The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB.

The format became the most popular of the super-floppy type products which filled a niche in the late 1990s portable storage market. However it was never popular enough to replace the 3.5-inch floppy disk nor could ever match the storage size available on rewritable CDs and later rewritable DVDs. USB flash drives ultimately proved to be the better rewritable storage medium among the general public due to the near ubiquity of USB ports on personal computers and soon after because of the far greater storage sizes offered. Zip drives fell out of favour for mass portable storage during the early 2000s. The Zip brand later covered internal and external CD writers known as Zip-650 or Zip-CD, which had no relation to the Zip drive.

Product Features
USB interface
Mac and PC compatible
Plug and play
Unlimited capacity
Each disk holds up to 70 floppies

Amazon.com Product Description

Introducing the new 100MB External USB Zip(r) drive from Iomega - for Power Macs with a built-in USB connection and PC systems with a built-in USB controller running Windows 98! The new, sleek translucent ice-blue 100MB External USB Zip drive is simple to connect, hot swappable, and compatible with over 100 million 100MB Zip disks.

From Winmag®

The Iomega Zip drive is the low-cost removable storage leader--and Iomega's two latest offerings, the Zip 250 (a SCSI device) and a USB version of the Zip 100, should help maintain its popularity. The USB drive is designed for Win98; you install the drivers and IomegaWare software first, then reboot your system. We got it installed and performing without a hitch.

We tested the SCSI version of the Zip 250. The 250 MB disks will sell for about $100 for a six pack, about the same as a 10 pack of Zip 100 disks. The drive works with the 100 MB disks, but sacrifices some speed in doing so.

We compared both drives' performance against an internal IDE Zip 100 drive (0.32MBps). The Zip 100 copied our files at 0.25MBps. The Zip 250's SCSI interface helped it achieve good speeds (0.52MBps) with a 250MB disk for which it's optimized. The performance of the Zip 250 drive earns it a spot on our WinList.

From the Manufacturer

A Zip drive works like your hard drive, letting you easily access files and applications. And with a Zip drive sold every five seconds, you're sure to find millions of users worldwide to share your files with.

Our drive:
Model No. Z100P2
Part No. 02959B02
Serial No. PREJ4124P6

Includes Installation & Reference Guide ML135003, software, manual in the original box.