High-Capacity Removable

Iomega

The following sections break down many of the high-capacity removable storage products produced by

the Iomega Corporation.

Early Iomega Bernoulli Drives

In the early 1980s, Iomega introduced the Bernoulli drive. The disk used in the original 10MB “Alpha”

Bernoulli drive was a thick, rigid plastic cartridge roughly the same width as an 8'' floppy disk. The 20MB

“Beta” and later models used a 5 1/4'' disk cartridge. A large shutter, similar to the shutter on a 3 1/2'' floppy

disk, easily distinguished both types of Bernoulli disks from standard floppy disks. The 5 1/4'' Bernoulli

drives were manufactured in capacities ranging from 20MB up to 230MB.

Bernoulli disks originally were known as the most durable of the removable-media drive types because the

media is well protected inside the cartridge. When it rotates in the drive, the Bernoulli disk media is pulled by

air pressure toward the drive heads. As the disk spins, the airflow generated by the disk movement encounters

what is called a Bernoulli

toward the read/write head. At full speed, the head touches the disk, which causes wear. Bernoulli drives have

built-in random seek functions that prevent any single track on the disk from wearing excessively during periods

of inactivity. Bernoulli disk cartridges should be replaced periodically because they can wear outplate, which is a stationary plate designed to control the airflow so the disk is pulled