Floppy drives

[phillyman36]

Hey i got a floppy drive from micro center about 6 to 8 months ago. I dont know what brand it is but im going to throw it away as it is giving me trouble. Whick floppy drives do you all have and have had no problems with? Im either going to get a regular floppy or a floppy that is one of those 7 in 1 drives

 

[CallMeJoe]

Samsung, Sony, Mitsumi. I've used all 3 brands with no problems

 

[Zepper]

Mitsumi are junk, IMO. When I worked in the service dept at a Computer Renaissance store, Mitsumis were by far the most commonly replaced. Matsushita/Panasonic, Alps, Sony, Samsung, YE Data have worked well for me.

Or if you want to get the most use of your drive bay, check the YE Data combo drive at the link in my sig - combo floppy drive/flash card r/w. I've sold about 30 of them in the last 3 or 4 months with no complaints as yet.

.bh.

 

[Mesix]

NEC drives have lasted ages for me

 

[Cogman]

seams to me like any ole floppy drive will work, I mean they are standardly priced at around $12.00 so you really can't go wrong.

 

[dfuze]

I don't even have a floppy installed in my system anymore. Other than RAID, do you really need to waste money on one? A lot of BIOS can be updated via windows now too, so that helps make it antiquated.

 

[Imyourzero]

I like USB floppy drives. I use one at work and it's much quicker than the internal ones, not to mention that's one less cable in your system to restrict airflow.

 

[Minerva]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Mitsumi are junk, IMO. When I worked in the service dept at a Computer Renaissance store, Mitsumis were by far the most commonly replaced. Matsushita/Panasonic, Alps, Sony, Samsung, YE Data have worked well for me.

Or if you want to get the most use of your drive bay, check the YE Data combo drive at the link in my sig - combo floppy drive/flash card r/w. I've sold about 30 of them in the last 3 or 4 months with no complaints as yet.

.bh.

You forgot Chinon!

 

[Zepper]

I don't recall ever hearing about a Chinon floppy drive..

.b.h.

 

[Minerva]

Originally posted by: Zepper
I don't recall ever hearing about a Chinon floppy drive..

.b.h.

n00b

They were common in the 80's and 90's. VERY noisy but worked. I always bought and paid extra for Teac drives in the day. Those dual (5 1/4 and 3 1/2 in single HH 51/4" bay) were the sh!t. This was in 1993 when Wernes double speed CD rom kits were $400 at Computer City. :Q I remember buying the Plextor Quad SCSI with caddy. It was a 50 pin SCSI narrow interface (SCSI-2) and I hitched it with a Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2 with DSP chip.

 

[Zepper]

I went and found some pictures and then I remembered. Been doing this stuff for 25+ years - hardly a noob. Ever have/see a belt-driven 5-1/4" floppy drive?

.bh.

 

[CallMeJoe]

Originally posted by: Zepper
I went and found some pictures and then I remembered. Been doing this stuff for 25+ years - hardly a noob. Ever have/see a belt-driven 5-1/4" floppy drive?

I still have one in use (at work). I also have a 486DX33 still in daily use there, for a peculiarly coded DOS program that runs more slowly on a faster PC.

 

[Minerva]

Originally posted by: Zepper
I went and found some pictures and then I remembered. Been doing this stuff for 25+ years - hardly a noob. Ever have/see a belt-driven 5-1/4" floppy drive?

.bh.

LOL we have 8" floppy drives with HUGE motors. It's for a CCS model 300 running CP/M. Still running this day. :Q

I'm 25 years old and haven't been "doing" computers that long but the family has been around them since they had tubes in them.

 

[Zepper]

Hey Joe,
Who made the belt-drive floppy you have. I've been trying to think but I must have old-timers' syndrome. Tandon keeps popping up in my head, but I'm not sure that's the one I put in a couple of machines where I worked in the mid-1980s.

Minerva,
. Yeah, I lusted after some 8" floppy drives when I first started out but they were just too darned expensive. I had to settle for a modified GE cassette tape recorder for my "mass" storage... By the time I had enough disposable income to afford 8 inchers, there were better and cheaper alternatives.

..bh.

 

[jackschmittusa]

NEC, Alps, and Sony (which I am boycotting because of all of their anti-consumer practices) have all been very reliable for many years. I agree that Mitsumis are junk, have replaced a pile of them over the years.

I have 1 new HP branded Alps left out of a case I bought some time (years) ago, and have never replaced a single one. Have used a lot of NECs during the same time (HPs that I have are grey faceplate, not popular in plain beige cases, but great for painting) and cant't remember having to replace one of those either.

 

[justlnluck]

I stopped installing floppy drives in systems a couple years ago. Now I install card readers.

 

[Farmer]

Yeah, and I'll keep putting them in systems until no one sells them for less than $20 anymore. I always put a floppy drive, just like I always have an IDE boot drive

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Minerva,
. Yeah, I lusted after some 8" floppy drives when I first started out but they were just too darned expensive. I had to settle for a modified GE cassette tape recorder for my "mass" storage... By the time I had enough disposable income to afford 8 inchers, there were better and cheaper alternatives.

..bh.

I've had an 8 incher for years now. In fact it's still in use today, although I dread the day when it'll require the occasional lubrication to keep it going.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

NEC drives are great. I got one for free after buying a hard drive from Newegg.

 

[CallMeJoe]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Hey Joe,
Who made the belt-drive floppy you have?

I don't remember, don't know when I would have some free time at work to open it up and check (IIRC, there's no maker's mark on the front)

Re: Mitsumi floppies, I've had 2 that are no longer in use because I retired the beige cases they were in and replaced them with black FDDs. I never had any problems with them, or with the 2x8 Mitsumi CD-R I bought what seems like half a century ago. It was retired for obvious speed reasons.