I was also reminded today of Floptical [2] drives, which I vaguely remember hearing about (but didn't catch on either).
Finally, there is my personal niche favourite, DataPlay [3], which were just so small and cute.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD_Data [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floptical [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataPlay
The ones that came before the Zip were the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_Box , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floptical , and various flavors of magneto-optical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive
But the article asserts they came out in 1997 - with no citation, and my friend had moved by 1996 so I think that date is off by a year or so. Though given where he worked it’s theoretically possible someone have him a prerelease version as a developer prototype.
Edit: PC Mag claims 1996 https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/ls-120
And the NYT says March 1996: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/11/business/3m-chases-the-dr...