Floppy Drives

Floppy Drives

Floppy drives may be functionally obsolete, but they are still available on new computers. You can still purchase them and install them on your existing computer. Even manufacturers like Dell, that have stopped making them standard on new computers, still offer them as an option.

Another reason floppy drives have hung on for so long is because older operating systems support them. For older systems, there is no option to use newer media like CD, DVD, or flash drives. For people with older systems or with much of their data stored on disks, there is still a need for floppy drives.

Floppy Drives Are Still an Option

CD-ROMs were the first technology to begin to replace floppy drives. They hold nearly 650 times as much as a single floppy diskette, and are as portable and inexpensive as floppy disks. The zip drive, only made by Iomega, did not catch on as widely as CD-ROMs did.

Today most software comes on CD or is downloadable. There is little need for people to use floppy drives. For the transportation factor, writeable CDs are just as mobile as floppies and store much more data. USB "thumb" drives that use flash memory are also quite portable and even more durable than CDs, which are prone to scratching. They cost very little and hold much more than floppies. However, many of us still have old data on floppies and that's why floppy drives are still a necessary computer accessory.