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USB Floppy Drive - What's the use?

The Day Dreamer

The Day Dreamer

Senior member
Have been wondering for a while that what does these USB Floppy drive really come in use for? I mean these floppies these days are so bad that they stop working after 2-3 uses, probably due to increasing dust in the atmosphere.

What are they used for? nowadays ?
 
If someone has some important data on a floppy drive that they desperately need, they're gonna need something to put it in.

Yeah, floppies are rare these days, but so are these USB floppy drives.(I've never seen one IRL). They're manufactured for just-in-case scenarios.
 
1. Getting data off of old floppies in the closet/attic/bin/etc..
2. Backing up and updating systems that still use floppies, of which more than a few big industries haven't moved from. For example, your airplane is not likely to get USB mass storage support, any time soon.
3. ???
4. Profit.
 
I have 100s of 3.5-in floppies full of old archives and data. I just pulled a couple at random and they opened just fine - dated 1993!!!!
 
You never know what data you may need to pull off in the future, whether it's your own or some elderly couple and their old computer. Now, you've got me curious as to what I have on those old floppies. :hmm:

20150422_150336_zps23s3vtdk.jpg
 
The Day Dreamer said:
Have been wondering for a while that what does these USB Floppy drive really come in use for? I mean these floppies these days are so bad that they stop working after 2-3 uses, probably due to increasing dust in the atmosphere.

What are they used for? nowadays ?
Click to expand...

I support some legacy military hardware. I have to have a way to get that data onto more up to date media or a network.

Otherwise, they serve no purpose for the most part.
 
Had to get one for client that had about 500 floppies from an old Sony Mavica. I do not miss floppies.
 
Floppy boot disks are handy in the situation where no other boot media is readily available at hand. Legacy hardware mostly. I do have a nice Sony USB floppy drive,so I can get those floppies ready in the convenience of my laptop anywhere I want. And you can write-protect them, just like an SD card.

ahenkel said:
Had to get one for client that had about 500 floppies from an old Sony Mavica. I do not miss floppies.
Click to expand...
I remember those cams. Interesting design, it was.
 
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I think it's to read data from old floppies (and better back them up at the same time). Maybe also to start old computers if they are USB supported, but this makes me wonder why would you connect a USB floppy drive instead of a USB stick or USB external disk.
You should see it something like....floppies, cds, dvds, usb sticks
 
I read this thread title and honestly wondered if it might have been a question from about 2006 or 2007. I don't think I've touched a floppy disk in the last ten years.
 
Carson Dyle said:
I read this thread title and honestly wondered if it might have been a question from about 2006 or 2007. I don't think I've touched a floppy disk in the last ten years.
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A BIOS upgrade on an older machine in the last 2-3 years would be the last time I did. I really hate floppy disks, especially when there's a reason to suspect that the drive is killing the disks.
 
Magic Carpet said:
Floppy boot disks are handy
And you can write-protect them, just like an SD card.
I remember those cams. Interesting design, it was.
Click to expand...

That's an oft-overlooked point these days. USB booting is so useful, yet, at the same time, so dangerous. USB sticks lack a write-protect mechanism. (WHY????) And with things like BadUSB floating around, sharing USB drives is like sharing needles nowadays.
 
@ VirtualLarry

Why not use CD/DVD in that scenario? Its only disadvantage being that writing more data to it isn't as easy as it is with a floppy.
 
mikeymike: do you repair pc's or servers? ever have a failing optical drive but have to get that server up asap?

I'm not saying I use a usb-floppy daily, but I leave it in my trunk with a box of floppies for the off chance that it's needed. I maybe break it out once a year, and when I do it's hero status to that customer.
 
ch33zw1z said:
mikeymike: do you repair pc's or servers? ever have a failing optical drive but have to get that server up asap?
Click to expand...

Of course. I have a USB DVD drive and a USB floppy drive 🙂

VirtualLarry was talking about flash drives lacking a write-protect mechanism, my response was specifically with regard to that.

Having said that, I find failing floppy disks/drives infinitely more frustrating than optical drives / media; probably because floppies take ages at the best of times, and a failing optical drive doesn't tend to trash discs.
 
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I pulled everything off of my mountain of floppies 10 years ago. Everything I wanted from them is on my hard drive, and my backup drive. Off to the landfill after that.
 
For years I've tried to keep internal floppy drives in my machine (typically as an all-in-one card reader). To be sure, it's mostly a joke, but I like to think of it as a sort of technological memento mori. All technologies fade and go extinct at some point. In case I come across some I can still access it and I guess that's important to me.

But yeah, mostly nostalgia. I do keep some floppies around for just that purpose, in a way. You can imagine my horror when I found my new ASRock Extreme6 did not have a floppy port at all.
 
I only have a few around for nostalgic reasons like the first zOMG PC game, Thexder. I played it on my old man's Televideo 286 with monochrome/green. Never realized it was a color game until I saw it on a well-to-do friend's IBM. Otherwise, they make decent skeet shooting targets 😀
 
PliotronX said:
I only have a few around for nostalgic reasons like the first zOMG PC game, Thexder. I played it on my old man's Televideo 286 with monochrome/green. Never realized it was a color game until I saw it on a well-to-do friend's IBM. Otherwise, they make decent skeet shooting targets 😀
Click to expand...

I think I had Zeliard on floppy. It was kinda of like Zelda 2 on NES, sort of, but more difficult. I think it had CGA or EGA graphics. I never finished it, I don't think. Got to some fire level or something, and didn't have fire-proof boots. Would love to play that game again.
 
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