Floppy disks’ plastic cases are more flexible than sturdy.

Many newer computers don’t have a floppy drive, which makes it an unreliable storage device.

They are very sensitive to moisture and dust.

Heat and magnetic field can affect their quality and performance.

They have a lot less storage capacity than modern storage devices.

There are also disadvantages to using floppy disks, which contributed to the dwindled market demand for them. When you use a floppy disk to boot, you can check your system’s memory for errors and troubleshoot them if needed.

You can turn them into boot disks by saving the right boot program in it.

Floppy disks are often compatible with early computers, which may not recognize modern data storage devices.

They have built-in write protection that can protect your data from accidental erasure or overwriting.

Their plastic casing protects the disk, so you don’t need to put it in a case to transport it. – Here’s a review and this page which contains a lot of useful information.Here are the salient benefits that allowed floppy disks to thrive during their prime years: And it’s not just for IBM PC disks – it also understands formats used by Apple, Atari, Commodore and TI, among others. Even if your computer has no built-in floppy controller, the FC5025 lets you read those old disks.

Device Side Data’s FC5025 – – USB 5.25″ floppy controller plugs into any computer’s USB port and enables you to attach a 5.25″ floppy drive.

Save as raw stream, or export to common sector formats supporting: Acorn Electron, Apple, Amstrad CPC, Archimedes, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, BBC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, MSX, IBM PC, PC-8801, Sam Coupe, Spectrum, E-MU Emulator & Emulator II, DEC RX01 & RX02 and many, many others

Kryoflux – -the Holy Grail of floppy readers.

Buy an old vintage pre-Intel Core based computer from eBay that has a working 5.25″ drive.

Find a service that will convert them – Usually for a fee around $5-$10 per disk.

So what is one to do if they have old 5.25″ floppies they need to read? Turns out others have had the same problem – so you’re not alone. Most modern PC’s since the Pentiums don’t even have connectors or interfaces that support them and I know of no vendors that make USB 5.25″ drives. So scarce, in fact, that you’re likely not to find any outside of old vintage computers. But 5.25″ floppy drives (360k and 1.2 meg variety) are much more scarce. You might still see the odd 3.5″ floppy – and there are even still companies making 3.5″ USB drives you can plug into your system today. Floppy disks are a relic of the past these days.

5.25 floppy disk drive