Introduced by Sony in 1992, MiniDisc was the most successful small-format DBEM. It was designed as a recordable replacement for the cassette tape. The cartridge measures 70 mm × 67.5 mm × 5 mm and holds a 64 mm disc¹⁾. Standard discs store 60 to 80 minutes of audio, compressed with Sony's ATRAC codec. Recordable discs use magneto-optical technology, while pre-recorded discs are stamped like a CD. MD was a major success in Japan and had a following in Europe, but it never displaced the cassette or CD in North America.

MD Data was Sony's 1993 adaptation of the MiniDisc for computer storage, offering about 140 MB per disc. It uses the same cartridge and 64 mm disc as audio MD, but the format is not interchangeable with audio MiniDiscs, and MD Data drives were sold in limited numbers. Sony later revived the idea with Hi-MD (2004), which raised capacity to around 1 GB and allowed general-purpose data storage alongside audio.