On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:28:36 -0700 (PDT), FUBARinSFO
<file1303@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi:
>
>I'm looking for the most reliable floppy disc media. (1440KB)
>
>Does anybody know of a site that has actually tested various brands of
>floppy media? Or a research report perhaps?
>
>Thank you in advance for your help.
>
>-- Roy Zider


Frankly I think it is a lost cause today. For about $15 you
can get a ATA adapter card and a 2GB, (1GB if you don't want
to look for a deal) Compact Flash card that is a few orders
of magnitude more reliable and holds about 700+ times as
much data. Since the CF card on ATA boots and runs equally
well even on most (but the very very old) legacy systems,
the remaining question is whether you can do this or have
some installer which insists on installing directly to a
floppy.

I have a half dozen spare floppy drives lying around but
frankly, today I would rather avoid anything that absolutely
requires one instead of having to reach over, grab one and
connect it if a few mouse clicks will avoid needing one.

A few months ago I finally threw away my last
(self-refurbished, restored to pristine clean condition) 5
1/2" floppy drive. I had boxed one up after refurb'd in
case I'd ever need it. Eventually I realized that anything
of value on 5 1/2", I'd backed up years ago and keeping
stock of extreme legacy parts just in case some random
vagrant needed it, was the reason why my basement looked
like a computer museum. Computers are meant to make things
easier, not more burdensome, so I pitched them all, every
floppy drive except for one 3.5" I refurbed and anything
that happened to be already installed in some system I have.

In summary, my main point is, just reject anything that
requires floppies made today. Use a floppy drive only to
retrieve information when someone is paying you enough to
hunt down the required drive if/when the time comes.