LGR Oddware - Iomega Clik! Tiny 40MB Disk Drive
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
CHRISMENENDEZ
These are obscure all right. I never ever heard of them until now, and Iomega sold a lot of stuff back in the day around here. I guess it indeed was a flop.
I think the main issue with Iomega was that somehow they didn't like internal drives. As far as I know, every ZIP drive, Jazz drive and it seems this Clik drive were all external. I only heard of a late 1990s or early 2000s Mac that had an internal Zip drive, but I'm not sure if I dreamed it or if it was real. Even their CD and DVD burners were all external (and crap, at least a Iomega DVD burner I had back in 2003 was. Before the invention of USB, external drives were clunky and slow. Even external SCSI drives were a pain to use because they needed clunky cables and an SCSI card installed on your PC, hardly an -out of the box- experience.
If Iomega had made a deal with PC makers to include internal ZIP drives and offered some of their own, maybe the advent of the writeable CD wouldn't have affected them much. At least they'd have put much more of a fight. Clik drives could've been even more successful that way and if people didn't associate them with the unfortunate defects of the ZIP discs. Hell, just the form factor of those Clik discs was much more convenient than CDs and floppies of the era.
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These are obscure all right. I never ever heard of them until now, and Iomega sold a lot of stuff back in the day around here. I guess it indeed was a flop.
I think the main issue with Iomega was that somehow they didn't like internal drives. As far as I know, every ZIP drive, Jazz drive and it seems this Clik drive were all external. I only heard of a late 1990s or early 2000s Mac that had an internal Zip drive, but I'm not sure if I dreamed it or if it was real. Even their CD and DVD burners were all external (and crap, at least a Iomega DVD burner I had back in 2003 was. Before the invention of USB, external drives were clunky and slow. Even external SCSI drives were a pain to use because they needed clunky cables and an SCSI card installed on your PC, hardly an -out of the box- experience.
If Iomega had made a deal with PC makers to include internal ZIP drives and offered some of their own, maybe the advent of the writeable CD wouldn't have affected them much. At least they'd have put much more of a fight. Clik drives could've been even more successful that way and if people didn't associate them with the unfortunate defects of the ZIP discs. Hell, just the form factor of those Clik discs was much more convenient than CDs and floppies of the era.
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fanjoy
I would say if anything, the Zip system (Zip Disks and Click disks, and even to an extent, the Syquest disk system) were all overtaken by SD cards when they came out (granted they were small capacity, like 2MB or 4MB to start but quickly grew to exceed the 40 and 250MB limit only a few years after the ZIP disk was introduced. Then came USB flash memory sticks in early 2000's with sizes boasting 1GB and larger and were more reliable (not magnetic media so they were more reliable overall) and every computer by that time had a USB port of some sort so you didn't need a special drive. I do remember (and still have somewhere) my external Zip Disk 250 drive (i think it's a parallel port version so it wouldn't work with today's computers.
I mean for the time, the Zip 250MB and 100MB disks were the thing to have, as CD burners were expensive (like $500+) and didn't offer the same Read/Write capabilities of regular magnetic media. I used one back in colloege in 2000-2002 until flash drives became popular and were available in sizes that were actually useful (like 2GB flash drives.
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I would say if anything, the Zip system (Zip Disks and Click disks, and even to an extent, the Syquest disk system) were all overtaken by SD cards when they came out (granted they were small capacity, like 2MB or 4MB to start but quickly grew to exceed the 40 and 250MB limit only a few years after the ZIP disk was introduced. Then came USB flash memory sticks in early 2000's with sizes boasting 1GB and larger and were more reliable (not magnetic media so they were more reliable overall) and every computer by that time had a USB port of some sort so you didn't need a special drive. I do remember (and still have somewhere) my external Zip Disk 250 drive (i think it's a parallel port version so it wouldn't work with today's computers.
I mean for the time, the Zip 250MB and 100MB disks were the thing to have, as CD burners were expensive (like $500+) and didn't offer the same Read/Write capabilities of regular magnetic media. I used one back in colloege in 2000-2002 until flash drives became popular and were available in sizes that were actually useful (like 2GB flash drives.
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Finnfinn
I seriously miss the -click- those old storage mediums made. I think it's for the same reason I prefer clicky switches on my keyboard, both give a simple action (keystroke or accessing storage) the illusion of a greater impact. And the size just makes archiving so much more satisfying, imagine getting out one of these cases that carry multiple CDs and having neatly organized ZIP disks in them.
I am well aware that this is purely a mix between nostalgia and cosmetics and just not suitable for modern storage. We got smaller media that fits in embedded devices and that's the way to go. By extension, it's kinda silly wishing for larger media requiring a whole new drive to use. But a man can dream of clicky noises.
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I seriously miss the -click- those old storage mediums made. I think it's for the same reason I prefer clicky switches on my keyboard, both give a simple action (keystroke or accessing storage) the illusion of a greater impact. And the size just makes archiving so much more satisfying, imagine getting out one of these cases that carry multiple CDs and having neatly organized ZIP disks in them.
I am well aware that this is purely a mix between nostalgia and cosmetics and just not suitable for modern storage. We got smaller media that fits in embedded devices and that's the way to go. By extension, it's kinda silly wishing for larger media requiring a whole new drive to use. But a man can dream of clicky noises.
