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points by klodolph 1 day ago | 0 comments
I used to do floppy disk data recovery as a service for students at college. Roughly speaking, we helped one student out every three hours, out of 2,500 students, during busy hours. Based on the rates and hours, I think it would come out to something like 25% of the student body, each year, coming to us with a data loss incident involving floppy disks.

YMMV. I’m sure a lot of people were shoving these things into backpacks, and this was post-2000, so the quality of disks for sale was poorer than it was in the 90s and 80s.

I’ve also (since then, for myself) repaired drives. The drives fail because they’re mechanical and have motors, and anything that moves or has a motor in it will need some kind of service. Servicing a floppy drive requires specialized equipment which is hard to find (or requires a lot of patience—it’s possible to repair a floppy drive with just a screwdriver, but it’s not fun; guess how I know?)

[–] spullara 1 day ago
3.5" disks were much much worse.
[–] kevin_thibedeau 1 day ago
HD floppies were much worse, both 1.44MB and 1.2MB. They are just much more susceptible to defects from wear and tear because of the shrunken sector size. DD 3.5" wasn't as bad.
[–] throwaway2037 1 day ago
Do you know the reason why?
[–] klodolph 13 hours ago
I am guessing a combination of tighter manufacturing tolerances, smaller sector sizes, and manufacturers over time cheaping out would contribute to decreased reliability of 3.5" disks. People also, as far as I remember, universally used sleeves for 5.25" disks, but almost never had cases for 3.5" disks.

On the other hand, 3.5" disks have higher magnetic coercivity, which makes them less susceptible to data loss from stray magnetic fields (e.g. nearby motors).