Floppies got worse over time. Stuff that was commercially duplicated was usually high quality, and those are still OK for the most part. The consumer-level blank disks, though? By the late 90s, those were hot garbage. You’d buy a 10 pack and at least 3 of them had to be thrown out. We’re burning through the old stock from that time, and with degradation over time, it’s now more like 6 out of 10 being thrown out. It’s not like the “good” ones in the box are going to last, either.
New disks?
They haven’t made floppies for years now, iirc.
You can grab a 10 pack of DS, HD 5.25" on Amazon for $30 apparently
Floppies got worse over time. Stuff that was commercially duplicated was usually high quality, and those are still OK for the most part. The consumer-level blank disks, though? By the late 90s, those were hot garbage. You’d buy a 10 pack and at least 3 of them had to be thrown out. We’re burning through the old stock from that time, and with degradation over time, it’s now more like 6 out of 10 being thrown out. It’s not like the “good” ones in the box are going to last, either.
I don’t expect them to, just noting there are still new ones out there.
And while something new is being developed/tested, having a metric fuck ton of backup floppies isn’t the worst idea.