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R.
I did have one of these, bought probably near the end of its lifespan but before it was rebranded to PocketZip. It was the PCMCIA version because at the time I had a really nice Toshiba laptop with PCMCIA slots in it. I hope this isn't some sort of false memory but I could swear mine also came with a USB adaptor that you plugged the PCMCIA card into. I think that's why I bought it, so I could shuffle files around between my laptop and desktop without having to burn a CD. Unfortunately, like Clint, my PCMCIA card eventually self destructed and all of my Clik backups of old stories, games, and software I wrote in my free time were lost to history.
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I did have one of these, bought probably near the end of its lifespan but before it was rebranded to PocketZip. It was the PCMCIA version because at the time I had a really nice Toshiba laptop with PCMCIA slots in it. I hope this isn't some sort of false memory but I could swear mine also came with a USB adaptor that you plugged the PCMCIA card into. I think that's why I bought it, so I could shuffle files around between my laptop and desktop without having to burn a CD. Unfortunately, like Clint, my PCMCIA card eventually self destructed and all of my Clik backups of old stories, games, and software I wrote in my free time were lost to history.
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CTCards
Wow Iomega claims less than 1% of their drives had the click issue. Well as a technician back in the days when the Zip drives were popular, id say 1 in every 8 I saw had this issue. External or Internal. Now the Super Disk that didnt catch on as well, I never had issues with. Anywhoo my point is Iomega is full of Sh-t. No way only 1% of drives were effected by this. I was very happy when flash memory came out. Although it was pricey, id rather have no moving parts. I remember spending a fortune on a 64mb CF card lol. Gone are the days.
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Wow Iomega claims less than 1% of their drives had the click issue. Well as a technician back in the days when the Zip drives were popular, id say 1 in every 8 I saw had this issue. External or Internal. Now the Super Disk that didnt catch on as well, I never had issues with. Anywhoo my point is Iomega is full of Sh-t. No way only 1% of drives were effected by this. I was very happy when flash memory came out. Although it was pricey, id rather have no moving parts. I remember spending a fortune on a 64mb CF card lol. Gone are the days.
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fanjoy
I think that by the time people bought those (you said early 2000's) USB flash drives were starting to come onto the market (and granted, while they weren't all that spacious to begin with) by about 2004, we did have 64MB flash drives available so it's likely that this Clik disk system was a bit too late, perhaps an effort by IOMega to hold onto a dying market when everyone started to move to USB flash drives starting around that time.
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I think that by the time people bought those (you said early 2000's) USB flash drives were starting to come onto the market (and granted, while they weren't all that spacious to begin with) by about 2004, we did have 64MB flash drives available so it's likely that this Clik disk system was a bit too late, perhaps an effort by IOMega to hold onto a dying market when everyone started to move to USB flash drives starting around that time.
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Tim
So, I still have my clik drive. The one I got (on clearance back in the day) came with an USB to PCMCIA dock for the PC and the drive itself. The drive and 2 additional clik disks could be placed in this rather nice metal case for storage. (3 if you keep one in the drive. I need to figure out where the dock itself went, as it would make it oh so more useful to actually use the clik on newer systems. Great video as always!
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So, I still have my clik drive. The one I got (on clearance back in the day) came with an USB to PCMCIA dock for the PC and the drive itself. The drive and 2 additional clik disks could be placed in this rather nice metal case for storage. (3 if you keep one in the drive. I need to figure out where the dock itself went, as it would make it oh so more useful to actually use the clik on newer systems. Great video as always!
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Jek
Iomega is so close to being a catchy name, but it falls just short and lands in -lame 90's ham fisted computer pun- territory
clik disk is a pretty nice name too, and the clicking sound they make is quite satisfying
If you're a sucker for shiny packaging, you should check out the box on Crest 3D white toothpaste tubes. The foiling is magnificent, like staring in to the face of God
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Iomega is so close to being a catchy name, but it falls just short and lands in -lame 90's ham fisted computer pun- territory
clik disk is a pretty nice name too, and the clicking sound they make is quite satisfying
If you're a sucker for shiny packaging, you should check out the box on Crest 3D white toothpaste tubes. The foiling is magnificent, like staring in to the face of God
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Hello
Sometimes, it's the more affordable and easy to acquire product that'll win against the more technologically impressive item. Sometimes that's a good thing, other times it isn't. The Clik disk was impressive at the time, but it wasn't going to make it for long. At least it tried, dispite not getting all that far.
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Sometimes, it's the more affordable and easy to acquire product that'll win against the more technologically impressive item. Sometimes that's a good thing, other times it isn't. The Clik disk was impressive at the time, but it wasn't going to make it for long. At least it tried, dispite not getting all that far.
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Kage
I had the PCMCIA model and used it to swap files between laptops back on devices before USB solutions. Only other option was setting up a Null Moden Com cable provided the computers are near each other. In my case it was a way to take dos games of the day other than spanning many floppy disc.
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I had the PCMCIA model and used it to swap files between laptops back on devices before USB solutions. Only other option was setting up a Null Moden Com cable provided the computers are near each other. In my case it was a way to take dos games of the day other than spanning many floppy disc.
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