# Is it time to abandon floppy disks? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 19, 2003, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573 "2003-03-19T16:03:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/21 "2003-03-19T22:22:32Z")
I have a floppy module for my PowerBook. Of course, I also have a SyQuest 200 MB drive and a 5.25" 360K external PC-style floppy drive in my closet, and I never use them either. If I need to move files around and neither copying over the network nor sending as email attachment is appropriate or convenient, I generally put them on a Zip. In most of the places I go, the Zip drive has replaced the floppy. If all else fails, I keep an ethernet crossover cable in my bag and I can set up a two-machine LAN and copy the file that way. Yeah, the 3.5" floppy is almost as dead as the 5.25" ---
**Author:** ![Montgomery\_Burns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/db5fbb/32.png) [@Montgomery\_Burns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montgomery_Burns)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/22 "2003-03-19T22:38:32Z")
The computer I’m typing this on doesn’t have any USB ports. Only one machine I work with has a Zip drive. Not all are set up for e-mail either so I prefer diskettes. I use one at least once a week, and usually several times a week. I’d like to give some credit to the 3 1/2 inch floppy. I saw my first one back in 1987 or '88 and I’m still using them today. That is an extraordinary life span in the world of personal computing. ---
**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/23 "2003-03-19T23:55:30Z")
The sooner they die, the better. I think CD-MRW (Mt. Rainier CD format) has the best chance of replacing them. A CD-MRW enabled drive lets you use a CD-RW disc just like a floppy, drag and drop files, burn on the fly, delete and change on the fly, etc. Quite usefull, and infinitely more reliable. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/24 "2003-03-20T00:13:49Z")
Personally I’d like to see solid-state storage become the cheap medium; disks of any kind are relatively fragile by comparison. what I really want is a solid state mass-storage./backup device (and I want it cheap, of course) - I just spent two days rebuilding a server application that was backed up onto DAT and verified (or so says the log), but would it recover? - we think that the tape may have been damaged during/just after the verify process - great luck eh? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/25 "2003-03-20T03:01:42Z")
I haven’t had a floppy drive in any of my machines for at least two years. I have a couple drives sitting around somewhere, but why bother. As someone else said: Any file small enough to go on a flopy can be emailed (or posted to the web). ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/26 "2003-03-20T03:29:11Z")
I have an iMac now, but I hadn’t used a floppy for a couple of years before I got it, and that was on my anemic Mac IIsi, one of the earlier models to have the 1.44 MB SuperDrive (as opposed to 400K/800K-only disk drives). I might have broke them out during the IIsi’s final days, trying to reinstall and such, but I could’ve downloaded the files if I wanted to. If it can fit on a floppy, it can be FTPed just as fast among any machines that I’d be using. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/27 "2003-03-20T03:46:30Z")
There is a cd burner on both computers I use, and I _still_ use floppies on a daily basis. Why? Because I use them to store documents I’m working on (mostly stories I post to message boards). If I used a cdr instead I’d have 20-500 versions of the same document on the cdr since I’d have to burn a new copy every time I updated the document. They’re also handy for downloading itty-bitty files (skins or objects for a game, for example) that I only have one or two of. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/28 "2003-03-20T04:32:00Z")
Another Mac user who doesn’t miss the floppy. I got the external USB floppy drive for my G4 PowerMac, and I think I’ve used it…hmmm…when did I last use it? I think 6 months ago. I used two iMacs before I got this G4 and neither of them had floppy drives. Never missed it. My new PC is several months old, and the only time I’ve used the floppy drive was to make that boot disk, right after I installed Windows XP. That was it. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/29 "2003-03-20T04:41:08Z")
I’ve had a couple of instances in which a computer that was supposed to boot from CDs just didn’t. Or it would boot from certain bootable CDs, but not others. In these situations, my floppy drive was a lifesaver. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/30 "2003-03-20T05:13:05Z")
Floppies will continue to be usefull for a long time, but the number of situations they will be useful in will continue to shrink. It probably won’t be too long before the average user responds to seeing a geek with a floppy by saying, “What’s that?” I don’t use floppies everyday, but I do use them maybe every week. I can’t afford to burn little bits of data to a CD just to end up throwing that CD away later when I need to update a file. CDRs and CDRWs take too long to burn for the tiny bits of data that I’d be using a floppy for. (I’d have to open Nero, go through the little wizard, select the files I want, blah blah blah. On the floppy, it’s just right-click Copy, then right-click Paste. Or even just drag and drop.) I also find that floppies are more durable than CD’s, although of course YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/31 "2003-03-20T10:42:18Z")
