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Fdd

E

erikstotle

n00b
Joined
Jan 28, 2004
Messages
16
Hi,
I am currently thinking of putting a new system together. Something along the lines of an Athlon 64.

My question is: Aside from an emergency boot disk, do I really need a floppy drive.

I'll be using this system for audio recording so most of the files are way to large for a floppy anyway.

The cash is a little thin so I would like to save as much as possible.

Thanks
 
You can debate the need for a FDD all you want, but for the eight or nine bucks it will cost, it's well worth it, IMHO. All it has to do is save your butt once to pay off the small investment in spades.....

B.B.S.
 
Thanks for the reply BlindedByScience.

Yeah I guess its not really a large chunk of cash. Maybe I should save some on a cheaper Video Card since I'm not really big on games or things that would require an outstanding graphics card.
 
I still put one in every System I build for myself or anyone else. You should never be without it.

/IoWnZa
 
I say get a floppy drive if you have the money, but if you have to skimp on something else then don't worry about it. If you get a video card that's more powerful than you need then you will grow into it over the next couple years and not have to upgrade as soon. If you get a floppy drive that you don't need then that's wasted money. You could always just hold off and add one down the road if you find you need one. Or just pull one out of an old computer.
 
Even though it's a really old piece of tech, I still use a floppy drive in every computer I have. BIOS flashes, memtest86, formatting, etc. If you can't boot from a CD or use the CD drive, the floppy drive is really important for those situations.
 
Originally posted by jpmkm
If you get a floppy drive that you don't need then that's wasted money. You could always just hold off and add one down the road if you find you need one. Or just pull one out of an old computer.
Click to expand...
....personally, I can't see the eight or nine bucks as a real factor, even if you are on a tight budget. IMHO - it's like buying a BMW and complaining about how much the lugnuts cost....:D

If you really, really don't think you'll ever use it, the used floppy drive idea may be worth considering. You may save two or three whole dollars.....:rolleyes:

Personally, I'm with IoWnZa; very small cost for lots of utility.

My $00.02.....B.B.S.
 
It's not much effort or money to have one, and it'll come in handy at one point.
 
Originally posted by BlindedByScience
....personally, I can't see the eight or nine bucks as a real factor, even if you are on a tight budget. IMHO - it's like buying a BMW and complaining about how much the lugnuts cost....:D

If you really, really don't think you'll ever use it, the used floppy drive idea may be worth considering. You may save two or three whole dollars.....:rolleyes:

Personally, I'm with IoWnZa; very small cost for lots of utility.

My $00.02.....B.B.S.
Click to expand...
Well yeah it's not that much more money when you consider how much a whole computer costs, but he said he might get a cheaper video card so that he can buy a floppy drive, which I don't think is that hot of an idea. If you can't afford $10 for a floppy drive then I hate to see what the other components are.
 
A floppy drive is not really needed anymore, More so in newer systems, but I would agree with most here and say it only 9 bucks. You never know when you might have that 1 time during the life of the system where you might have a need. The last 2 systems I have not put one in, and 1 of them has a media card reader in place of the floppy...

*EDIT*

then you can't find a disk and end up doing something else. :D
 
blah, get the floppy... you can get them for 6 bucks... it's easy, it's proven, and it's too damn cheap to leave out... there is no reason NOT to have one, so you might as well throw it in..
 
I don't have a floppy but my reason is for looks. I have never needed it yet. But if I do I have one around that I can hook up and use.
 
i went to compusa and the cheapest floppy drive they had was $20. i ended up paying $25 for mine because it came with a black face plate.

..... and this wasnt in 1987. this was about 6 months ago.
 
To be honest, I wish that ZIP drives would phase out a floppy. It's a perfect substitute, since it's a quicker storage medium than a CD and it holds a perfect amount of storage information. It would just be a better standard than the horrid unreliability of a floppy disk. I can't recall how many times I've lost data on one because of a spontaneous corruption of the disk. Thank goodness I'm a firm advocator of backup in more than one location...

Dark Assassin
 
Originally posted by Dark Assassin
To be honest, I wish that ZIP drives would phase out a floppy. It's a perfect substitute, since it's a quicker storage medium than a CD and it holds a perfect amount of storage information. It would just be a better standard than the horrid unreliability of a floppy disk. I can't recall how many times I've lost data on one because of a spontaneous corruption of the disk. Thank goodness I'm a firm advocator of backup in more than one location...

Dark Assassin
Click to expand...
I'm thinking zips would have replaced floppies, if they didn't cost about 100 times as much(yeah, I know you can fit a lot more on a zip disk. they're still too damn expensive).
 
Originally posted by jamestime88
i went to compusa and the cheapest floppy drive they had was $20. i ended up paying $25 for mine because it came with a black face plate.

..... and this wasnt in 1987. this was about 6 months ago.
Click to expand...

well, if you go to a retail store for computer parts, you will get raped...

If however you bought it from newegg, you would've paid 6.50 for a samsung floppy drive, which would qualify for 4 dollar shipping... but, if dude is buying a whole system anyway, shipping wouldn't matter at that point..
 
floppies will be replaced by usb drives probably, or even CDRW's, as the next gen bios's are supposed to have built in support to read and write to this type of media, making them a real floppy substitute..
 
Originally posted by Dark Assassin
To be honest, I wish that ZIP drives would phase out a floppy. It's a perfect substitute, since it's a quicker storage medium than a CD and it holds a perfect amount of storage information. It would just be a better standard than the horrid unreliability of a floppy disk. I can't recall how many times I've lost data on one because of a spontaneous corruption of the disk.
Click to expand...

yeah, because those ZIP disks are wonderfully reliable. :rolleyes:

IOMEGA makes their money selling shitty products to people who feel they need them. I've used just about every generation of zip and have had at one time or another experience with their other drives.

I have never once experienced joy and contentment with an iomega product. Floppies have always been better as far as reliability IMO, but the capacity sucked.

I for one, would support minidisc, but that's not happening.
 
I refuse to give up my floppy drive until there is a replacement that has proven reliability and compatibility with all current systems.

I wouldn't mind a flash media taking up the slack, but I don't think there is a drive that will work with every current system in as many emergency situations as a floppy. There is also the problem of all the different types of flash media. There would need to be a standard so you could go from system to system with the same media and not have a problem.

For now, the floppy is still too much of a lifesaver for me to even think about getting rid of it anytime soon. I personally haven't "needed" my floppy for an emergency in at least a couple of years if not longer. But the number of times it has saved my ass in the past and the number of times I've been able to use it on other systems proves it's worth over and over. It's easily one of the best $9 investments I've ever made. Hell, that's a little over a half a tank of gas for my car. I'll do a bit less driving to save up the money.
 
OK you've convinced me not to be so tight with the cash and I've decided to spend a bit more and not skimp on the video OR the FDD.

I like the idea of recycling an old drive out of an old machine if I need to though, that sounds good.

Thanks for the advice everyone! :)
 
Even though I don't keep a FDD hooked up, I do have one near by just in case. For most situations I use bootable CDs or a USB thumbdrive. I have only needed to pull out my floppy once. I had a bad flash on my 8k3a+ and the BIOS will only try to recover off of a floppy.

e_t
 
Originally posted by BlindedByScience
You can debate the need for a FDD all you want, but for the eight or nine bucks it will cost, it's well worth it, IMHO. All it has to do is save your butt once to pay off the small investment in spades.....
Click to expand...

This about says it all.
 
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