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The humble floppy disk — which, despite appearances, is rather aptly named — ruled the world of removable storage for decades. IBM began developing the technology in 1967, and the last floppy manufacturing holdout run by Sony ended production in 2011. These disks went from holding a fraction of a megabyte to 1.44MB in the 3.5-inch disks that Sony introduced in 1981. Even now, though, floppies are instantly recognizable to most; after all, they serve as the graphical basis for the "save" icon in many software apps. Such is the cultural impact of the floppy.

The floppy had many problems throughout its lifespan, however. Even later versions with hard casings were notoriously fragile.…