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the worst storage media of all time

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  the worst storage media of all time RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-19 14:49 +0000
    Re: the worst storage media of all time polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-05-19 19:34 +0100
      Re: the worst storage media of all time Johny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2014-05-20 16:09 +0100
        Re: the worst storage media of all time Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-20 16:36 +0100
          Re: the worst storage media of all time Johny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2014-05-21 02:49 +0100
        Re: the worst storage media of all time polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-05-21 08:36 +0100
          Re: the worst storage media of all time Johny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2014-05-21 13:19 +0100
            Re: the worst storage media of all time RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-21 13:07 +0000
          Re: the worst storage media of all time Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-21 14:35 +0000
            Re: the worst storage media of all time polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-05-21 22:40 +0100
              Re: the worst storage media of all time Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-22 15:52 +0000
                Re: the worst storage media of all time Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-05-22 13:53 -0600
            Re: the worst storage media of all time Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-05-21 23:34 -0600
              Re: the worst storage media of all time Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> - 2014-05-22 02:19 -0700

#2877 — the worst storage media of all time

From the «8 track tape for the win!» department:
Title: The worst storage media of all time
Author: zafiro17@pipedot.org
Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 09:22:49 -0400
Link: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-19/the-worst-storage-media-of-all-time

Personally, I was a big fan of Zip Drives[1] back in the day when 56K dial-up
was fast and our Macs came in bright, candy colors[2] . But Zip Drives sure
take a beating in this article.The topic is the worst storage mediums [sic]
of all time[3] 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[4] .

Links:
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive (link)
[2]: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_350.html (link)
[3]: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/182183-the-worst-storage-mediums-of-all-time (link)
[4]: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-16/sick-of-hearing-about-the-cloud--heres-a-browser-plugin-for-you (link)

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#2883

On 19/05/2014 15:49, RS Wood wrote:
>  From the «8 track tape for the win!» department:
> Title: The worst storage media of all time
> Author: zafiro17@pipedot.org
> Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 09:22:49 -0400
> Link: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-19/the-worst-storage-media-of-all-time
>
> Personally, I was a big fan of Zip Drives[1] back in the day when 56K dial-up
> was fast and our Macs came in bright, candy colors[2] . But Zip Drives sure
> take a beating in this article.The topic is the worst storage mediums [sic]
> of all time[3] 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[4] .
>
> Links:
> [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive (link)
> [2]: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_350.html (link)
> [3]: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/182183-the-worst-storage-mediums-of-all-time (link)
> [4]: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-16/sick-of-hearing-about-the-cloud--heres-a-browser-plugin-for-you (link)
>
Click of Death!

https://www.grc.com/tip/codfaq1.htm

SCSI Zip drives worked quite well - but you only had to experience COD 
once to be turned off all Zip drives forever.

-- 
Rod

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#2913

On Mon, 19 May 2014 19:34:01 +0100, polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk>
wrote:

>On 19/05/2014 15:49, RS Wood wrote:
>>  From the «8 track tape for the win!» department:
>> Title: The worst storage media of all time
>> Author: zafiro17@pipedot.org
>> Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 09:22:49 -0400
>> Link: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-19/the-worst-storage-media-of-all-time
>>
>> Personally, I was a big fan of Zip Drives[1] back in the day when 56K dial-up
>> was fast and our Macs came in bright, candy colors[2] . But Zip Drives sure
>> take a beating in this article.The topic is the worst storage mediums [sic]
>> of all time[3] 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[4] .
>>
>> Links:
>> [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive (link)
>> [2]: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_350.html (link)
>> [3]: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/182183-the-worst-storage-mediums-of-all-time (link)
>> [4]: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-16/sick-of-hearing-about-the-cloud--heres-a-browser-plugin-for-you (link)
>>
>Click of Death!
>
>https://www.grc.com/tip/codfaq1.htm
>
>SCSI Zip drives worked quite well - but you only had to experience COD 
>once to be turned off all Zip drives forever.

 There always seemed to be something 'distasteful' about Zip drives to
my mind (probably more to do with the over-priced media and the need
for a dedicated drive slot).

 The LS120, otoh, looked way more promising (compatable with standard
720k and 1.44M floppies and a 120MiB capacity versus the 95MiB
capacity of Zip).

 I actually bought an LS120 drive and a pack of 5 imation LS120 disks
to try out but I didn't have much joy with it. Afaicr, it was the
earlier FDD interfaced type.

