That's what I was wondering: if you came upon a cache of 5-1/4" floppies, what are the odds of them being readable? How well will the magnetic media hold over, say, three decades?

(While I'm sure there are lots of reasons you might want a floppy drive, the case I have in mind is "Hey, here are our old financial records from the 80s" or "I wonder what's on this disk in grandma's attic".)