Sony to end production of 3.5-inch floppy disks

The floppy is dead! Grandma, still remember those antique 3.5-inch disks from the past century?

Sony has anounced it will stop manufacturing 3.5-inch disks next March 2011 in Japan because of rapidly plunging demand. This comes as no surprise since most computer users have long ago replaced the disk with USB sticks and other storage media. Previously, Sony has already quietly stopped selling floppies in many other parts of the world.

The disks that could hold the unbelievable 1.44 MB of data became practically standard for data storage since Sony rolled out the world’s first floppy disk back in 1981. Believe it or not, the production kept running alongside other media like CDs and DVDs and despite the 90% drop in demand since 1995 when the demand for floppy disks reached its peak.

In Japan, 47 million disks were sold in 2004 and only 12 million in 2009. Two other major disk makers, Hitachi Maxell and Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, ceased selling floppy disks in the spring of last year.