Best way to store a large amount of floppy disks? \ VOGONS

Best way to store a large amount of floppy disks?

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First post, by TheAbandonwareGuy

Posted on 2016-07-07, 19:56

TheAbandonwareGuy Offline

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Ok, so late last year i got a lot of 1000 floppy disks off eBay. Alot of them have old source code or Screamtracker/Protracker/Other audio formats i don't have the hardware to open and some are marked ''IBM Confidential" or ''IBM Internal Use Only" so i need to preserve them. That being said i don't have the time to archive them (Yes, Ive already asked Jason Scott if he wanted them but my ass cannot afford to ship them plus i doubt he would release the confidential IBM files which in my mind need to make there way to the public) so i need to figure out how to prevent data degredation. Right now there in a closet getting covered in dust. Obviously thats not good.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

EDIT: These are all 3.5 inch disks.

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Reply 1 of 2, by clueless1

Posted on 2016-07-07, 20:16

clueless1 Offline

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How about bagging them in anti-static bags and placing in a plastic tub with sealed lid and some silica gel packs for moisture absorption.

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Reply 2 of 2, by Robin4

Posted on 2016-07-07, 20:17

Robin4 Offline

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The memory effect degredation every following year has passed. Normally data stays on the disk often till 20 years if you have good quality diskettes. To prevent data degredation you need to copy over the data to another disk, and or use a data carrier disk to copy the data back to the old disk.. So actually you need to re-write then every xx years.. It can happen that a diskette can be blank after these year if you dont copy the data over it will lost its content.

clueless1 wrote:
How about bagging them in anti-static bags and placing in a plastic tub with sealed lid and some silica gel packs for moisture absorption.

Good tip, also they need to stored in darker area`s where sunlight cant harm them.

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