Modern floppy disk question...

[Doc Shipley]

Jules Richardson wrote:

> Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total junk? They seem to
> often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
> the day they were always pretty reliable.

   I've said this several times recently - there are no good 
new-manufacture floppies on the shelves.  There may be somebody still 
making good ones, but they don't sell through the major stores.

   In my job I use a lot of floppies as PeeCee boot disks, backup 
demonstrations, driver distribution, etc, and still go through a couple 
hundred 3.5" floppies a year.  I'm ashamed to say that all my old stock 
is reserved for my own use, but what I hand out in class or to clients 
gets a LLF and verification, then a read test after the data's written, 
on *every* floppy.

   Believe it or not, Imation seems to be about the best anymore with a 
15-20% first-write failure.  If they survive the first low-level format, 
they're generally dependable for a dozen or so read-write cycles.

   IBM sends me unmarked black disks which I think are 3M, and about 35% 
of those fail the first LLF.  They're also extremely likely to leave the 
shutter in the drive.

> I can't imagine the people who made these things threw out all the
> decent equipment and replaced it with something made out of snot and
> string. Presumably it's a quality control issue?

   I just assume it's more of the "yeah, so whatcha gonna do about it?" 
attitude that permeates manufactured products in the 21st century.

> About 25% of Sony branded floppies seem to die on the first format,
> which is nice...

   I just snark up everything that shows up at the local thrifts.

> Maybe it's a cunning ploy by the manufacturers to make otherwise-awful
> blank CDs look better :-)

   I think you attribute an invalid level of organization and 
intelligence to said manufacturers....

> (I'm trying to remain cheerful here whilst attempting to find a floppy
> that actually works 100%...)

   Pretty pathetic when the old AOL floppies are better than you can buy.


	Doc