When and How Did the 3.5 Floppy Drive Become Dispensable? (1 Viewer)

Low price desktops don't come with floppy drives anymore. Admittedly, I don't use mine often, but are they obsolete or is this just a way to make the cheapest possible computers?

Thanks

It's not an either/or; they are pretty much obsolete, and it does make the computers cheaper. Apple stopped including them a long time ago. I built a Windows box without one a few years back, and missed having the floppy only once or twice.

People use networking and email to send files to others. To carry files yourself, USB thumb drives have much more capacity, don't go bad like floppies do, and are very cheap. About the only thing floppies are good for now is creating boot diskettes to flash the BIOS. Once booting from USB thumb drives is commonplace, floppies will be dead (for new computers).

Not even that! I have flashed my bios from my hard drive.

Glenn

some motherboard manufacturers still require a floppy drive to flash your bios. it's the only reason i have one.

CJ

you can flash your bios from a bootable cdrom, just copy the "floppy's" contents to a bootable cd and your good. It's how I handle all my flashing nowadays.

The basic problem with floppies is that their capacity became a gating issue given the large size of files today. 1.44 meg isn't enough to do much with. So why should manufacturers invest dollars in a PC with a legacy device that has very little value now. There's very little margin in desktops or laptops these days. Better to let customers use their USB port to plug their own devices in, such as a USB drive.

If you really need access to a 3.5" floppy you can purchase an outboard drive that plugs into your USB 2.0 port for around $35.00 at CompUSA :

http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...95056&pfp=cat3

The nice thing about this drive is that it can be carried from computer to computer and doesn't even require an AC source (it derives all the power that it needs from the USB port).

Though I rarely use mine, I like to have it in case someone gives me a file on a floppy. Plus I never know when I might need one to work on an older PC. But they won't be around for much longer, I think.

Does this happen often?!? I can't remember the last time this happened to me.

The truth is that the Zip et al drive long ago eclipsed the meager floppy in the era of the multi-megabyte file and even the Zip/Jaz is outré.

Welcome to the Age of USB drive. No moving parts, reliable and easily portable.

I haven't had a floppy drive for the past 3 years and don't plan on buying one again heh! USB drives rock.

I build a computer for my parents which only had a single SATA hard drive. I had to copy some drivers onto a floppy in order for Windows XP to recognize the SATA drive.

I keep a floppy drive handy just in case I need it for BIOS updates, but it's not installed in the computer. I haven't used it in over a year now.

The only reason I still have a floppy drive in my machine is to fill the hole in the case. Can't even remember the last time I used it (probably 3 years now at least).

CDR made a dent in floppies, but it's been the USB drive that has (will be) what finally kills the floppy drive.

Is it really that much more expensive though? Last time I checked, they were 20 bucks or less at most computer stores.

I helped a friend buy a laptop last year and it took a really long time to convince her that she didn't need a floppy drive - it was one of her requirements and she just wouldn't let go.

More than year later, she hasn't needed it once.

I have always hated the darn things myself and don't have one.

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H

This is the only reason I had one. I removed it once I got my computer built and in Windows.

Not dead yet. I have kids in 5th and 7th grade who are required to use them in school for transfering files.

Hah, I remember we had to buy those 5.25" disks labeled Tandy brand for school.

I either use networking, email, or my ipod to transfer files around. It takes much less time to hook up an ipod as a removable drive than to sit there and wait while a floppy is being read/writed on.

For BIOS flashing I do what Rob mentioned and follow the directions on bootdisk.com to create a bootable CD-R.