Mitsumi Floppy Drive/Flash Reader

[CpuDesigner]

Any issues using the Mitsumi FA404 Floppy Drive/Flash Reader as it is a USB based device as opposed to a standard floppy drive interface (such as Bios updates, other issues) ?

 

[foofoo]

hi,
i use them in all of my builds. they work great and i've never had a problem. the floppy is a standard multiconductor cable interface, the usb is only for the flash drive reader part.
every once in a while you need the floppy so it's good to have one in a pc. this drive is the best of both worlds since it does it all in a 3.5" bay.
good luck

 

[boomerang]

Very happy with mine also.

 

[Zepper]

Welcome to the ATF if I hadn't caught you before.

I think the YE Data one is more reliable if you use your floppy drive a lot. It's also sold under the Adaptec name (Provantage.com carries both last I knew. Mitsumi floppy drives are quite unreliable in my experience. These also use both the standard floppy cable and a USB cable.

.bh.

 

[CpuDesigner]

I don?t use a floppy very often, but require the floppy drive to work when it is needed. If I am giving up reliability ? then I?ll just get a Sony (or other if there are suggestions).

I was looking at the Mitsumi floppy to get a bit more functionality (perhaps bypass the Cannon software I otherwise have to use to download pictures or write/read flash cards directly for a Palm PDA).

I have not heard of YE Data before, but they have been around for more than 30 years. I assume the floppy works just like a standard 3.5? FDD Interface (no driver just the Bios and Windoz standard driver). The online info indicates ?This model is for OEM business only. There is no plan of retail by YE Data? while the provantage site has a picture of a nice retail box with YE Data on it ?

As far as reliability, can I assume the 7-in-1 reader/YD-8V07 is as reliable as a standard floppy ?

Is this just a luck-of-the draw (works or not out of the box as opposed to infant mortality or longer term reliability) given the otherwise good experience with the Mitsumi unit by foofoo and boomerang ?

 

[0roo0roo]

its fine, as long as your mb does usb floppy boot..if you need that. most any from the last few years supports that though

 

[Zepper]

YE Data is a Japanese company that was a major supplier of drives to IBM when they were at the top of the heap in PCs and a lot of the parts they specified were "spare no expense". They were never easy to find in the retail channel - you had to know what you were looking for like the Alps floppy drives. Two of the best products that almost no one knew about. All the average PC owner ever heard about were Teac and Sony.

Toshiba floppy drives were top-shelf too. I had a customer who really used her floppy drives and she was spitting out Teacs like watermelon seeds. I switched her to Toshiba and her drives started to last at least a year each...

Panasonic drives were solid as well.

. I've been installing Samsung floppy drives lately. Unfortunately FDs aren't used enough any more to get a feel for reliability. I've been threatening to get one of those YE Combo drives to replace the Teac in my machine that's been thru 4 or 5 iterations of my personal system. But I also have an LS-120 that gets most of the reading duties as it's so much faster than a standard drive.

I get my Mitsumi experience from working in a Mom & Pop computer store where all they used was Mitsumi. Lots of failures within warranty. Too many DOA. But they were cheap...

.bh.

 

[lenjack]

Been using the mitsumi combo unit 4 months with zero problems.

 

[mike3uz]

I like my Sony unit.

 

[Pens1566]

Anyone have pins missing from the bottom row of the floppy connector on their mitsumi combo drive?

 

[Puffnstuff]

I installed one of these into a machine I build recently and it works great. The floppy connects just like any standard floppy drive and it has a usb header plug for the reader. The unit I got also has a microdrive reader as well.

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: Pens1566
Anyone have pins missing from the bottom row of the floppy connector on their mitsumi combo drive?

Anyone at all????

 

[Sam K]

In addition to the Mitsumi FA404, I'm also considering the following floppy/media card reader/writer drives (including the Y-E Data drive that somebody already mentioned)

SIIG JU-91RW12
Ultra ULT31793 & ULT31799
Y-E Data YD-8V07

SIIG has 2 very similar model numbers JU-91RW12 and JU-91RW12-S2 but I'm not sure what the difference is between the 2 of them because the SIIG website shows the same specs for both. The SIIG is available on several websites for about $40.
The Ultra is available from TigerDirect for $30.
The Y-E Data is also available from TigerDirect for $40.

Has anyone had any experiences with the SIIG drive or the Ultra drive. I'm trying to decide which one of these is the best. I also want to know if the Y-E Data drives comes with a black bezel. Thanks in advance.

 

[CpuDesigner]

I ended up purchasing a Y-E data drive due to positive recommendations on reliability. It has worked well with no issues. The drive package came with an easily installed black bezel, which I am using in my installation. I purchased the drive from provantage, which also provided fast service.

 

[Zepper]

Floppy drives should have one pin missing (may have more as not all pins are used) in case the cable is keyed (has the matching hole plugged). If you put a keyed cable on upside-down (or shifted a pin or two) too vigorously, you can push a pin back into the connector or squash them down. I have pulled pins back out with a good pair of fine-nosed pliers - squashed ones are another story...

SamK,
Welcome to the AT forums. The Siig is a repackaged Mitsumi as is the Ultra (AFAIK, Mitsumi and YE are the only ones making this type of device). If you had read the YE Data page, you'd know that it comes with both color bezels. I'd still go with YE as I stated above. I would not buy anything from T-D nor any product packaged by them (Ultra stuff) - you've been warned.

CPUDesigner,
I'm glad you are enjoying your YE Data.

.bh.

