Floopy Drives Must Die

[feelingshorter]

I dont see the reason for floppy drives anymore. There are a few reasons for this..

1. You can update your MOBO bios just by burning the image on a CDR/CDRW or even using a USB drive.
2. No one really use them anymore as files can be stored easier on USB drives or via gmail (unless your on 56k, but even a word doc isnt that big to upload).

I predict that the floppy drive will become obsolete in 4 years. I do not know what it will be replaced by but Zip drives are crap. Their famous "clicking" noise and all your data is gone is too risky to put any files on there. I would think floppies will be replaced by USB drives, even at school all you have to do is stick it in behind the computer on older models. Otherwise, at my school they got newer computer models that have USB drives infront. Just curious as to what everyone else thinks. You get a cookie in however many years if ya guess right.

 

[Neptune3000]

Agreed.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Hopefully, very soon.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: feelingshorter
Otherwise, at my school they got newer computer models that have USB drives infront.

Ah, the ever ubiquitous college Dells...god I hate those slanted USB front panels.
It's been years since I owned a computer that had a FDD, don't really see the need for them. What OS requires floppys to install anymore anyway? Not XP, and not most Linux distros either. Maybe for vintage games, but can't you download most of those abandonware nowadays? USB thumb drives are so much nicer.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Should've been dead before Apple even killed theirs.

 

[feelingshorter]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: feelingshorter
Otherwise, at my school they got newer computer models that have USB drives infront.

Ah, the ever ubiquitous college Dells...god I hate those slanted USB front panels.
It's been years since I owned a computer that had a FDD, don't really see the need for them. What OS requires floppys to install anymore anyway? Not XP, and not most Linux distros either. Maybe for vintage games, but can't you download most of those abandonware nowadays? USB thumb drives are so much nicer.

my school uses compaq computers, maby its different for every state but the USB slot infront works fine with usb drives really.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

WTF? How many years til??? How about they already are!!! I haven't had one for, what, 4 years now. Might have needed one for a BIOS update or something, but I throw them away after that.... They are disposable as far as I'm concerned... And that option needs to be put on the poll!
Tas.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: feelingshorter
my school uses compaq computers, maby its different for every state but the USB slot infront works fine with usb drives really.

It does work fine, provided you have the coordination to slide one into the slanted (and upside down) front panel USB port (blind, since the panel cover effectively blocks your view of the port) :roll:. I'd like to get my hands on the people at Dell who designed that contraption...

 

[Codegen]

The problem with me having a USB drive is that the computers at school are so old that they are on the AT form factor, and thuis don't have USB ports (Even on the PCI slot area.

The computers are P-233s and K6-350s

 

[feelingshorter]

Originally posted by: Codegen
The problem with me having a USB drive is that the computers at school are so old that they are on the AT form factor, and thuis don't have USB ports (Even on the PCI slot area.

The computers are P-233s and K6-350s

that means you got one hell of an old computer lol, some schools dont have money to update their computers as fast so that will have to do. Like i said, how many years before floppies become obsolete? Funny though..my school district buys new computer every three years or so. Our newest one runs on like 3ghz (wtf). I can play CS or Halo just fine lanning in the computer lab haha.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: feelingshorter
that means you got one hell of an old computer lol, some schools dont have money to update their computers as fast so that will have to do. Like i said, how many years before floppies become obsolete? Funny though..my school district buys new computer every three years or so. Our newest one runs on like 3ghz (wtf). I can play CS or Halo just fine lanning in the computer lab haha.

Same with my college. They seem to have this inexplicable need to order brand new Dells every two or three years. What they do with the old ones, I can only imagine. God I hope they don't just throw them away...

such a waste. It wouldn't be so bad if they were put up for auction, I might have snagged a few cheap ones for myself, but I've never seen any auction notices. Eh, maybe they got exchanged back to Dell to be refurbished.

 

[gar3555]

agreed with them already being obsolete, the last 5 computers I've built, FDDless, I don't believe in them anymore, front USB ports are in

 

[feelingshorter]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: feelingshorter
that means you got one hell of an old computer lol, some schools dont have money to update their computers as fast so that will have to do. Like i said, how many years before floppies become obsolete? Funny though..my school district buys new computer every three years or so. Our newest one runs on like 3ghz (wtf). I can play CS or Halo just fine lanning in the computer lab haha.

