Do you still use Floppy Disks
 

I often discuss with friends the merits of floppy disks. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only person who seems to really use floppy disks often. Many people seem to use then once every 3-4 months to transfer small data, and now people aren't using floppies for that since the USB Key is becoming increasingly popular.

I use floppy disks on most days, most often to transport data from home to school or vice-versa. I sometimes use floppies to move data, such as source tarballs from my PC to a laptop or a PC not on our home network.

Quite surprisingly I still use 5.25 inch disks, which many people in school don't seem to have heard of before. I find them very handy to back up work to, since I have quite a few available (I only have a few spare 3.5 inch disks!).

In short I was wondering if anyone here still uses floppies, how often they use them and if someone on here still uses 5.25 inch floppies (that would be interesting!).

Thanks

Laurence

I still use floppies 'cuz they are cheap and compatible with everything. USB keys are expensive, and don't they need special software?

I don't use floppies. I used to save text files with them, but I think they are outdated; CDs are more reliable and have way more capacity. Also, my Mac has no floppy drive! :p :)

Mac isn't a GNU/Linux distro and KDE is extremely slow... anyway....

I rarely use floppy disks as well. I just email small files to myself from school (using a Russian website to avoid being blocked by the stupid firewall) and use CD RW's for transfering info. I'd like to get one of the USB storage devices as well since they can hold a lot of data.

CDs are nice, but how many cd-rw drives are there? Not every computer has one.

I just ftp. Most comps have NICs

-Joey

My computer has one and besides, taking info to another computer doesn't require the comp to have a burner, only a reader.

The only time I use a floppy is to flash a BIOS or something. For moving of files I just email them to myself...

As for the 5.25" floppy it's probably been 10 years since I used one...

Quote:

Originally posted by Pwnz3r Mac isn't a GNU/Linux distro and KDE is extremely slow... anyway.... I rarely use floppy disks as well. I just email small files to myself from school (using a Russian website to avoid being blocked by the stupid firewall) and use CD RW's for transfering info. I'd like to get one of the USB storage devices as well since they can hold a lot of data.

I answered the question in the thread, I didn't see the part embedded that read Do you use a GNU/Linux distro and a fast front end GUI? ?! :scratch:

I still have a boatload of floppies with drivers on them. Both windows and now some linux.
Only two of my puters have cd burners.
Three of my puters have cd rom's that are so old they wont read cd-rw's only cd-r's.
To keep down cost for now I use floppies instead of cdr's for stuff I may not need to keep.

5.25 inches floppies are the pure bomb :P

My dad showed me some 5.25s, I see why they were called "floppy" in the first place. These I saw can only read - write on one side! Though you can poke a hole and use the other if you want :p

I moved almost all of my files on 3.25 inch disks onto 1 CD. Now I use a USB SD Card Reader (I have a USB Keydrive, but it's a SanDisk Cruzer and doesn't work on my laptop, the SanDisk Imagemate cardreader works with everything).

Occasionally use floppies....maybe once a month at most. Usually it's just to transfer small files, and the occasional Partition Magic magic.
I stopped relying on floppies for any vital storage when I realized they've gradually become less reliable over the years....in a typical pack of disks I've generally tossed about 20-30% in the trash after a few uses. The ones that have held up to continual usage are all several years old.

Text-files , bootfloppies , bios-flashing.....
Yep! I still use them.
I'm not going to waste a CD-R on a 1K file.
In fact : If it fits on a floppy someway , I'm not going to use CD-Rs at all.