The worst storage media of all time

in storage on 2014-05-19 12:22 (#3M4)

Personally, I was a big fan of Zip Drives back in the day when 56K dial-up was fast and our Macs came in bright, candy colors . But Zip Drives sure take a beating in this article.

The topic is the worst storage mediums [sic] of all time and it's hosted by ExtremeTech. Zip Drives take some abuse, as does reel to reel tape, but there are some surprises too. Not surprisingly, the article concludes on a sense of optimism, in this glorious age where everything you produce can be safely and securely stored in your butt .

Re: Zip wasn't that bad (Score: 1)

by alioth@pipedot.org on 2014-05-20 10:53 (#1SB)

When zip drives were a thing, floppies were pretty reliable. It's only more recently they got very unreliable (in around 2001-2002, it was pretty common for floppies to work for a single use only). Older drives are still fine, I have a Tektronix digital storage scope with a floppy drive (and I keep a computer with a floppy drive around), and if I ever need to transfer a screen grab off the scope the drive always works, and captures I grabbed 3 or 4 years ago are still perfectly readable using the older 3.5in drive in the computer.