Same with my college. They seem to have this inexplicable need to order brand new Dells every two or three years. What they do with the old ones, I can only imagine. God I hope they don't just throw them away...

such a waste. It wouldn't be so bad if they were put up for auction, I might have snagged a few cheap ones for myself, but I've never seen any auction notices. Eh, maybe they got exchanged back to Dell to be refurbished.

Im not sure about YOUR district and i cannot speak for everyones but they give them to other schools in mine. (or so my teachers claimed when i asked if i could take one lol)

 

[vegetation]

Floppies are still useful. Thumb drives, yes, are convenient but they're still expensive compared to a floppy. I always turned in things on a floppy and never expected nor cared to see that floppy again. Yet, I would have great hesitation doing that with a thumb drive. I imagine if thumb drives were available for, say, 50 cents at any retail store (i.e. I'm not dealing with ebayers charging me $20 for shipping) then thumb drives have a chance to overthrow floppies.

CD's have never been convenient for portable on the fly storage. They're much bigger than floppies and far more fragile to toss into a bag.

 

[Leros]

Zip drives are already obsolete. I dont get the purpose of them anymore.

 

[sparkyclarky]

Working in a computer lab here on campus, I see floppies in use all the time. It makes me sad, and I try to steer people to thumbdrives and such, but they still utilize floppies A LOT (even when the vast majority of campus computers have Zip drives and burners on them). I do get a small smirk everytime someone loses data on floppies, as they should have known better at this point in the game than to store important data on those damn things. Hell, every student has 100megs of e-mail space and 100megs of miscellaneous webspace to store stuff on as well, but they never seem to realize that that makes for a very safe place to store data....

 

[sparkyclarky]

Originally posted by: vegetation
Floppies are still useful. Thumb drives, yes, are convenient but they're still expensive compared to a floppy. I always turned in things on a floppy and never expected nor cared to see that floppy again. Yet, I would have great hesitation doing that with a thumb drive. I imagine if thumb drives were available for, say, 50 cents at any retail store (i.e. I'm not dealing with ebayers charging me $20 for shipping) then thumb drives have a chance to overthrow floppies.

CD's have never been convenient for portable on the fly storage. They're much bigger than floppies and far more fragile to toss into a bag.

A CD in a case is far more durable than a floppy. A floppy in a case is still far less durable/far less likely to retain your data than a CD in a case. Size isn't an argument, because if you truly cared about size you'd cough up the dough for a thumb drive. I do understand the cost vs. potential loss argument, but then again most people value their data more than the thing they store it on (give a prof a floppy and it gets destroyed somehow/the data is lost due to the unstable nature of the medium, and see how you work that out/the extra time spent vs. e-mailing or turning in a thumb drive with the intent to reclaim).

 

[sparkyclarky]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: feelingshorter
my school uses compaq computers, maby its different for every state but the USB slot infront works fine with usb drives really.

It does work fine, provided you have the coordination to slide one into the slanted (and upside down) front panel USB port (blind, since the panel cover effectively blocks your view of the port) :roll:. I'd like to get my hands on the people at Dell who designed that contraption...

That is damn annoying, isn't it

 

[sparkyclarky]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: feelingshorter
Otherwise, at my school they got newer computer models that have USB drives infront.

Ah, the ever ubiquitous college Dells...god I hate those slanted USB front panels.
It's been years since I owned a computer that had a FDD, don't really see the need for them. What OS requires floppys to install anymore anyway? Not XP, and not most Linux distros either. Maybe for vintage games, but can't you download most of those abandonware nowadays? USB thumb drives are so much nicer.

Floppies are needed to install RAID/SCSI drivers in XP (assuming that it isn't chipset level support). There are options for slipstreaming, but they can be more of a hassle than they are worth if you don't install Windows often.

 

[CheesePoofs]

I end up using my floppy drive a decent amount. Only because I dont' have a USB drive (although I should be getting one this week). Only thing I can think of that you might need a floppy for is installing raid/HD controller drivers during the windows install process. Is it possible to do that on a USB drive? Also, is it possible to make a bootable USB drive without wiping it?