- - - When this news (about Dell computers) was first made public, the comments in Slashdot’s board fell almost completely into one of two groups: the first group was typical home users saying “I never use them anymore, who cares?” and the second group was corporate/industrial users who said that they used them on a regular basis and couldn’t use anything else, because no other removeable + re-writable media is standardized _and_ so common/inexpensive on the PC platform yet. - I typically use a packet-CD-RW to save or move files on, but still do use floppies on occasion-- usually for things that cannot be done with any other media (such as repairing HD boot sectors and the like). ~ ---
**Author:** ![curwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@curwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curwin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/32 "2003-03-20T15:21:07Z")
I didn’t see it anywhere in the thread, so here’s the link to the Dell article: > **[Floppy disks face extinction](https://www.theregister.com/2003/02/06/floppy_disks_face_extinction/)** > > Dell rings death knell Guess what else is on the way out… [http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-985600.html](http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-985600.html) ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/33 "2003-03-20T15:42:38Z")
Floppies are useless. It is common to put data on them and just lose it because of how unreliable they are. I would never trust data to be stored on a floppy. Plus, as someone already said, if it’s small enough to fit on a floppy, then it’s small enough to email. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/34 "2003-03-20T15:50:53Z")
I’ll say it again: floppies are _not_ useless. Email is not always reliable or available in business. Data cannot always be emailed–many companies prohibit the sending of sensitive documents by email–and many occupations involve staff working remotely (consulting, auditing, sales, field support and so on) where email is simply not a practical tool. As was said above, until businesses standardise on a new small-scale storage medium for sharing data, floppies _aren’t going anywhere_. CDs and USB devices may be smaller, more reliable and have larger capacities, but until you can convince companies to re-equip their entire workforce with such devices then floppies are a convenient, proven tool. Floppies will eventually be abandoned, but not when individual consumers decide the time is right. Once a new medium has been standardised and has achieved “critical mass” in business _then_ manufacturers will really start shipping floppy-free boxes _en masse_. Sure, for many of you floppies may be anachronistic. But how many of you are using equipment that is purchased in bulk by corporations or organisations who are unlikely to roll-out new hardware in the current economic climate? ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/35 "2003-03-20T16:14:51Z")
A couple months back. I was asked to transfer fifteen 5 1/4 disks, dating from the early 80s, to 3 1/2 disks, to eventually be copied to CD. Surprisingly, 12 of the 15 disks were still readable. (A number of them were infected with the Form boot virus). ---
**Author:** ![Lorenzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4da419/32.png) [@Lorenzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorenzo)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/36 "2003-03-21T00:57:30Z")
Life without bootable floppies would be more difficult for some. ---
**Author:** ![not\_reaching](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@not\_reaching](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_reaching)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/37 "2003-03-21T01:11:03Z")
I kept planning to buy a CD burner, but the prices kept dropping, once to $19, but then I saw an ad for one that was much faster for a few dollars more, but before I bought it I found DVD-CD burners were nearly in my price range, so now I’m waiting for _them_ to drop, and at that point you can take my floppy drive. ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/38 "2003-03-21T01:34:00Z")
I also use a Mavica FD camera… I should upgrade sometime in the next year and leave the floppy disks behind for good (even now I use them only on occasion, considering I use memory sticks now) ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/39 "2003-03-21T15:54:35Z")
“, but then I saw an ad for one that was much faster for a few dollars more,” I think cdwriters top out at 52x. This is cause any faster the disk tends to fly out the door or fly apart. At 52x they added some extra support to the door, just in case. I keep my cdrom drives so they don’t point at me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Qis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Qis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qis)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2003, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573/40 "2003-06-01T14:21:27Z")
I almost had a heart attack a couple of weeks ago. day before hand in date for university coursework. all my files on my linux box. which is on my network. my smba server broke, and my linux box stopped talking to the internet at all. i put a floppy disk drive lock on my linux box aaggeess ago, and i had lost the key i had never needed it. fast forward to 20 minutes later. with creative use of a wrench and a stanley knife, i got the floppy disk lock off ,adn managed to write to a floppy disk. very traumatic, and now the floppy drive doesnt read from disk. saved my life, but i still hate the evil floppy drive. offf to test out my new usb mem stick on my linux box. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-abandon-floppy-disks/162573.md?page=3)