> QUESTION: Does ZIP Have to Replace the Floppy to Become a Standard? <
My take on it is this. When the 1.44MB floppy was introduced, the largest HD was probably no more than 100MB. Now the largest is 8.4GB. I posit this rule of thumb: Every 2 orders of magnitude greater capacity, you need a new technology. The rule is approximately adhered to by these technologies:
1MB - 3.5" Floppy
100MB - Zip
10,000MB - HD
The reasons you can't use a lower capacity technology for a higher one are threefold, cost, speed and convenience. It's too expensive, slow and cumbersome to make 70 floppies do the job of 1 ZIP, and likewise ZIP vs. HD. This means there is a definite place for ZIP in the current capacity heirarchy.
The reasons you currently can't use a higher capacity technology for a lower one are twofold:
1) cost - a technology is too expensive if you are only using around 1% of its capacity AND it costs around the same per MB as the next lower capacity technology. There is plenty of room for argument about how much cheaper per MB the higher capacity tech has to be, but all would agree that at some cost point, people wouldn't think twice about giving away Zips like they do floppies.
2) portability - The greater the capacity, the less the portability. For removables, this is because the greater capacity technology is newer and so is not as widespread as the lower capacity technology. The capacity range covered by 8.4GB HD's is not portable at all (on a single removable disk as of yet). The capacity range covered by the floppy is infinitely portable because everyone has one, and the internet is a viable alternative way to port that much data. The capacity range covered by ZIP is somewhat portable, because not everyone has a ZIP and the internet is too slow to transfer that much data.
Where am I going with all this? Zip won't completely replace the floppy unless and until it can overcome both the cost and portability objections. For the sake of argument, let's assume Zip will crush all its competitors in its capacity range (LS-120 and EZ-230). Zip then does not have to replace the floppy to become standard on computers, as long as it's capacity niche is secure, i.e. the next greater capacity technology does not overcome the same 2 objections to replacing Zip. Whether and when that happens is anyone's guess, but it's probably so far off, that ZIP will have plenty of time to become a standard, and then replace floppies altogether by overcoming the 2 objections.
I realize some may object to this analysis on different grounds.
First and foremost is that Zip may not crush all its competitors in its capacity range. Sorry, but my arrogant opinion is that it will.
Second, some would object that not everyone places such great importance on portability. My arrogant (again!) answer is: they really do, they just don't know it yet. Sorry, but I really believe there is an absolute virtue in removability. The only reasons people accept non-removable storage are it's greater speed, capacity and value. (Only! ) If a removable matched them in those areas, almost everyone would choose removable over non-removable. Don't even attempt to argue reliabilty with me. My Seagate 500 MB HD destroyed itself after 2 years of light use. I think I can get more than that out of Zip or Jaz. My experience is not uncommon. If the average MTBF for HDs these days is 500,000 hours, then 2 per million of those puppies fails every hour they are spinning. Ease of replacing a removable should more than make up for the small difference, if any, in reliabilty. Remember too, IOM guarantees ZIP disks for life. I would hope they do the same with JAZ, but I don't know.
Third, Zip will never overcome the cost objection. Again, I disagree. Everything tech gets cheaper every year. Why should that stop just because Zip was invented?
This model is probably not original, because there's nothing new under the sun, but I've never seen all these issues pulled together like this before. I'd like to hear more objections to it, so fire away. |
