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Diskettes, which brand?
- Thread starter tecneeq
- Start date
3M was generally considered to be the best, before Imation took over manufacturing after 1996. I doubt that 15+ year old NOS disks will still be reliable (and easy to find), given that the shelf life of disks is generally about 3 years tops.
In my region, Maxell is still spinning out new floppies, and they can still be found at Staples, and Office Depot. I'm not sure what the situation is in Europe, but I've never run into a problem with Maxell floppies. Their recent VHS tapes, however, are a different story.
In my region, Maxell is still spinning out new floppies, and they can still be found at Staples, and Office Depot. I'm not sure what the situation is in Europe, but I've never run into a problem with Maxell floppies. Their recent VHS tapes, however, are a different story.
I regularly buy these generic 50 packs of 800k floppies off ebay. Very rarely do I get a bad disk. Big fan of Verbatim too; never had a problem.
I'm STILL sorting through that 4000+ disk conquest I had a few years ago. There waere a TON of sony floppies with random data on them and after I poke through them for useful extensions or anything I give them a frest format. these things were ABUSED but I'm averaging 2/10 being bad.
I see.
However, it seems Sony stopped making floppys in march 2011. They sold only in the local japanese market. They still had a volume of 12 millionen floppys. but if you had 3 billion floppys before you tend to see the business as insignificant i guess.
Anyways, you can not get new Sony floppys.
I understand that, because of larger structures, DD floppys have an expected lifetime of 15 to 20 years, HD floppys an expected lifetime of 5 years. I wonder what the expected lifetime of ED floppys is, 6 month? :lol:
That leaves me with the cheap chinese stuff or Verbatim.
BTW, i learned why the russians and east europe still uses that much floppys, they transfer their tax data with them. ;D
However, it seems Sony stopped making floppys in march 2011. They sold only in the local japanese market. They still had a volume of 12 millionen floppys. but if you had 3 billion floppys before you tend to see the business as insignificant i guess.
Anyways, you can not get new Sony floppys.
I understand that, because of larger structures, DD floppys have an expected lifetime of 15 to 20 years, HD floppys an expected lifetime of 5 years. I wonder what the expected lifetime of ED floppys is, 6 month? :lol:
That leaves me with the cheap chinese stuff or Verbatim.
BTW, i learned why the russians and east europe still uses that much floppys, they transfer their tax data with them. ;D
Well my personal opinion, reliable, not, cheap chinese or not, Who cares at this point? Because nowadays better storage mediums for long-term are available. For me personally, using floppies are only for boot disks, or quick sneakernet of files. Anything long-term or reliable, it doesnt matter. So a throw-away disk is perfectly acceptable.
Whenever I find NOS 3M diskettes, I always snap them up. Managed to get three boxes last year and of the ten disks in the box I opened, all worked.
In order of reliability from personal experience:
3M
IBM
BASF
Sony
Verbatim
Maxell
Memorex
Nashua
Fujifilm
Generic
Office Depot
(note these are for 3.5" floppies; the order doesn't change much for 5.25" but place Elephant Memory Systems between IBM and BASF)
In order of reliability from personal experience:
3M
IBM
BASF
Sony
Verbatim
Maxell
Memorex
Nashua
Fujifilm
Generic
Office Depot
(note these are for 3.5" floppies; the order doesn't change much for 5.25" but place Elephant Memory Systems between IBM and BASF)
I had some old Sony floppies lying around (they were actually Dad's old disks-he said I could use them!
). One developed a bad sector after a few weeks' light use.
The only ones I can get readily here in Ireland are Verbatim, and they are brutal as we say, i.e. from my experience they are of poor quality. I have bought a few boxes in the last while and each contained, on average, two faulty / dodgy ones. Could also be the way they were stored in the shop but I'm not impressed!
Good thing is that they have a lifetime warranty so I just wait until I have 10 faulty ones and bring them back to the shop for a repalcement box (or after 6 months mail them with the receipt to Verbatim).
Good thing is that they have a lifetime warranty so I just wait until I have 10 faulty ones and bring them back to the shop for a repalcement box (or after 6 months mail them with the receipt to Verbatim).
A real expert advised me there is no point in degaussing FDD heads, because they make binary signals rather than the analog signals of audio tape heads. That surprised me because the recording mode is FM, but it must be pulsed FM rather than FM over an AM carrier (which is radio FM).
Rick
Quite correct.
I've been told that Athana is the only company still making floppies and that any new ones you see on store shelves now are just rebranded.
I dont know how true that is though. I bought some 5.25 DS/DD Floppies from them a few months ago over the phone. I can't yet speak for how reliable they are.
http://www.athana.com/
I dont know how true that is though. I bought some 5.25 DS/DD Floppies from them a few months ago over the phone. I can't yet speak for how reliable they are.
http://www.athana.com/
