On 26 Aug 2003 22:07:18 -0700
Hello greats,
Can anyone help me, what are the LS120 Devices?
Are they Floppy Drives? Are they superior to 1.44MB Drives?
Google "LS-120" and you should find all the information you need.
But in brief an LS120 (or its successor the LS240) is a drive that can
read and write standard 1.44 meg diskettes but also read and write
purpose-made 120 meg (or in the case of the LS240 240 meg) "floptical"
diskettes. The LS240 can also with special software write 32 meg to a
standard 1.44 meg diskette.
Whether they are "superior" depends on your needs. The higher storage
capacity is certainly a benefit, and the second-generation and later
drives read and write 1.44 meg diskettes considerably faster than a
standard diskette drive does, so from that viewpoint they are certainly
superior. However they don't use a standard diskette interface, instead
interfacing via IDE, SCSI, or USB (there may also be some available for
firewire), so they are not bootable drives in all machines.
One serious disadvantage from a system administration viewpoint is that
using a standard 3.5" diskette cleaning kit will generally destroy an
LS-120--it takes a special cleaner that won't "grab" the head.
And since users_will_ do such things as clean drives no matter how many
edicts you issue to the contrary, and since the replacement cost on an
LS120 is approximately 10 times the cost of a standard diskette drive,
this can unacceptably increase maintenance costs.
Personally I like LS120s and use them in many of my personal machines.
With the latest standards calling for elimination of the diskette
interface, LS120s may soon be the only available choice for an internal
diskette drive.
However, with the price of CDRW drives down into the same range as that
of LS120s and with multiformat DVD recorders already less than LS240s
and heading into the LS120 range, and with blank CDs going for far less
than blank LS120 disks of 1/5 the capacity there's not much real reason
to use one these days unless you need to use diskettes with a machine
that won't support a standard diskette drive.
