had bought the original drives and disks.
This time, Sony offered both serial and USB external drives, with the latter delivering a slight improvement in transfer speed: 0.7MBps instead of the 0.6MBps offered by the serial version. The original 3.6MBps transfer rate was achieved by IBM’s internal drive, which sold for $149 but was very limited in availability. Sony also made an internal HiFD drive, but it was extremely hard to find back then, and it still is.
While the improved design finally made HiFD disks usable and reliable, it was too little, too late for the format to see any real success. By the time of the relaunch, Zip drives already offered 250MB of capacity, but other factors also contributed to HiFD’s failure. For instance, Sony’s partners had grown tired of waiting for HiFD even before the recall, with only Sony, Alps, and Teac ultimately producing external drives. IBM did make internal drives, but they were very rare and mostly found in some IBM workstations.
Instead of striking while Iomega was dealing with lawsuits over Zip drive failures in 1998, Sony shipped the new version of HiFD in late 1999, when Iomega had already introduced a 250MB version of the Zip drive. Another major issue was that CD-RW drives, capable of writing data to cheap, disposable CDs that could store 650MB and were fast enough for both audio and video playback, had entered the mainstream by HiFD’s second coming.
- Capacity
-
256GB
- Connection
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USB 3.2 Gen 2
- Portable
-
Yes
The Transcend ESD310 USB SSD is blisteringly fast while being extremely compact and relatively affordable. It’s miles ahead of regular USB flash drives, and comes with dual USB-C and USB-A ports.
HiFD was one of the last gasps of the floppy disk before CDs and USB drives took over
Ultimately, HiFD barely sold, and Sony ceased production by 2001. It remained a super niche storage format that’s hard to find today, with its legacy being that of one of many “floppy killers” that ended up being killed off by CDs and, later, USB flash drives.
In 1998, before launching HiFD, Takayasu Hirano, VP of Sony Electronics’ recording media and energy group, said: “We believe HiFD is destined to become the floppy disk of the 21st century.” In a way, he was right, because there simply wasn’t room for the floppy disk in the 21st century; the world had moved on to new technologies, and the floppy—and its high-capacity variants—had been left behind.
