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General discussion (archive)Goodbye, floopy!(74 posts)(74 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 28, 2010
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lukaszthegreat: i have floppy drive. and i have diskettes.
haven't used them in 4 years now.
please see attached picture of my desktop to see how i left it 4 years ago and didn't touch it since then (removing dust does not count)

It's funny... I also have a floppy disk in my drive, which hasn't been really inserted for quite a while.
However, I *was* able to check its contents and discovered it contains files from 2006-'07, relating to my university studies, mainly the Dutch faculty.
Posted April 28, 2010
I remember Monkey Island 2 and some of the old Sierra classics coming out on eight or so 5.25" disks!
Posted April 28, 2010
It's hardly surprising given that these days they're about as cost effective as gold bullets and nobody uses them any more.
Yeah, they carry with them plenty of nostalgia. Even if my most recent use for them was as a Windows boot disk back in the days when Windows CDs weren't bootable.
Posted April 28, 2010
I will never again be able to utter the words "Don't copy that floppy" *sigh*
Posted April 28, 2010
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DrIstvaan: Heh, I remember a case when a friend of mine and I were seriously annoyed by the fact that our IT-teacher in elementary school couldn't copy us Dune 2 because it was too large (!) to fit on a floppy disk...

Don't Copy That Floppy!
Posted April 28, 2010
I barely use even optical media any more, though I have yet to get a RAID or similar (looking at a Drobo, but they're still too expensive for me). I rely on single HDDs, single copies of the files, and recovery programs when drives fail. Maybe I should move to RAID 0 to be even more adventurous?
I buy new games on discs when available, but use cracks or images to not actually need the discs for playing.
Posted April 28, 2010
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Miaghstir: I have yet to get a RAID or similar (looking at a Drobo, but they're still too expensive for me). I rely on single HDDs, single copies of the files, and recovery programs when drives fail. Maybe I should move to RAID 0 to be even more adventurous?

RAID 0 is significantly faster than even the best individual drives (although not as fast as solid state drives, of course). If one of the drives fails you lose all the data--and because of how data is arbitrarily split between the drives it's not easily recovered--but you're in a similar situation when running from a single drive that fails. No matter what drive arrangement you are using you should have a separate backup drive for any really crucial data.
You can freely mix and match different drive sizes for RAID, but the resulting drive will be a multiple of the smaller drive, e.g. if you use one 250GB and one 500GB, striping them will only create a 500GB RAID 0 (250GB x 2), whereas striping two 500GB drives would give an impressive 1TB of storage (500GB x 2).
IDE drives can be run in a RAID with a bit of work, but I wouldn't even consider it; even for drives with the same RPM rating the SATA version is actually faster, and this benefit will carry over to a RAID environment too.
EDIT: of course the most important factor to consider with RAID is whether you can actually justify the investment. If you have a couple of big hard drives already it's a sensible way to use them, but if you would have to purchase an additional drive to have something to make a RAID out of it might end up being better to pay a little bit more to get a much larger drive to mount alongside your existing one (especially considering the size limitation of a RAID to the smaller of the drives used).
Post edited April 28, 2010 by Arkose
Posted April 28, 2010
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Arkose: RAID 0 is significantly faster than even the best individual drives (although not as fast as solid state drives, of course).

I can't say I notice my RAID 0 being 'significantly' faster. I have 2 1TB Samsung F1's and to be honest if I could I would go back to using them seperately.
Posted April 28, 2010
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Miaghstir: I have yet to get a RAID or similar (looking at a Drobo, but they're still too expensive for me). I rely on single HDDs, single copies of the files, and recovery programs when drives fail. Maybe I should move to RAID 0 to be even more adventurous?
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Arkose: RAID 0 is significantly faster than even the best individual drives (although not as fast as solid state drives, of course). If one of the drives fails you lose all the data--and because of how data is arbitrarily split between the drives it's not easily recovered--but you're in a similar situation when running from a single drive that fails. No matter what drive arrangement you are using you should have a separate backup drive for any really crucial data.
You can freely mix and match different drive sizes for RAID, but the resulting drive will be a multiple of the smaller drive, e.g. if you use one 250GB and one 500GB, striping them will only create a 500GB RAID 0 (250GB x 2), whereas striping two 500GB drives would give an impressive 1TB of storage (500GB x 2).
IDE drives can be run in a RAID with a bit of work, but I wouldn't even consider it; even for drives with the same RPM rating the SATA version is actually faster, and this benefit will carry over to a RAID environment too.
EDIT: of course the most important factor to consider with RAID is whether you can actually justify the investment. If you have a couple of big hard drives already it's a sensible way to use them, but if you would have to purchase an additional drive to have something to make a RAID out of it might end up being better to pay a little bit more to get a much larger drive to mount alongside your existing one (especially considering the size limitation of a RAID to the smaller of the drives used).

Yeah, I know, that's why I said "to be even more adventurous", double the chances of complete failure compared to now.
A Drobo however, is like RAID 5, only you can use the full size of your drives (except the largest one). Any disk fails, you can simply replace it with another as large or larger (and if larger, you get to use the extra space as well).
I don't have any really crucial data. Sure I'll be sad if I lose stuff (which is why I'd like it to be slightly more safe, yet still easily accessed), but it's really no big deal, it's just entertainment.
Post edited April 28, 2010 by Miaghstir
Posted April 28, 2010
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Delixe: I can't say I notice my RAID 0 being 'significantly' faster. I have 2 1TB Samsung F1's and to be honest if I could I would go back to using them seperately.

A poor choice of words on my part; the speed difference of a RAID0 configuration will entirely depend on the speed and features of the drives being used, and it's still slower than RAID1. RAID1 and higher are the fastest but are overall most advantageous for server environments (where the speed of simultaneous reads/writes is more useful than extra storage).
I wouldn't recommend any form of RAID over standard volumes if space and recovery are your primary concerns, but if you have drives that you aren't making full use of anyway and want a bit of a speed boost a RAID0 or RAID1 configuration can work well.
Post edited April 28, 2010 by Arkose
Posted April 28, 2010
Hmm, I have to say that the distinctive sound of a floppy being inserted into a drive is just one of those things that makes my inner geek smile. There is something reassuringly solid about it when compared to the soft-assed sound of an optical disk drive being closed. :)
Posted April 28, 2010
I always preferred floppies to optical media. Floppies, with proper care, can live forever while CDs and DVDs get scratched up if you just look at them wrong.
The venerable floppy used to be my constant companion as I used a floppy start-up disk to diagnose problems/fool various upgrade versions of Windows into installing full versions onto clean hard drives/misc...
Posted April 28, 2010
Someone just sent me Don't copy that floppy 2!
Posted April 28, 2010
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Fantastic: Sony announced they'll cease the production of the floppy discs.
Floppy is something that might be close to the time of Good Old Games. Personally, I feel nostalgic about it (I remember those times when you needed several floppies to carry a game).
Here's the link.

I remember playing the original prince of persia on a floppy disc..
Good Times.
Attachments:
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Posted April 28, 2010
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cogadh: I haven't used floppies (is it weird that we still call them that, considering they haven't been "floppy" since the old 5.25" disk days?)

The disc itself is still floppy, it was just the casing that was hard
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JudasIscariot: I always preferred floppies to optical media. Floppies, with proper care, can live forever while CDs and DVDs get scratched up if you just look at them wrong.

Whaaa? Floppies die if there's a minor magnetic fluctuation anywhere in the solar system
Post edited April 28, 2010 by Aliasalpha
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General discussion (archive)Goodbye, floopy!(74 posts)(74 posts)
(74 posts)