Matthew T. Struck - Systems Specialist           When was the last time you used the floppy drive in your computer? Was it even in the last year? If you are like most computer users out there, the only time you’ve probably ever used your floppy drive was to backup your Quicken or Money file. Since your hard drive is the primary disk for storage, floppy disks were designed as a way of brining your data outside the system for backups, portability, or even sharing. However, as the evolution of technology has progressed, so has file size. Floppy disks only contain 1.44MB of information, not a lot considering you can only fit about 1 or 2 pictures from your digital camera. Floppy disks are also extremely unreliable by design. Floppy drives write data to a disk by placing magnetized spots on a piece of Mylar plastic. These magnetized spots have to be spaced out accordingly as each magnetized block will interfere with the rest causing a read/write error on the computer. The more a floppy is used, the more the Mylar plastic has leftover magnetic residue causing more read/write errors. If you’re the type to reuse your floppy disks for your Quicken and Money backup file, your backup is more than likely corrupted already. Also being the data on floppy disks is magnetically constructed, any sort of metal or magnetic contact will destroy the data on the disks. This alone makes floppy disks a poor choice for long term data backups. There are many other options instead of using floppy disks. The most obvious is with optical media. CD’s hold almost 700 times the information on a disk about the same price and size as a floppy. Being digitally constructed, the data is extremely reliable making it a candidate for long term backups. If CD’s are still too small, single layer DVD’s hold 4.7GB of information and dual layer DVD’s holds nearly 8GB of information for storage. Another great option is Flash media like those used in many digital cameras. While optical media proves its test to time, it still isn’t as convenient as floppy disks. To create a CD/DVD, users have to burn all of their files to an entire disk at once creating a read-only environment for the files. CDs and especially DVDs also take a great deal of time to create compared to writing to a floppy. Flash media like Secure Digital (SD), Compact Flash, and even Memory Sticks are proving to be a great floppy replacement. Many laptops and desktops are coming with card readers compatible with these tiny disks. Each technology of flash disk is about a fourth of the physical size of a floppy and holds a minimum of 32MB of information compared to a floppy’s 1.44MB. While Flash media provides the simplicity of drag-and-drop functionality similar to floppy disks, not every computer comes equipped with the card reader needed to read and write to these disks. USB Flash drives eliminate this drive dependency making it the ultimate choice in floppy replacement. USB Flash drives use the same flash RAM technology as flash cards but come with a USB head for use in any computer with USB capability. These “Micro Drives” or “Memory Keys” fit on a keychain and don’t require any software driver installation (for a computer using Windows ME/2000/or XP). Because of these drives’ popularity and portability, special functionality is always being added. A Micro Drive with the addition of a thumb scanner turns it into a biometric password manager that can prevent unauthorized access to your computers. Each of these technologies makes floppies a thing of the past. Unfortunately, Windows is still semi-dependent on floppy disks. Floppies are the only media that can be used to install specific hard drive configurations and perform automated recoveries. During a Windows installation, computers with any sort of RAID or SCSI hard drive configuration must install the drivers using a floppy disk. To perform a Windows automated recovery, Windows still uses a floppy. So until Windows is re-written to provide support for these alternate technologies, floppies will still have to be used. Manufacturers like Dell, HP/Compaq, and Gateway have already started removing floppy drives from their laptops and desktop models. If floppies are something you absolutely need in your next computer you’ll have to remember to add it to your system’s configuration. This will run close to $50 per system, money better spent on a USB flash drive, but unfortunately it’s sometimes a necessity. It is only a matter of time before floppy disks are shelved and eliminated altogether. When the time comes, these other technologies will ensure your data life and protection for years to come.

All articles and content are property of © crytech 2005. All rights reserved. To unsubscribe, click here and enter your email address.