Sony HiFD
The Sony HiFD (High capacity Floppy Disk) was an attempt by Sony to replace their own aging 3.5 inch floppy disk, which had proven successful in the late-1980s war to replace the 5.25 inch floppy disk.
The first HiFD was launched in late 1998, boasting a capacity of 150MB and backwards compatibility with 3.5 inch floppy disks. It was available in Parallel port and ATA versions with a SCSI version planned, but never launched. Its immediate competitors were the popular Iomega Zip drive, which had a capacity of 100MB and Imation's Laser-Servo LS-120 SuperDisk, which had a capacity of 120MB and unlike the Zip disk was also backwards compatible with 720kB Double-Density and 1.4MB High-Density 3.5 inch floppy disks (not with 2.8MB Extra-Density disks, though). In spite of Iomega's healthy market lead, many observers confidently predicted that the HiFD would swiftly take over the market, and ultimately replace the floppy drive.