Reliable 3.5" DSHD diskettes

[Teo Zenios]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doc Shipley" <doc at mdrconsult.com>
To: <General at mdrconsult.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: Reliable 3.5" DSHD diskettes


> Chuck Guzis wrote:
>
> > I've noticed that what passes for 3.5" blank media nowadays is downright
> > awful.  I've got a "work diskette" that's a Verbatim Datalife with a
date
> > code of sometime in 1997.  Like the Energizer bunny, it just keeps going
> > and going.   Newly-purchased media seems to last about 3 months of use,
> > tops.
> >
> > Are there any sources for good reliable NEW media?
>
>    Look in the Yellow Pages for used office supply or office liquidation
> dealers.
>
>    There's an office supply surplus here in Austin that I cruise at
> least monthly for NOS floppy media.  I've bought various formats 5.25"
> disks there in the shrinkwrap for $0.25 to $1.00 a box, IBM-branded 2MB
> (1.44MB) floppies for $3.00/100, and recently about 6 10-disk boxes of
> DSDD 3.5" for $0.50 each.
>
>
> Doc

I think the best grade of disks went to professional duplicators. Since
floppies are pretty much obsolete these kind of places tend to sell their
stock for pennies to get them out of the way. I found one such duplicator
ditching 360K floppies on ebay for very little a few years ago (something
like $12 for 500 green 360K disks still in the shrink-wrap). Ofcourse they
tend to just have the floppies themselves  and not the box and label found
in retail packaging.

I found a decent deal on Mac formatted 1.44 floppies earlier this year on
ebay, and they seem to be reliable so far.