 By the time the later IDE interfaced LS 240s came along, it had
become  quite obvious it was a dead end technology already being
sidelined by CD-R storage technology, a case of "Too little, too
late".

 Incidently, I've still got a standard floppy disk drive in my PC even
though it's so little used, I normally have it disabled in device
manager (not so much to save a drive letter as to stop the defrag
utility endlessly accessing the empty drive until I insert a floppy to
stop defrag's annoying desire to include it as a defraggable drive
even though it refuses to defrag if you 'call its bluff' on the
matter).

 It's not the original floppy drive I'd installed some 15 years
earlier. About a couple of years back, when I needed format an "F6
driver installation" floppy, I discovered the drive itself was faulty
(cleaning the heads made no difference) and although I had a couple of
USB floppy drives to hand to let me finish the job, I decided that
rather pull the faulty drive out and have done with floppies
altogether, it just seemed easier to dip into my stock of brand new
floppy drives I'd bought a decade or so earlier and do a straight
replacement (no hunting around for a floppy disk sized blanking
plate).

 Out of all the 'ancient' disk storage formats, the 3.5 inch floppy
disk format has been and remains the most enduring of them all
(external USB floppies are still in abundance along with BIOS support
- not sure about UEFI). However, I wouldn't recommend reliance on
using them for 'cheap storage', especially if this means having to buy
substandard media[1] to feed your habit.

 All this discussion of ancient disk storage formats reminds me that I
really aught to do something about archiving my 700 odd floppy disk
collection to 'modern media' (aka CD-R). I'm thinking of storing each
floppy as an image file which can be stored on CD media in triplicate
so that I can use ddrescue to overcome any bit rot issues that might
arise in a decade or so's time.

[1] The original HD Floppy disk media proved amazingly robust 2
decades ago when I wanted to artificially introduce "Bit Rot" on some
installation disks lent to me by a "Toe Rag" acqaintance.

 I found I had to press a strong magnet right up against the floppy
disk before any signs of corruption started to appear. Indeed, several
years earlier I had managed to acquire MSDOS5 off of a set of second
use floppies being sold in boxes of 50 at a radioham rally which had
been 'bulk erased'.

 I managed this by the simple expedient of seperating them into their
various piles of disks 1, 2 and 3 and retrieving the individual files
that were still intact on each disk until I had a full set of files
and directories appropriate to each disk (ddrescue would have made
this sort of data retrieval 'A Snap' if it had been available back
then).
-- 
Regards, J B Good

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#2914

In article <itlmn9dcinhjrltk8vdkr18urevql43sq8@4ax.com>, Johny B Good
<johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote:

>  There always seemed to be something 'distasteful' about Zip drives to
> my mind (probably more to do with the over-priced media and the need
> for a dedicated drive slot).

Dedicated drive slot? What does that mean?

>  Incidently, I've still got a standard floppy disk drive in my PC even
> though it's so little used, I normally have it disabled in device
> manager (not so much to save a drive letter as to stop the defrag
> utility endlessly accessing the empty drive until I insert a floppy to
> stop defrag's annoying desire to include it as a defraggable drive
> even though it refuses to defrag if you 'call its bluff' on the
> matter).

I've got a USB one kicking around somewhere that I've used once in the
last 10 years and perhaps twice in the last 15.

>  Out of all the 'ancient' disk storage formats, the 3.5 inch floppy
> disk format has been and remains the most enduring of them all
> (external USB floppies are still in abundance along with BIOS support
> - not sure about UEFI).

Nah, they're junk and they're history. I don't ever expect to touch one
again.

Getting that way with optical drives, too. I do have a cheapy from
Amazon that plugs nicely into my Mac Mini, but otherwise I'm glad Apple
is deleting stuff that's no longer needed (just as long as the FireWire
port doesn't go, I need that :-) since it meant I could use the second
drive position for an SSD.

-- 
"Freedom is sloppy. But since tyranny's the only guaranteed byproduct of
those who insist on a perfect world, freedom will have to do." -- Bigby Wolf

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#2927

On Tue, 20 May 2014 16:36:01 +0100, Tim Streater
<timstreater@greenbee.net> wrote:

>In article <itlmn9dcinhjrltk8vdkr18urevql43sq8@4ax.com>, Johny B Good
><johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>>  There always seemed to be something 'distasteful' about Zip drives to
>> my mind (probably more to do with the over-priced media and the need
>> for a dedicated drive slot).
>
>Dedicated drive slot? What does that mean?
>

 Sloppy terminology on my part. I meant dedicated drive bay. The LS120
could be used to replace an existing floppy disk drive (which, at the
time, was still a useful 'feature' to retain unless you were just a
mere consumer  struggling to familiarise yourself with your very first
PC). No need to 'burn up' an extra drive bay to enjoy the benefit of
floptical storage.
-- 
Regards, J B Good

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#2932

On 20/05/2014 16:09, Johny B Good wrote:
>   The LS120, otoh, looked way more promising (compatable with standard
> 720k and 1.44M floppies and a 120MiB capacity versus the 95MiB
> capacity of Zip).

