Sony Discontinues Floppy Disk

JACK PHILLIPS
Epoch Times Staff

Floppy disks, the once-ubiquitous 3.5-inch storage devices, are one step closer to going the way of Betamax and cassette tapes.

Floppy disks will be discontinued, said Sony, marking the end of nearly 30 years of selling the storage devices. Sony is the largest manufacturer of the disks.

The decision to stop selling the disks next March is yet one more nail in the coffin for the storage devices that were once used by nearly every computer user to transfer data.

Over the past decade or so, the disks have been phased out in favor of USB devices, external hard drives, CDs, DVDs, and various other storage mediums. Along with the emergence of other mediums, computers and laptops have increasingly stopped providing a port into which users can insert floppy disks.

Sony made the decision after sales of floppy disks plummeted over the past decade. They have remained relatively popular in Japan, but even that popularity is declining. In 2002, Sony reportedly sold 47 million disks in Japan, while in 2009, they only sold 12 million, according to a Daily Mail article.

Other companies like Maxell and Verbatim still make the disks, so they aren』t completely extinct—yet.

Floppy disks were first used by IBM in 1971 and were eight inches wide with a paltry 80 kilobyte storage space. Since then, the disks have gotten smaller and smaller, while increasing storage capacity. As far as storage mediums go, however, the current floppy disks still have a relatively low amount of space—the maximum storage space for a 3.5-inch disk is approximately 2 megabytes.

Since many can still remember using these storage devices to transfer data or install programs, floppy discs may one day inspire nostalgic feelings. Perhaps, like vinyl records, they might even experience a comeback.