The SuperDisk's format was designed to supersede the floppy disk with its higher-capacity media that imitated the then ubiquitous format with its own 120MB (and later 240MB) disk storage while the SuperDisk drive itself was backwards compatible with 1.44 MB and 720 KB floppy formats ( MFM). However, this higher density comes at a price - the entire disk must be rewritten any time a change is made, much like early CD-RW media.Ī SuperDisk drive was used in two Panasonic digital cameras, the PV-SD4090 and PV-SD5000, which allowed them to use both SuperDisk (LS120) and 3.5' floppy disks as the memory media. It has double the capacity and the added feature of being able to format regular floppy disks to 32 MB capacity. Matsushita continued development of the technology and released the LS-240, which was still fairly available in Asia and Australia until 2003 but is now quite rare. Other companies involved in the development of SuperDisk included Compaq and OR Technology. The idea eventually ended up at 3M, where the concept was refined and the design was licensed to established floppy drive makers Matsushita (Panasonic) and Mitsubishi. Iomega orphaned the project around the time they decided to release the Zip drive in 1994. It is one of the last examples of floptical technology, where lasers are used to guide a magnetic head which is much smaller than those used in traditional floppy disk drives. The design of the SuperDisk system came from an early 1990s project at Iomega. Few OEMs supported it, aside from Compaq. However, the system was not a huge success. Imation mainly sold Matsushita-built drives under the SuperDisk name other companies tended to use the LS-120 name, and sold the Mitsubishi drives. The Superdisk hardware was introduced by 3M's storage products group (later known as Imation) circa 1997. The SuperDisk, sometimes marketed as LS-120 and a later variant LS-240, is a high-speed, high-capacity alternative to the 90 mm (3.5 in), 1.44 MB floppy disk. To the back in red is the drive eject motor, which allows the disk to be under computer control so that it normally will not eject until the computer has completed its read or writing tasks. In yellow is a secondary smaller coil that primarily acts to keep the head mechanism aligned parallel with the disk surface. Highlighted in blue is the main servo with a large coil providing the primary force to move the head mechanism. Two voice coil servomotors move the drive heads precisely across the disk surface. This shows the technology of the SuperDisk drive.

Imation superdisk with encryption