Subj : Re: Floppy disks
To   : Dr. What
From : bbsing
Date : Tue Aug 22 2023 00:59:35

On 02 Jan 2022, Dr. What said the following...
 
 DW> -=> Utopian Galt wrote to All <=-
 DW> 
 DW>  UG> They were a barrel of problems. Even back in 1999/2005 the disks were
 DW>  UG> not guranteed to live as well.
 DW> 
 DW> That's why I always update my vintage computer systems to use floppy
 DW> emulators.
 DW> 
 DW> The drives will fail over time.  The disks will fail as well.  And 5.25"
 DW> disks haven't been made since, when?  The last batch of 5.25" disks that
 DW> I got had a failure rate of about 2 our of 5.
 DW> 
I got curious about the lifetime warranty on some floppy disk, brand new in a
box. 


I've tested a floppy disk 3.5 for several months to see if I could get the
disk to fail due to writing to it and overwriting the data. I used a linux
system with an attached USB floppy drive, I wrote over a million times to the
disk and read back what was written perfectly. Then after about 4 months
errors appeared. I stopped the program (bash script using dd), and started
inspecting the log. I found I couldn't read the disk anymore... so I was
almost set to turn off the system, ... the IT crew was wondering why a pc
using an unsanctioned OS was on the network, and they wanted it shut off. I
had first verify the drive wasn't bad. ... well that was the case, the floppy
was fine, but the drive had died. 

I think if a 3.5 inch floppy is cared for, maybe they will last a lifetime. 

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: The Bottomless Abyss BBS * bbs.bottomlessabyss.net (21:1/172)

.