Dell dropping Floppy drives

[Julio Franco]

We all saw this one coming; after all, do you really use your floppies often? IMHO, the only reason they haven't been dropped already is because of the lack of a versatile replacement for them... 1.44mb is almost nothing, but works for a simple Word or Excel document and you can re-write on diskettes as much as you want.

In the other hand floppies aren't reliable while CD's are, but I wouldn't consider those as versatile, then the rest of storage media isn't as widespread... quite a dilemma.

And so, what’s your take on this? Post your comments here.

 

[Vehementi]

Floppies are still useful for booting to DOS to flash BIOSes and such, IMHO.

Nothing beats a CD however.

 

[poertner_1274]

I don't feel that floppy's are very useful. It was only a matter of time before it finally happened. They are to the point now of the old 5.25 inch ones were a long time ago. I think ZIP drives have replaced them, but as you said they are not that widespread. In my house (about 40 comps) I think there are only a handful who have ZIP drives. So CD's are still the best option, but too big and breakable if misused to replace the floppy.

 

[StormBringer]

The problem with the ZIP drive replacing the floppy is the cost. Last time I bought a ZIP disk, the 100MB ones were still around $10 each, while CDs are much, much cheaper and hold more data. The CD however, as has already been pointed out is not as compact. The mini-CD would be a good replacement choice but isn't really cost effective when compared to the full size CD. A mini CD holds only 200MB, some 210MB and costs a little more than half what a full size CD costs. This is still cheaper than a ZIP disk and holds more data, it is also almost the same size as a floppy.

 

[SNGX1275]

re-writing to cds is still a pain though, nothing like the ease of adding and deleting files to a floppy drive.

 

[warr]

CD's good? u need software to write them. and not all OS support your CD writer. or u don't even have a driver for that OS.

zip? too expensive.

floppy? cheap and convenient for trouble shooting.

so floppy still best.

as said, it is because there is no replacement yet that floppy is still in use.

 

[Julio Franco]

I was thinking, perhaps if there were more companies supporting those USB small storage devices that use flash memory (the ones that are usually advertised to be as small as keychains)...

Think about it, with some good software support (direct OS), slightly lower prices and no extra drive needed to read/write, ideally these would be very convenient.

 

[warr]

Originally posted by TS | Julio
I was thinking, perhaps if there were more companies supporting those USB small storage devices that use flash memory (the ones that are usually advertised to be as small as keychains)...

Think about it, with some good software support (direct OS), slightly lower prices and no extra drive needed to read/write, ideally these would be very convenient.

only if price is low.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by Vehementi
Floppies are still useful for booting to DOS to flash BIOSes and such, IMHO.

Yes, some people do that. It's not every day you have to flash your BIOS, however. I use a bootable CD for that - BIOS file being on a FAT partition.

I'm planning to add a 5.25" floppy drive to this computer just for the heck of it. Not too many PCs these days have one :giddy:

 

[Per Hansson]

Many network cards comes with drivers on a floppy...

Actually the last computer I built, I skipped the floppy on that, but since the NIC driver came on a floppy I couldn't get the network running.

So I actually had to go and dig up an old floppy drive

 

[Snowy Commando]

Those usb pendrives are quite cool, the space to store and the drive in one, you can buy a 256mb for less than the cost of a zip drive with no zip disks.

"Plug and Play" boot device all in one, what a cool idea!

 

[agissi]

I think floppys are simply convient

 

[young&wild]

Originally posted by warr
CD's good? u need software to write them. and not all OS support your CD writer. or u don't even have a driver for that OS.

zip? too expensive.

floppy? cheap and convenient for trouble shooting.

so floppy still best.

as said, it is because there is no replacement yet that floppy is still in use.

I agree with you, sometimes floppy drives do become very handy.

 

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by warr
CD's good? u need software to write them. and not all OS support your CD writer. or u don't even have a driver for that OS.

So what if you need software? nero isn't very difficult to use, and win xp has support, you can drag and drop. The only reason cds haven't replaced floppies is that they're too big. If the smaller cds were common, and rewritable they could replace floppies. And i don't know what you mean about not having a driver, they come with ones for most os's

 

[MrGaribaldi]

I guess he's refering to the different *nix flavours out there...


As for the topic...
I haven't had a floppy drive in my computer for about two years... Granted, there has been times I could have used one, but nothing I couldn't do with a cd or plain inet access...

But I might just add one when I finally get around to moving my computer to my flat... With no inet access, it would be nice not to spend one cd per document I need to move...


Intel tried to promote a legacy free computer a while ago, but it didnt' do too good... And I think the same would apply to Dell, considering how many people still use floppies...


.02$

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by MrGaribaldi
But I might just add one when I finally get around to moving my computer to my flat... With no inet access, it would be nice not to spend one cd per document I need to move...

Just buy 1 CD-RW

I might start switching over to them...

 

[blacktip]

cd rw's all well and good, dont know about the rest of you but my workplace computers have never heard of a cdrw drive, most are still powered by pentium 2's (if ur lucky) floppys are still convenient to throw a couple of files on, pen drives would be nice... but many need drivers, again problems in a workplace where the it security people dont trust the average user to switch on the machine correctley.. LOL in an ideal world i would love to burn all floppys... may keep a few...just in case