Floppies???

[larussa]

I have an older computer and I have a floppy disk compartment where I store different programs.  I would like to know if floppies are now obsolete.  I heard most new computers don't use them anymore.  They are mostly for back up.  I do have another system for backing up things on my computer but if floppies are not being used anymore, I will just stop adding information on them. 

Any thoughts??

 

[katachtig]

I haven't seen them as an option on a new computer in at least 3 years.   There are USB floppy drives available and you could get an internal one to add to a desktop.  I did get a USB one with a laptop about 5 years ago as a free accessory and have kept it for those few times I come across a floppy I need to read.  But the USB drives and the external hard drives have come down in cost with so much more storage that I don't store anything on floppies any more.

 

[larussa]

I probably won't be using the floppies either anymore not if they aren't on computers any longer.  Thanks.
 

 

[jazzythecat]

I know that you can still use them, even with modern motherboards which have Floppy disk cables, and you can still buy them on sites such as eBay. 

It's really your choice, if you need to use removable media on multiple PC's then you should go with something with larger storage, if you like the convenience of Floppy disks then go with them.

If you really want Floppies, you can replace the CD drive in a modern PC with a Floppy disk drive.

 

[mrblanche]

Well, really the problem is that floppies are slow and minuscule in capacity these days. I saw a 32 GB thumb drive at Fry's, and that kind of capacity just makes floppies useless.

 

[larussa]

I know that you can still use them, even with modern motherboards which have Floppy disk cables, and you can still buy them on sites such as eBay. 

It's really your choice, if you need to use removable media on multiple PC's then you should go with something with larger storage, if you like the convenience of Floppy disks then go with them.

If you really want Floppies, you can replace the CD drive in a modern PC with a Floppy disk drive.

Well, really the problem is that floppies are slow and minuscule in capacity these days. I saw a 32 GB thumb drive at Fry's, and that kind of capacity just makes floppies useless.

Thank you for the info.  I guess I really don't need them because I do have other back up systems.

 

[Winchester]

Carol, remember when I bought my last computer? It didn't come with a floppy drive, so I bought an external floppy drive for it. I used it hard for a couple of years, primarily for sharing Word files between work and home. And then I put it away and I don't think I've used it for about two years now....could even be longer. I don't know when the last time was I used a floppy.

When I really needed to back something up, I switched over to data CDs. Then my BIL gave me a few thumb drives. Since my BIL gave me that external hard drive last month (which is huge for me), I'm good to go. All computer back-ups will go on that from now on. If there's something I want to keep for between work and home and I can't email it back and forth, I can throw it on a thumb drive and carry it with me.

 

[minka]

Floppies are definitely obsolete now.
:nod:

 

[natalie_ca]

When I bought a computer in early 2008, I asked for a floppy drive and I was told that it wasn't available.   They come with a DVD/CD burner. You can back up way more using a DVD/CD than you can a floppy.

 

[catspaw66]

Also, floppies are EXPENSIVE!!! A box of 10 discs is about $5, giving you 15MB.  A 8GB SD card is $9. Comparing storage to price results in a floppy disc costing 533 times as much per MB