What to do with the boxes & containers for 3.5" diskettes & 5.25" floppies?
I know, I know, I've been putting off this project for a long time. We've had a two-foot stack of 3.5" diskettes in various 1990s-style storage containers and I'm just getting around to cleaning them out. We even have several 1980s-style 5.25" floppy containers that we store CDs & DVDs in. And I'm pretty sure that my spouse is hoarding a floppy or two just for sentimental reasons. I doubt they're readable anymore, not that I've seen a 5.25" drive this decade.
But I'm getting ready to move computers around and I no longer want to have to keep a 3.5" drive alive either.
Remember when hard drives had such limited storage and were so expensive that most of the programs and data stayed on diskettes/floppies to leave more room on the hard drive and improve its search speed? Remember when you could back up an entire hard drive to a few diskettes with PKZip? Now I'm going the other direction. I've finally transferred all the old media over to our hard drive and backed it up to an external drive. Someday I'll spring for a SSD and be out of the rotating-platter business entirely.
I've thrown out the 3.5" diskettes after learning that their data-fidelity limit appears to be about 20 years. Any suggestions on what to do with the storage boxes? I'm not planning to keep them for Antiques Roadshow but they don't seem to be the right size to store anything better than index cards. Not that we have index cards anymore, either.
There are probably better storage options for DVDs & CDs but I've just been stacking them on shelves. We have jewel boxes but I prefer the envelopes or the multi-platter cases. I don't have much faith in CD & DVD sublimated-dye media so those are also backed up to another hard drive.
Someday I'm going to go through our cassette tapes & LP albums, note the tracks that I actually care about, and buy them off iTunes…
I know, I know, I've been putting off this project for a long time. We've had a two-foot stack of 3.5" diskettes in various 1990s-style storage containers and I'm just getting around to cleaning them out. We even have several 1980s-style 5.25" floppy containers that we store CDs & DVDs in. And I'm pretty sure that my spouse is hoarding a floppy or two just for sentimental reasons. I doubt they're readable anymore, not that I've seen a 5.25" drive this decade.
But I'm getting ready to move computers around and I no longer want to have to keep a 3.5" drive alive either.
Remember when hard drives had such limited storage and were so expensive that most of the programs and data stayed on diskettes/floppies to leave more room on the hard drive and improve its search speed? Remember when you could back up an entire hard drive to a few diskettes with PKZip? Now I'm going the other direction. I've finally transferred all the old media over to our hard drive and backed it up to an external drive. Someday I'll spring for a SSD and be out of the rotating-platter business entirely.
I've thrown out the 3.5" diskettes after learning that their data-fidelity limit appears to be about 20 years. Any suggestions on what to do with the storage boxes? I'm not planning to keep them for Antiques Roadshow but they don't seem to be the right size to store anything better than index cards. Not that we have index cards anymore, either.
There are probably better storage options for DVDs & CDs but I've just been stacking them on shelves. We have jewel boxes but I prefer the envelopes or the multi-platter cases. I don't have much faith in CD & DVD sublimated-dye media so those are also backed up to another hard drive.
Someday I'm going to go through our cassette tapes & LP albums, note the tracks that I actually care about, and buy them off iTunes…