If LS120 drives had been cheap enough for PC manufacturers to include as 
standard, and available several years earlier, they might well have 
dominated. Like so many technological products, by the time they were 
available, they were obviously destined for obsolescence.

There was an awkward gap between standard floppies and USB sticks big 
enough and cheap enough to be useful.

-- 
Rod

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#2943

On Wed, 21 May 2014 08:36:40 +0100, polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk>
wrote:

>On 20/05/2014 16:09, Johny B Good wrote:
>>   The LS120, otoh, looked way more promising (compatable with standard
>> 720k and 1.44M floppies and a 120MiB capacity versus the 95MiB
>> capacity of Zip).
>
>If LS120 drives had been cheap enough for PC manufacturers to include as 
>standard, and available several years earlier, they might well have 
>dominated. Like so many technological products, by the time they were 
>available, they were obviously destined for obsolescence.
>
>There was an awkward gap between standard floppies and USB sticks big 
>enough and cheap enough to be useful.

 +1
-- 
Regards, J B Good

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#2949

> >If LS120 drives had been cheap enough for PC manufacturers to include as 
> >standard, and available several years earlier, they might well have 
> >dominated. Like so many technological products, by the time they were 
> >available, they were obviously destined for obsolescence.
> >
> >There was an awkward gap between standard floppies and USB sticks big 
> >enough and cheap enough to be useful.
> 
>  +1
> -- 
> Regards, J B Good


News to me.  I had to look it up [1] and confess I'd never heard of or
seen one of the beasts in the wild.  Interesting times!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperDisk

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#2960

In message <bu33ccF6lnoU1@mid.individual.net> 
  polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> wrote:
> On 20/05/2014 16:09, Johny B Good wrote:
>>   The LS120, otoh, looked way more promising (compatable with standard
>> 720k and 1.44M floppies and a 120MiB capacity versus the 95MiB
>> capacity of Zip).

> If LS120 drives had been cheap enough for PC manufacturers to include as 
> standard, and available several years earlier, they might well have 
> dominated. Like so many technological products, by the time they were 
> available, they were obviously destined for obsolescence.

> There was an awkward gap between standard floppies and USB sticks big 
> enough and cheap enough to be useful.

No there wasn't.

Floppies gave way to CD-Rs around 1995 for non-windows users (who *had*
to use floppies for drivers as much as ten years after the floppy became
otherwise irrelevant) and CD-Rs went away with DVD-Rs. Then the USB
thumb drive started to get useful sizes, though I had no interest in
them until they were in the 2GB range.

I did have one 128MB thumb drive that I kept some reference documents on
for my work, but other than having it on my keychain, I never really
needed to use it,

-- 
They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks,
its auditors. They saw to it that things spun and rocks fell.  And they
believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and
space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was
things that didn't have a position in time and space, such as
imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Take those away and all you
had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot.  --The Thief of Time

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#2977

On 21/05/2014 15:35, Lewis wrote:
> Floppies gave way to CD-Rs around 1995 for non-windows users (who*had*
> to use floppies for drivers as much as ten years after the floppy became
> otherwise irrelevant) and CD-Rs went away with DVD-Rs. Then the USB
> thumb drive started to get useful sizes, though I had no interest in
> them until they were in the 2GB range.

In some ways floppies gave way to CD-R but, in my experience, only a 
minority of PCs had the ability to write CDs around 1995 - though it 
became more and more common. Whereas floppies and, later, USB sticks 
were more universal. That is what I was thinking of as the gap between 
floppies and USB sticks.

-- 
Rod

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#2989

In message <bu4kpuFh561U1@mid.individual.net> 
  polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> wrote:
> On 21/05/2014 15:35, Lewis wrote:
>> Floppies gave way to CD-Rs around 1995 for non-windows users (who*had*
>> to use floppies for drivers as much as ten years after the floppy became
>> otherwise irrelevant) and CD-Rs went away with DVD-Rs. Then the USB
>> thumb drive started to get useful sizes, though I had no interest in
>> them until they were in the 2GB range.

