Floppy drives - prices

[slowpogo]

Though I may only use it a few times ever, possibly not at all, I'm grabbing an internal 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive for my new build. My question is about pricing. Newegg has a "silver" generic one for $6.99 that should sort of match my Praetorian case.

BUT, I've seen other internal floppy drives (mostly name-brand, such as HP) going for as much as $30. For someone like myself, who's basically buying it "just in case," is there any compelling reason not to go for the generic $7 drive? What does the extra $20 get you? Thanks much...

 

[jadinolf]

Get you? Nothing but the vendor gets more profit.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: slowpogo
Though I may only use it a few times ever, possibly not at all, I'm grabbing an internal 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive for my new build. My question is about pricing. Newegg has a "silver" generic one for $6.99 that should sort of match my Praetorian case.

BUT, I've seen other internal floppy drives (mostly name-brand, such as HP) going for as much as $30. For someone like myself, who's basically buying it "just in case," is there any compelling reason not to go for the generic $7 drive? What does the extra $20 get you? Thanks much...

You can raid the floppy drives in raid 0 for 200 KB/s speed,




just kidding

 

[RallyMaster]

I don't have a floppy drive and probably won't ever use one. They're a waste of space IMO since I haven't used one in 2 years.

 

[slowpogo]

Well for $7, I say, why not? I have two external 3.5" bays...and I probably won't ever use the second one; really don't need a fan controller... anyway my question has been answered, thanks

 

[Zepper]

Most "generic" floppy drives sold these days are actually Mitsumis. If I'm buying for myself, I won't buy Mitsumi. Here are the brands I've found reliable - not in any particular order: Panasonic (Matsushita), Sony, Teac, Samsung, Toshiba, Alps, YE Data - back in the day when component prices weren't much of an issue at IBM, they OEMed a lot of FDDs from the last two. YE Data is selling a nice combo that has both a slim floppy (like a laptop unit) and a Flash card reader in a package the same size as a standard FDD - that way you get the most use out of 1 floppy bay. Provantage et al. have carried it. Older model of it was packaged by Adaptec - I'm not sure if they are packaging the new one or dropped it from their line. Last I knew, the current inventory of YEs at Provantage are the new version.

Just for grins, I happen to have a new Imation-packaged Mitsumi for sale on eBay right now. PM me if interested - I'll cut you a deal...

.bh.

 

[pkme2]

Well, a floppy drive sometimes has its purposes. You can get them cheap enough on ebay. Watch out for the shipping prices, some of them are outrageous.

 

[AlgaeEater]

Originally posted by: RallyMaster
I don't have a floppy drive and probably won't ever use one. They're a waste of space IMO since I haven't used one in 2 years.

They're good for raid installation on every motherboard. Also some motherboards are a hassle to detect USB drives during setup. Other than that though, yeap they're useless.

 

[slowpogo]

OK, newegg has a silver Alps floppy drive for $8.99...I'm of the "better to have and not need than need and not have" mindset, so I'm grabbin one..all is good

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: AlgaeEater

Originally posted by: RallyMaster
I don't have a floppy drive and probably won't ever use one. They're a waste of space IMO since I haven't used one in 2 years.

They're good for raid installation on every motherboard. Also some motherboards are a hassle to detect USB drives during setup. Other than that though, yeap they're useless.

DOS bootable cdrom, created from Nero FTW

Use a CDRW and you'll always be able to add bios's, raid drivers, as you please...