Reliable 3½" floppy drive?

[dahoff]

Mitsumi, TEAC, Panasonic, Sony, blah blah. I'm sure I won't have a problem with any of them. What do you guys use?

 

[Hawk]

I've had a bunch, for sure TEAC and Sony. One of the TEACs I shorted out somehow, but most floppy drives are very reliable, I think I have a TEAC that's like 10 years old and it still works.

 

[velvetfreak]

It's never been the drives I've worried about, but the freakin disks :disgust:

Doesn't seem to matter which brand I buy, a couple of uses and they get bad sectors.

 

[weovpac]

I'm being using a TEAC for 3 years now np's.

 

[goldboyd]

You really shouldn't have a problem with any. Your best bet would be to just go to a local shop and buy the cheapest they have.

 

[Thyme]

The oldest thing in this system is the 3.5" floppy. It's a pull from a 486DX box. Just get whatever drive is monetarily cheapest.

Oh, nice charmapping there 🙂

 

[burnedout]

Used them all over a period of years.

Teac seems the best. Sony is excellent also.

Have a 6 year old Teac in my main box.

 

[Mday]

my 7 year old floppy died =(

so after several months of no floppy for this computer, i bought one. samsung, and it's quiet =)

 

[splice]

anyone ever notice that there is no uniformity as to how exactly to connect the floppy drive cable... it drives me up the wall! Some use the last connection with a couple crossed wires and others don't. Most of the time I have to try every combination to get it to work. 🙁 grrr... I hate floppy drives!

 

[MGMorden]

I use an LS120 in my main machine. It works well. I've got about 5 more in my parts pile though (well, it's really a parts box 😉), all types of brands. All of them have worked fine, for a long time (the youngest one is 3-4 years old, with the oldest being at least 12).

 

[Whupdido]

I havne't used my floppy for about half a year now...

 

[cbuchach]

I picked the Sony out of the list you specified about 3 months ago. When I got it the eject mechanism didn't work properly. I had to jar it pretty hard to get it to work, but now it does work fine. So, I really don't think it makes a whole lot of difference, but I did have a slight prob with the Sony.

 

[masterxfob]

my floppy broke last year but since i have a burner i just burn everything on to a cd, they're so damned cheap now!

 

[BadThad]

Alps - By far the fastest and best...but expensive and a bit hard to find.

Teac or Sony - Very reliable

Mitsumi - I hate 'em. Seen lots of failures.


Are you guys on TeAm AnandTech?

 

[Raincity]

Never had a Teac fail me yet on any machine I ever built.

Rain

 

[NeoMadHatter]

umm, it's a floppy, not many people use these anymore.
btw, my teac died 2 days ago. waiting for a mitsumi from newegg.com
apparently the computer doesn't like not having one. go figure...

 

[jamarno]

Probably Toshiba, if they still make them, but I don't think you can buy a bad floppy drive any more, especially since Mitsubishi quit making their disk eaters.

 

[LakerGod]

go for Sony if you can get it for a decent price...

 

[holdencommodore]

I use TEAC drives. Very Reliable, and quiet too. Have had it for around 4 years. I found that a Sony that I had in another system lasted only about 16 months (moderate use) replaced it with a TEAC and has been good so far.

 

[Elledan]

Non-brand FDD's work fine. I still got a couple of 'em that I got out of some old (archaic) PC's. They still work perfectly.