> In some ways floppies gave way to CD-R but, in my experience, only a 
> minority of PCs had the ability to write CDs around 1995 - though it 
> became more and more common. Whereas floppies and, later, USB sticks 
> were more universal. That is what I was thinking of as the gap between 
> floppies and USB sticks.

Other than installing drivers on a Windows machine I know that 1995 was
the last time I used a floppy because when Steve Jobs announce the iMac
and everyone panicked at the lack of floppy I said, "WHo cares, I
haven't used a floppy in years" and then checked to see that yes, it had
been years.

My machines were networked, so no need to sneakernet files around, and I
had this super fast modem that could transfer a 5MB file in only an hour
or so! Besides, you couldn't get a 5MB file onto a floppy.

In 1995 I borrowed a CD-R ($1000 piece of hardware) and backed up my
computers (all of them, including all the external storage) to a single
CD-R. It was nearly half full!

About a year later I bought a much cheaper and faster CD-R (probably
about $400?) and started burning CDs. That's also about when I dumped
the modem for a DSL line (256K download!).

It's very much like 1997 again, when everyone starting whining about the
lack of optical drives on the new Macs I thought, "Really? People still
used CDs and DVDs? Who are these people?"

Again, other than a PC, it's been at least two years since I put an
optical disc into a computer.

-- 
Demons have existed on the Discworld for at least as long as the gods,
who in many ways they closely resemble. The difference is basically the
same as between terrorists and freedom fighters.

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#3001

Lewis wrote:

> It's very much like 1997 again, when everyone starting whining about the
> lack of optical drives on the new Macs I thought, "Really? People still
> used CDs and DVDs? Who are these people?"
> 

One heavy user of such outdated media seem to be the US school systems - at 
least in this area.  I have spent many, many hours compiling CDs for my wife 
to use in her music programs.  Tried teaching her to do the work, but that 
took much longer than just doing it my self.  Some of it required ripping 
content from cassette tapes and actual vinyl records and yes, she still has 
stacks of those.

All this makes sense when you look at the system as a whole.  For years, 
vinyl recordings were the defacto standard and music programs archived them.  
Along came first cassette tapes then the CD, both with (arguably) superior 
recording quality.  They also had higher content capacity.  What was missing 
- and still is missing - was any coordinated movement to translate existing 
content to the new media.  Given the cost of re-acquiring existing resources 
the old technologies remained in active use until the machinery began to 
fail and there were no replacements left. Sound like a familiar scenario?

Interestingly enough, many of the products the wife uses are still available 
from the original publishers - in the original format only.  Anyone tried to 
replace a turntable stylus lately ;-)

-- 
Will Honea

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#2982

Lewis wrote:

> Floppies gave way to CD-Rs around 1995 for non-windows users (who *had*
> to use floppies for drivers as much as ten years after the floppy became
> otherwise irrelevant) and CD-Rs went away with DVD-Rs. Then the USB
> thumb drive started to get useful sizes, though I had no interest in
> them until they were in the 2GB range.
> 

Lest we forget, many PC makers required a bootable floppy device to install 
BIOS updates for many years after NVRAM of one form or another replaced 
optically erasable EPROMS. I still keep at least one usable 3.5 floppy 
device around.

-- 
Will Honea

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#2985

On 5/21/2014 10:34 PM PT, Will Honea typed:

>> Floppies gave way to CD-Rs around 1995 for non-windows users (who *had*
>> to use floppies for drivers as much as ten years after the floppy became
>> otherwise irrelevant) and CD-Rs went away with DVD-Rs. Then the USB
>> thumb drive started to get useful sizes, though I had no interest in
>> them until they were in the 2GB range.
>
> Lest we forget, many PC makers required a bootable floppy device to install
> BIOS updates for many years after NVRAM of one form or another replaced
> optically erasable EPROMS. I still keep at least one usable 3.5 floppy
> device around.

My old PCs still have internal 3.5" floppy disk drives. I still use a 
couple of them for their boot disks since they are test machines for 
work. Way faster than using discs especially with WinPE! :)
-- 
"God is a mean kid sitting on an ant-hill with a magnifying glass, and 
I'm the ant." --Bruce Nolan (Bruce Almighty movie)
    /\___/\         Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
   / /\ /\ \                Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
  | |o   o| |
     \ _ /        If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
      ( )         If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

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