5.25 inch floppy drives question

[Ben Goldman]

Hi All,

I am trying to get my request to purchase two 5.25 inch floppy drives off Ebay approved by Purchasing/IT/The Man and I'm being asked to justify why I just don't buy USB versions? Here's the exact message I received:

There are USB floppy drives available for much less than these IDE drives. Not only are they cheaper, but they should be able to be moved from machine to machine as necessary with the swap of a cable. Why use a more expensive, more complicated, multi-point of failure solution when a cheaper, simpler one is available?

Any advice on how I might answer him?

Thanks!

-Ben

[cal...@email.unc.edu]

He must be referring to 3.5-inch drives. There are no USB 5.25-inch
floppy drives.

If you want to read 5.25-inch floppies, you need one (or ideally more)
5.25 inch floppy drive and an adapter (e.g. FC5025) so it can be read by
a contemporary computer.

- Cal

[Kam Woods]

I would politely tell him that he has misunderstood, and that while 3.5" USB drives are widely and cheaply available, 5.25" USB drives are not. You could also tell him (unless you already have one) that you're planning on purchasing and using an FC5025 as a USB bridge to connect to the drive to any machine (since that's what you probably want to do in any case).

And if he tries to send you a link to one of those "combo" units a multicard reader, 3.5", and 5.25" drive in it, you can tell him that they do not, in fact, run the 5.25" floppy through the USB interface, but have a separate 34-pin floppy connector on the back (meaning you'd need the FC5025 anyway). Also, they generally have really crappy compared to quality TEAC or other drives.

Kam

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[Ben Goldman]

You guys are awesome. Thanks!

-Ben

[Ben Goldman]

Mission accomplished. The response from IT was:

I did a quick search, but didn't dig into the results. As long as you've done your research, I will pass it on, with a note that it may not work and there will be no support from IT.

"It may not work and there will be no support from IT" should probably be in my job description.

-Ben

[Kam Woods]

Great. I generally find "no support from IT" to be the optimal outcome when working with delicate legacy hardware.

Kam

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