What are the pros and cons of floppy drives?

Answer 1

I suggest that Floppy Drives are at the end of their technological life. Floppies are a mechanical device, and rely on extremely fine mechanical tolerances, which are unlikely to survive the 'test of time' as far as planarity is concerned.

So failure modes would include warping, chipping or flaking of the surface, and chemical degradation of the compounds. Their speed of data transfer is wanting.

Solid state drives are poised to overtake floppies, and CD's also seem to be a fair method of permanent storage. Compact Disks have a variety of methods for creating the data surface, and some types are likely to fail. But contra, some will have proved superior. Solid state devices may suffer from radiation damage, and in the near future we'll know more about their archival value.

[But they'll have to be as good as the written word and Cuneiform!]

[I have prejudices in this area, as some time ago, we had to consider recovering material from Edison wax cylinders. This was done and transcribed to mag tape. Which due to ageing and print-through, (30 years later) the mag tape will have degraded, and the wax cylinders are still as good as they were 90 years ago!]

BTW, laser readers of vinyl records are about to appear, and for less than $US15 000 you can have one to grace your hifi cabinet.