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: sparkyclarky

Originally posted by: vegetation
Floppies are still useful. Thumb drives, yes, are convenient but they're still expensive compared to a floppy. I always turned in things on a floppy and never expected nor cared to see that floppy again. Yet, I would have great hesitation doing that with a thumb drive. I imagine if thumb drives were available for, say, 50 cents at any retail store (i.e. I'm not dealing with ebayers charging me $20 for shipping) then thumb drives have a chance to overthrow floppies.

CD's have never been convenient for portable on the fly storage. They're much bigger than floppies and far more fragile to toss into a bag.

A CD in a case is far more durable than a floppy. A floppy in a case is still far less durable/far less likely to retain your data than a CD in a case. Size isn't an argument, because if you truly cared about size you'd cough up the dough for a thumb drive. I do understand the cost vs. potential loss argument, but then again most people value their data more than the thing they store it on (give a prof a floppy and it gets destroyed somehow/the data is lost due to the unstable nature of the medium, and see how you work that out/the extra time spent vs. e-mailing or turning in a thumb drive with the intent to reclaim).

I disagree. I carry my laptop everywhere with me and it's far easier to have a floppy tossed into the bag. Dust and crud wont get in; I've been doing it for 10 years. Try tossing a clean unburnt cd into a bag and see what happens when you attempt to burn it with Nero and you have 5 mins left before the deadline with only 1 cd left -- talk about trying to get that 'worked out' with your prof (or to have him/her even understand -- been there, done that). I had to go upstairs to the lab and found a bunch of floppies lying around, for which were freely available and so took one = problem solved. So much for floppies being obsolete. And the cost factor is HUGE -- try having a thumbdrive laying around the room unattended, it's going to be stolen FAST. Floppies, on the other hand, nobody gives a damn about because they're worth more trouble than the benefit. Now if thumbdrives can get down in price to floppies where they're just lying around and nobody wants them, then we have a winner. But we're not at that point and wont be for at least a year.

 

[dukdukgoos]

I still use floppies for unattended install answer files, does anyone know if a USB drive could be used instead? Love to get rid of the floppy if there's really nothing it's needed for anymore...

 

[Codegen]

Originally posted by: feelingshorter

Originally posted by: Codegen
The problem with me having a USB drive is that the computers at school are so old that they are on the AT form factor, and thuis don't have USB ports (Even on the PCI slot area.

The computers are P-233s and K6-350s

that means you got one hell of an old computer lol, some schools dont have money to update their computers as fast so that will have to do. Like i said, how many years before floppies become obsolete? Funny though..my school district buys new computer every three years or so. Our newest one runs on like 3ghz (wtf). I can play CS or Halo just fine lanning in the computer lab haha.

Here's the kicker: The computers before I left Elementary school were Celeron 667s

Hell, most of the comps at my HS don't even have CD-ROM drives

 

[boomerang]

I can see where the casual computer user or gamer would have no use for a floppy drive.

Anyone who repairs or troubleshoots computers would be sad to see them go. I just did some serious OS repair (saved myself a reinstall) this weekend and the floppy drive saved my butt. I could have burned a CD, but it was quicker with a floppy.

 

[boomdawg]

Though I don't use them basically ever anymore nor do I think they should be used as often as they do I know of several instances where floppies are used quite regularly. As mentioned above school systems still use them a lot. More and more proffessors at universities are requiring students to hand in electronic versions of reports so they can more easily scan them for plagerism.

Another thing I've seen where they are still getting used is in bid processes for small and medium sized projects from architecture firms. Contractors need not only copies of the plans to make bids but also the spec sheets. These are often just copied to a floppy and rubberbanded to the rolled up plans. Floppies are known to take this abuse often and well while CD's aren't as happy to be used like that. It's also easier for some people in this case to just toss a floppy in the drive, drag and drop the file to it and go (though it's about the same time to burn a CD the same way).

I agree there are lots of better ways to do things than with a floppy but the USPS still uses 286 computers to run some of the equipment they use and CD's just don't work that well for them. Like tape backup the floppy will never die.