It lives on in the save icon. But in all seriousness you're right, floppy as a medium for data storage is dead.

Unless you're the US gov. According to Wikipedia: "In May 2016 the United States Government Accountability Office released a report that covered the need to upgrade or replace legacy computer systems within Federal Agencies. According to this document, old IBM Series/1 minicomputers running on 8-inch floppy disks are still used to coordinate "the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces..." The government plans to update some of the technology by the end of the 2017 fiscal year." [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Use_in_the_early_2...

Optical discs are relegated to back shelves too. Hard to beat cheap rewritable nand flash.

ps: I'd be curious about a tiny, 2017 laptop friendly optical disc storage. Say a 2.5" RW BD layer in cartridge. A modern mini disc.

There are people using optical media for long term storage. So I am not counting it out as a storage medium. In my classification I would put it in cold storage tier.

Surely. Although I'd have thought for long time storage magnetic tapes were cheaper.

I doubt anything could be compact enough to be laptop friendly in the sense of being a physical part of the machine - but external USB 3 BD burners are quite small (powered over usb, too), I have a Samsung which works fine.

i don't know, a small radius "may" help remove mecanical constraints, and with a non stacked lens design sdcard reader height device.

I was mostly wonder about the psychological aspect of form factor. naked optical disks are non-personal, mini discs weren't. You interacted with them freely, carried them as is in your pocket. A large enough yet tiny enough reincarnation might be "fun".

On one hand, people complain about government spending. On the other, they complain about government's old equipment.