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Floppy drives do have one pin missing in case the cable is keyed (has the matching hole plugged). If you put a keyed cable on upside-down too vigorously, you can push a pin back into the connector or squash them down. I have pulled pins back out with a good pair of fine-nosed pliers - squashed ones are another story...

SamK,
Welcome to the AT forums. The Siig is a repackaged Mitsumi as is the Ultra (AFAIK, Mitsumi and YE are the only ones making this type of device). If you had read the YE Data page, you'd know that it comes with both color bezels. I'd still go with YE as I stated above. I would not buy anything from T-D nor any product packaged by them (Ultra stuff) - you've been warned.

CPUDesigner,
I'm glad you are enjoying your YE Data.

.bh.

Mine had way more than one pin that was missing, not bent. However, it seems to work fine. Reads, writes floppies. Flash readers work fine too. If it ain't broke .....

 

[Zepper]

Hey Pens,

I edited my post. One would expect that of mitsumi - a thousandth of a cent here, a hunredth of a cent there, pretty soon it adds up to real money...

Here is a pic of the rear of the latest YE Data: http://www.yedata.co.jp/image/Products/Photo/internal7in1/Rear(Big).jpg - all connector pins present and accounted for...

I found a pic of the rear of the 404M (floppy part on the bottom) and it is missing quite a few pins - the 404A (floppy part on the top) has a full complement of pins. I wonder if the M version is for Macs.?.

.bh.

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Hey Pens,

I edited my post. One would expect that of mitsumi - a thousandth of a cent here, a hunredth of a cent there, pretty soon it adds up to real money...

Here is a pic of the rear of the latest YE Data: http://www.yedata.co.jp/image/Products/Photo/internal7in1/Rear(Big).jpg - all connector pins present and accounted for...

.bh.

I don't have mine out, but I know it looks nothing like that. I'll take a pic next time I have it out, but that might be some time from now, as this P180 is a bitch to get cables set up.

 

[Zepper]

I was editing mine as you were posting - read the last line.

.bh.

 

[Sam K]

Originally posted by: Zepper
SamK,
Welcome to the AT forums. The Siig is a repackaged Mitsumi as is the Ultra (AFAIK, Mitsumi and YE are the only ones making this type of device). If you had read the YE Data page, you'd know that it comes with both color bezels. I'd still go with YE as I stated above. I would not buy anything from T-D nor any product packaged by them (Ultra stuff) - you've been warned.

.bh.

Thanks for welcoming me here.

I'm surprised that the Siig and Ultra are both repackaged Mitsumi because Siig has a 5 year warranty on their drive Ultra has a 3 year warranty but Mitsumi only has a 1 year warranty. I know that doesn't necessarily mean anything but why would those companies offer a longer warranty than the manufacturer? Please don't misunderstand me because I'm not doubting you, just surprised. But I did take a closer look at the pictures of all 3 and they look practically the same.

I also wrote to Siig to find out the difference between the models JU-91RW12 and JU-91RW12-S2 and this was the response that I got....

"The S2 is an updated version. The two versions do not use the same chipset
for the memory card R/W portion. However, the same accessories are found in
both versions."

If the Siig is truly a repackaged Mitsumi then Mitsumi must have updated it.

I'll probably take everyone's advice and get the Y-E data.

Thanks.

 

[Zepper]

Yes, both the Mitsumi and YE have been updated. The current YE Data model is the 8V07 Drive 3. The earlier version is the 8V07 Drive 2 (seen on the label in the pic of the Adaptec repack on their site - look at the enlarged pic and you can read the label on the top). You can see the differences in the pix you can find using Altavista > images et al. And mitsumi has two versions of its current model the 404: one is the 404A which has the floppy part on the top, and the other is the 404M which has the floppy part on the bottom. I've speculated that the M version might be for the Mac.

re. Ultra It's easy to give a long warranty when you charge nearly double the going rate for the OEM version of the drive - plus it's the M version that has lots of missing pins in the data connector... Like I tried to get across - I don't trust T-D/Ultra/Systemax/Infotel/etc. as far as I can throw them.

.bh.

 

[Sam K]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Yes, both the Mitsumi and YE have been updated. The current YE Data model is the 8V07 Drive 3. The earlier version is the 8V07 Drive 2 (seen on the label in the pic of the Adaptec repack on their site - look at the enlarged pic and you can read the label on the top). You can see the differences in the pix you can find using Altavista > images et al.

.bh.

I can see the differences between the 8V07 Drive 2 and the 8V07 Drive 3 and I actually like the Drive 3 version better. I think the memory card slots are arranged better on the Drive 3 version. So how do I know which one I'm getting when I order? Most sites just list the model number YD-8V07 and don't indicate Drive 2 or 3 and most look like they carry the Drive 2 version including Provantage.com based on the pic.

 

[RollWave]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Welcome to the ATF if I hadn't caught you before.

I think the YE Data one is more reliable if you use your floppy drive a lot. It's also sold under the Adaptec name (Provantage.com carries both last I knew. Mitsumi floppy drives are quite unreliable in my experience. These also use both the standard floppy cable and a USB cable.

.bh.

Agreed. I've used my floppy 2 times or so in the last 6 months and my Mitsumi is already crapped out.

 

[jjsbasmt]

Love mine too....

 

[Zepper]

Sam K,

You just need to phone or email your vendor to find out. According to the other fellow that reported his experiences with getting his YE (after recommendations) here from Provantage, his is the new version and the price is back up on that model now so I'm guessing current stock at Provantage is the Drive 3. They still have the Adaptec repack for about $8. less, so I'm figuring that is still the earlier model.

.bh.