Unreliable - diskettes or FDDs ?

[Zotin Khuma]

I think anyone who works regularly with or on computers
will have noticed how unreliable modern floppy diskettes
have become. But I've begun to wonder if it's the drives
and not the diskettes that are responsible. For many people,
a discussion of floppy disks and drives would be academic,
but they still serve a useful purpose. Personally, I still prefer
floppies for transferring small amounts of data because
writing and deleting are much more straightforward with
a floppy than with a CD.

I have access to a limited range of FDD brands - mainly
Sony, Samsung and Amiga. Of these, the FDD's on my
two Amigas seldom have trouble reading, writing or
formatting a diskette many times over, unless the disks
had been written to by PC drives.

Samsung drives are usually no worse at reading pre-written
data such as device drivers, but I've come across many
Samsung FDD's that permanently damage a diskette once
it writes anything, even a tiny file, to it. This includes
brand-new drives, and once the diskette is damaged, it
cannot even be formatted. My supplier has standing
orders to never send me Samsung FDD's.

Sony FDD's seem to be significantly better in this respect,
but I have not conducted a systematic series of tests
involving many drives and diskettes.

Maybe different manufacturers are working to slightly
different alignment standards ? Opinions and observations
please....

 

[John]

Sony FDD's seem to be significantly better in this respect,
but I have not conducted a systematic series of tests
involving many drives and diskettes.

Maybe different manufacturers are working to slightly
different alignment standards ? Opinions and observations
please....

Yeah I noticed that. Thats another reason I hate them and dont even
have one in my PC anymore. I try to get everything I need on a
bootable CD format which luckily some people have done on the net -
like memtest and other utils. I noticed that from years and years ago
--- its so erratic I didnt want to use them at all. The funny thing is
others would dispute this and say they didnt notice anything.

The drives and the disks both seem terrible. The disks defintely seem
like they went downhill since Id seen them selling for free aftter
rebate and super discounted ages ago and they look cheap generally.
However Ive noticed like you that there seems to be some defect
,alignment problems or something with the drives and they do seem to
destroy the disks. Even before the CDR era I was moving away from
floppies as much as I could.

I remember in the old days as they say --- ages ago when PS2s and
other clones were around they seemed far more reliable.

 

[S.Heenan]

Zotin Khuma wrote:

Maybe different manufacturers are working to slightly
different alignment standards ? Opinions and observations
please....

At one time, it was possible to align several parameters of a floppy
drive. This is not longer as common. Hardware specs are very difficult
to source as well.

Give the following a read:

http://www.accurite.com/FloppyPrimer.html

 

[Noozer]

I'd prefer memory sticks of some kind to replace floppies, but BIOS makers
and memorystick makers can't standardize them enough to be as useful as a
floppy. Same with bootable CD's... They both require "work" to get a
bootable device that does what you want.

Personally, I think that floppy drives just aren't aligned properly at the
factory anymore. Buy three different brands of drives. Format in one and try
to write using another - good chance it won't work.

 

[/mel/]

I think anyone who works regularly with or on computers
will have noticed how unreliable modern floppy diskettes
have become. But I've begun to wonder if it's the drives
and not the diskettes that are responsible. For many people,
a discussion of floppy disks and drives would be academic,
but they still serve a useful purpose. Personally, I still prefer
floppies for transferring small amounts of data because
writing and deleting are much more straightforward with
a floppy than with a CD.

I prefer USB sticks.

I've noticed the gradual decline in the reliability of floppies over a
number of years now, though I have no hard statistics.

I suspect that the reason is two-fold - first off there's much less reliance
on floppy drives these days - it's just not so important any more. Secondly,
it used to be that you'd pay a fair amount for a good drive (ditto
keyboard), whereas these days they are churned out of a factory in Taiwan by
the million, for pennies (ditto keyboards).

You get what you pay for. Sadly few people realise this, so the quality
manufacturers either go under or are forced to compete by cutting corners
just like the rest of the manufacturers.

 

[Dave]

I think anyone who works regularly with or on computers
will have noticed how unreliable modern floppy diskettes
have become. But I've begun to wonder if it's the drives
and not the diskettes that are responsible. For many people,
a discussion of floppy disks and drives would be academic,
but they still serve a useful purpose. Personally, I still prefer
floppies for transferring small amounts of data because
writing and deleting are much more straightforward with
a floppy than with a CD.

I have access to a limited range of FDD brands - mainly
Sony, Samsung and Amiga. Of these, the FDD's on my
two Amigas seldom have trouble reading, writing or
formatting a diskette many times over, unless the disks
had been written to by PC drives.

Samsung drives are usually no worse at reading pre-written
data such as device drivers, but I've come across many
Samsung FDD's that permanently damage a diskette once
it writes anything, even a tiny file, to it. This includes
brand-new drives, and once the diskette is damaged, it
cannot even be formatted. My supplier has standing
orders to never send me Samsung FDD's.

Sony FDD's seem to be significantly better in this respect,
but I have not conducted a systematic series of tests
involving many drives and diskettes.

Maybe different manufacturers are working to slightly
different alignment standards ? Opinions and observations
please....

I think myself that a lot of the problem is down to the drives - they've
become just too cheap to be reliable. I've got one about 6 years old and
it works fine. I still use floppies for daily backup of about 2MB of
working files.

BTW, I got some USB flash drives, and 2 out of 4 stopped working after a
couple of uses. The others seem fine after months of use, but...

Dave

 

[John]

BTW, I got some USB flash drives, and 2 out of 4 stopped working after a
couple of uses. The others seem fine after months of use, but...

Dave

Thats interesting I was thinking of going for one of those deals cause
they are always rebated , on sale dirt cheap nowadays.

It was one of those devices that I always thought - "No way am I going
to buy one of those though everyone seems to be getting one ." But
now I can think of various uses for one.

Had the same thought about the IPOD. I dont get why they are so
popular at that price but they seem to be selling out everywhere and
my neighbors son is virtually frothing at the mouth in anticipation of
getting one,

 

[/mel/]

Thats interesting I was thinking of going for one of those deals cause
they are always rebated , on sale dirt cheap nowadays.

It was one of those devices that I always thought - "No way am I going
to buy one of those though everyone seems to be getting one ." But
now I can think of various uses for one.

Now that USB is common they're quite useful.

Had the same thought about the IPOD. I dont get why they are so
popular at that price but they seem to be selling out everywhere and
my neighbors son is virtually frothing at the mouth in anticipation of
getting one,

Marketing. They're more of a fshion accessory than anything else, and this
becomes particularly evident when you watched a number of people install the
software on their PCs ... and watched them crash.